Managing Global IT Teams 2

[Ascalonian]

The company I work for has several divisions world wide. Each division has its own IT department. What this means is that a lot of divisions have their own set of applications they use.

Our new company goal is to create a common technology footprint for the whole company to use. For example, everyone will use the same CRM application, same financial database, etc.

Several issues have come into view from this:
1. How do we keep track of the IT projects at each division?
2. How do we keep track globally?
3. What is the proper (and most efficient) way of handing projects at a given location (and globally)?

My idea is that each location has an IT Steering Committee that determines which projects are best for the company to do at the time. Once a priority list is created, it is then entered into a project management system. From here, we can assign developers tasks that need to be done... or have a lead a developer for each type of project (Java, Oracle, etc) and they delegate the tasks out.

Since I am a HUGE fan of Agile development, I was thinking that each location would use JIRA as the development/project management software. I am thinking that each location would have it's own JIRA, unless there is a way to show certain projects to certain people?

Has anyone been in a similar situation or have used JIRA globally? Just curious what the best approach would be for globally handling development projects.

Thank you for your time.

 

[johnherman]

We use HP's PPM, although there are many other Project and Portfolio Mgmt tools available. All projects are entered in PPM and follow that lifecycle. Larger projects have more steps in the lifecycle, and more approval "gates". PPM has an interface to MS Project; not sure about JIRA. Anyway, each company or division has their own approvers and needs to justify each project to themselves and the executives while the PMO monitors the process and assists when needed. While there is a common resource pool, projects at lower levels can be staffed and approved there, while larger project which cross boundaries can also be handled.

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The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was - Steven Wright

 

[JimmyTheFish]

The concept of a common technology footprint accross each global division is extremely ambitious, though worthwhile from a consistency and, ultimately, financial point of view. However, depending on the starting point (i.e. the number of different solutions to the same problem) the route could be long and arduous.

The management of the overall project portfolio does, in many instances, depend on how the 'standard' applications are to be used. If the standard application is to have but one implementation shared across divisions, then it makes sense to have one steering group for the application (= business function) upon which all divisions are represented. It is these steering groups which determine the priority of changes to the application based on the overall requirements of each division. Thus it follows that a single group would be responsible for the maintenance of the application which makes overall progress tracking and resourcing much easier. Obviously to get to a situation whereby each division supports this approach is not something to be underestimated.

If each division is to have their own 'copy' of the standard application and be responsible for their own changes, then the overall managment is somewhat easier, as they are simply treated as individual projects and tracking reported as described below. It does, obviously, largely negate the benefit of standard global applications.

The straightforward answer regarding tracking projects is that each division should use the same standard approach to tracking which makes the stacking up at a global level much easier.

However, my personal view is that there are significantly more cultural issues to solve before the overall global portfolio management processes are sorted.

 

[johnherman]

Here is a post from a newsletter I get called "Projects @ Work", which describes the current state of PPM software and recent releases.

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PPM Solutions: January 2009
A wide variety of technology solutions are available to help organizations of all sizes and industries adopt, customize and refine their project portfolio management efforts. Here's a roundup of releases and upgrades announced in the past few months. [more at URL below]

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/246873.cfm

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The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was - Steven Wright