Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects

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As an IT leader, you are responsible for getting new things done while keeping the old things running. These “new things” can come in many forms, e.g. service requests, incidents, and officially sanctioned PMO projects, as well as a category of “unofficial” projects that have been initiated through other channels.
These unofficial projects get called many things by different organizations (e.g. level 0 projects,BAU projects, non-PMO projects, day-to-day projects), but they all have the similar characteristics: they are smaller and less complex than larger projects or officially sanctioned projects; they are larger and more risky than operational tasks or incidents; and they are focused on the needs of a specific functional unit and tend to stay within those units to get done.
Because these day-to-day projects are small, emergent, team-specific, operationally vital, yet generally perceived as being strategically unimportant, top-level leadership has a limited understanding of them when they are approving and prioritizing major projects. As a result, they approve projects with no insight into how your team’s capacity is already stretched thin by existing demands.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Senior leadership cannot contrast the priority of things that are undocumented. As an IT leader, you need to ensure day-to-day projects receive the appropriate amount of documentation without drowning your team in a process that the types of project don’t warrant.
Don’t bleed your project capacity dry by leaving the back door open. When executive oversight took over the strategic portfolio, we assumed they’d resource those projects as a priority. Instead, they focused on “alignment,” “strategic vision,” and “go to market” while failing to secure and defend the resource capacity needed. To focus on the big stuff, you need to sweat the small stuff.

Impact and Result

Develop a method to consistently identify and triage day-to-day projects across functional teams in a standard and repeatable way.
Establish a way to balance and prioritize the operational necessity of day-to-day projects against the strategic value of major projects.
Build a repeatable process to document and report where the time goes across all given pockets of demand your team faces.

Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should put more portfolio management structure around your day-to-day projects, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects – Executive Brief

1. Uncover your organization’s hidden pockets of day-to-day projects

Define an organizational standard for identifying day-to-day projects and triaging them in relation to other categories of projects.

Analyze the capacity footprint of day-to-day projects to inform stakeholders and set better expectations.

2. Establish ongoing day-to-day project visibility

Build a process for maintaining reliable day-to-day project supply and demand data.

Configure a tool to report on projects and keep day-to-day project stakeholders informed.

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

9.8/10

Overall Impact

$9,649

Average $ Saved

Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

FirstRand Bank Ltd.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$12,999

Travis helped crystalise the problem and advised on additional considerations.

Dodge County

Guided Implementation

10/10

$2,599

BlueScope Buildings

Guided Implementation

9/10

$12,999

Long is great! Love working with him. I wish I had more time to complete my assignments.

Garfield County IT

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Nothing negative. Long was patient and took the extra time to answer my questions. In addition, he provided valuable tools for us to use going forw... Read More

Calgary Public Library

Guided Implementation

10/10

$10,000

It was a common sense approach that help us design a system that fits our organizational culture.

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Workshop: Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Analyze the Current State of Day-to-Day Projects

The Purpose

Assess the current state of project portfolio management and establish a realistic target state for the management of day-to-day projects.

Key Benefits Achieved

Realistic and well-informed workshop goals.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Begin with introductions and workshop expectations activity.

Realistic workshop goals and expectations

1.2

Perform PPM SWOT analysis.

PPM SWOT analysis

1.3

Assess pain points and analyze root causes.

Root cause analysis

Module 2: Establish Portfolio Baselines for Day-to-Day Projects

The Purpose

Establish a standard set of baselines for day-to-day projects that will help them to be identified and managed in the same way across different functional teams.

Key Benefits Achieved

Standardization of project definitions and project value assessments across different functional teams.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Formalize the definition of a day-to-day project and establish project levels.

Project identification matrix

2.2

Develop a project value scorecard for day-to-day projects.

Project value scorecard

2.3

Analyze the capacity footprint of day-to-day projects.

A capacity overview to inform baselines

Module 3: Build a Target State Process for Day-to-Day Projects

The Purpose

Establish a target state process for tracking and monitoring day-to-day projects at the portfolio level.

Key Benefits Achieved

Standardization of how day-to-day projects are managed and reported on across different functional teams.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Map current state workflows for the intake and resource management practices (small and large projects).

Current state workflows

3.2

Perform a right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis.

Right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis

3.3

Draft a target state process for the initiation of day-to-day projects and for capacity planning.

Target state workflows

Module 4: Prepare to Implement Your New Processes

The Purpose

Start to plan the implementation of your new processes for the portfolio management of day-to-day projects.

Key Benefits Achieved

An implementation plan, complete with communication plans, timelines, and goals.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Perform a change impact and stakeholder management analysis.

Change impact and stakeholder analyses

4.2

Perform a start-stop-continue activity.

Start-stop-continue retrospective

4.3

Define an implementation roadmap.

Implementation roadmap

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

Talk to an Analyst

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You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.

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Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.