The UPS & Downs of an enterprise-wide project management team

The UPS & Downs of an enterprise-wide project management team

David W. Dennis
P. E. City of Cleveland, Division of Water
1201 Lakeside Ave. Cleveland, Ohio 44113
E-Mail: dave_dennis@clevelandwater.com

Abstract
The City of Cleveland is developing an Enterprise Wide Geographic Information System across all 14 City Departments. The project is managed out of the Division of Water, with a Project Management Team composed of representatives from each City Department. This presentation will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of utilizing a project management team, composed of department representatives, for an enterprise wide integration of GIS. The experiences gained from the City of Cleveland Enterprise Wide GIS Program will layout

The Organization structure of the team and how this provides value to the project.
Assigning Roles and Responsibilities within the team and what to do if those responsibilities aren’t fulfilled
Methods for team building and education, and creating consensus across departments with radically different missions, and
Achieving user buy-in down all levels of the organization.

An explanation of how this process aids in assuring executive level support while providing department administration a high level of confidence in their control of the process will also be provided.

Effective Organizational Structure
At the City of Cleveland, Departments are unaccustomed to working together. In general, the Directors make decisions for their departments, independent of what other departments are doing. The lack of significant GIS Systems in the majority of the City Departments prompted the development of the Citywide GIS Project. Very few departments had done anything with GIS, and the only systems being used were uncoordinated and out of date. It was believed that by developing an Enterprise Wide implementation of GIS, we can achieve significant economies of scale, and we can achieve a leading-edge level of GIS technology.

In order to achieve enterprise wide implementation, conventional Project Management Techniques were used and a Project Management Team (PMT) has been established. Department representatives to the Project Team are assigned by the Director of each department to be the department interface to the project. They are the primary point of contact for the Project Manager and the Consultant to the Project. In this way, each Director has high degree of confidence that there is only one information stream in and out of their department and they can better control how the project is developed. The value of this method was graphically demonstrated during the formative stages of the project. At an Executive Level meeting that I regularly attended, one of the directors became quite upset upon finding out that the Project Manager of another citywide initiative had been working with people within his department without clearing it first with him or his appointed representative. The Project Manager was severely reprimanded, and no one in the room objected. Afterwards, the effectiveness of this Project Manager was severely diminished and she was eventually removed from the project, because she had lost the confidence of the executive management. Department Directors are very particular about protocol and can lose confidence when employees outside of their department don’t follow the designated contacts into their department.

Authority of the PMT
One important aspect of this structure is the authority vested in each Department’s PMT. Even though the City does not yet have a comprehensive GIS, this does not mean we have not been working towards a GIS. Efforts to automate our Water Maps go back to the early 80’s. We have made various attempts to automate, all with a certain level of success, but none of them totally successful (is any project really “totally successful”?). One of the major lessons we have learned in all of this is the importance of having buy-in at the very top, and communicating that buy-in throughout the organization. One of the fundamental responsibilities of each department’s PMT representative is that they need to operate throughout their respective departments with the authority of their director. When they tell someone to provide information or to attend a workshop, that “request” needs to have the authority of the Director, not be construed as a request from another sections project. Enterprise wide implementation will only work when all staff view it as enterprise wide and support it as “theirs”, not as a favor they are doing for another section. We are currently finishing up the pilot phase of the implementation. The PMT representative from one department, stationed in the Engineering section of that dept., was attempting to achieve buy-in from the Operations section, but was doing it by bypassing the internal chain of command. He was reprimanded and denied direct access to anyone but his Supervisor and people in his own section. This resulted in an inability to provide the necessary staff for QA/QC of the pilot. The situation has been resolved and a PMT representative with appropriate authority has been appointed for that Department, but we experienced significant turmoil within the team before the true situation became clear. The point is, the authority of the PMT representatives must be clearly defined and maintained to insure their effectiveness and that they can bring about a successful project across the enterprise. “The vertical flow of work is still the responsibility of the line managers. The horizontal flow of work is the responsibility of the project managers, and their primary effort is to communicate and coordinate activities horizontally between the line organization.” (Kerzner 2001)

The impotance of consistency and flexibility of PMT Appointments
The PMT representative is the essential, key point of contact for a department. This creates a multi-faceted situation, and not all or those facets are positive. As evidenced by the example above, if problems develop, the PMT representative is the one person responsible. There is no passing the buck, and if that point of contact is the problem, that point person can be replaced.

It is not something you do lightly, but you do it when it is necessary to insure the success of the project. Replacing of PMT members can have numerous downsides. You do lose project institutional memory if this person has to be replaced. This will, of course, also happen if a person is reassigned or quits. We have had some departments in which appointment of new PMT representatives became a regular event; each representative only lasted about three to six months. This made it very difficult to continually bring the new representative up to speed and it created a reluctance to assign significant tasks to the representative of that dept. because of the uncertainty of their durability. Some departments have attempted to mitigate this danger by naming two representatives, but, invariably, only one of them is able to fully participate. This revolving door has seemed to stabilize during implementation but we have to constantly be aware of the potential to lose members.

The difficulties of project assignment
Making assignment of tasks within the PMT can be a challenge, at best. Even if all the departments recognize the need to have a representative that can speak for their director, some departments will fill the position with a technically oriented staff person, and other departments will provide a top administrator. This kind of mix can be a challenge on many levels. You will need to reign in the techies - who will try to discuss issues down to nth level - in order to not lose the interest of the administrators, but you need to go into enough technical detail in order that you can make substantive decisions. These disparities in knowledge level will become even more crucial in making task assignments. Where possible, you want to use volunteers for key assignments. Properly chosen and educated, your PMT should be excited about the project and be enthusiastic to participate. For some people, their enthusiasm can cause them to over commit beyond their abilities of time and knowledge. This is where the Project Manager must use tact and discretion in steering PMT members to appropriate assignments. Sometimes, you may have to come right out and assign work to people. Another issue that must be given full consideration in enterprise-wide projects is making task assignments in consideration of the responsibilities of Departments, Division or sections. A good example of this on our project came about on the development of the Common Address File. Most Departments have address files. In Cleveland, the City Engineer is responsible for assigning addresses to new parcels. The City Engineers Rep. was appointed to head the creation of Common Address File in order to insure that the standards would be instituted in the legal record. We also required heavy involvement by all other major users of address files (i.e. Safety, Utilities, Health, etc.)

It was also helpful on our project to review major assignments with each Director, in order to insure buy-in on assignments. We did find it necessary to be flexible on expanding committees at request of Directors. The best example of this was on reviewing the project with the new directors after a change of administration, some key changes were made. The Department of Aging was added as a participating Department. After review with their new Director, it was apparent that their needs were very fundamental, but that they could achieve substantial improvement in service delivery with the use of GIS. Conversely, on review with the new Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity, it was determined that their need could be met with special projects and they did not need full participation status. On review with the new Law Director, he asked that the Prosecutors Office and the Lawyers for the Dept. of Health be interviewed. After meeting with the Prosecutors Office, they asked to be included in the development of the Crime Analysis Package being developed for Police. The Health Department Lawyers saw potential benefit from basic GIS use. Previously the use by the Law Dept. was viewed as fundamentally for title searches.

Team Development
Pulling together representatives from all across the City Departments to work together as a team has had its challenges. We have found a number of crucial elements to helping the process work smoother.

Communicate – Talk to me
Frank communication with your team members is essential. I try to meet with my team members on an individual basis and determine what they personally want to achieve out of the project. Some team members see GIS as their future career, others see themselves as project managers and implementing GIS is just one more project. - Talk to your team members; know where they want to go. We are establishing a Core GIS Group to handle citywide GIS issues. Some members have expressed interest in being considered for this group, some see themselves as their department’s in-house experts. Understanding of the motivations and aims of your team is crucial to a successful project. Parallel to this, clear communication can help insure buy-in farther down in the organization. Within the City, most departments are funded via tax revenue; the Water Dept. is funded through water sales. Water funds cannot be diverted to other departments but we can “front” the costs for this project and the other departments reimburse us.

This has created misconceptions from some departments that, being a Water funded project, Water will make all the decisions and it will be “slanted” to benefit Water the most. Clear communication to the representatives on the decision making process and the opportunities for input have helped us to mitigate some of these misconceptions. People still believe what they want to believe, but making the effort has gained us support from other members of the team.

Training
The City of Cleveland has taken serious steps to insure proper implementation of industry standard Project Management techniques. To move in that direction, we provided Project Management Training for all members of the Project Management Team and we have encouraged them to pursue PMI certification. The training helps bring the team up to a minimum level of standardization so that as the project progresses we refer back to the training to bring clarity to our goals and objectives. The training also had the added side benefit of creating an “Esprit de Corps” that the project is committed to the members’ personal development.

Etc.
There are a number of other ways we have worked to build a team spirit. We have had the team members create Departmental Teams below them. On receiving support from the previous Mayor, part of his direction on the project was that he “wanted the dogcatcher using GIS”. His real message was that this wasn’t to be a system holed up in some back room used by a few select techies. He wanted the staff out in the field using the system, so he wanted them involved in the development of the system. To achieve this, over 100 people, including field managers, participated in the kickoff meeting to inform them that the technology was coming and to start thinking about how they could use it. We also utilize a project newsletter to keep the staff updated. We have created a project web site where staff can download reports, agendas, schedules, and minutes, and access a prototype GIS that has been used as a training tool. On the PMT level, we have maintained a consistent meeting schedule so that, even when most of the work shifted towards the consultant, the team members could continue to see progress and not feel as if the project had stalled. We acknowledge landmarks in the project with special celebrations. This works best when food is involved, food is the great unifier.

In Conclusion
The Citywide GIS project is a groundbreaking project for the City of Cleveland, and on a national level. Unified enterprise wide implementation of Information Technology is a powerful tool, but it must be implemented with care and consideration for all Departments, both big and small. Project Management tools can assist, but the best tool is honest communication, patience, and a good sense of humor.

References: Kerzner, H. 2001, Project Management A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling, Seventh Edition page 3

Fig. I Project Management Structure