SoftServe’s Project Management Office (PMO) launched an initiative to implement a corporate project governance system (PGS). The main goal of the project was to either buy or build a corporate PGS that would serve as a centralized environment for managing projects, tasks, assignments, resources, budgets, etc. through an intuitive, easy to use user interface (UI).
At the time, the PMO was using a legacy toolset, which served as the corporate project management system (PMS). The toolset consisted of project management software, a salary system, and a report generating system. The existing toolset was outdated and did not address SoftServe’s current business needs specifically in the area of enterprise project management. The new system—built or purchased—must address all current and future business needs and meet current UI/UX, performance, scalability, reliability, and integratio n standards.
The team was asked to conduct high-level research regarding basic system functionality and compare an internally built solution versus a purchased solution.
The following features were used for the comparison criteria.
- Portfolio analysis
- Project planning
- Project lifecycle
- Resource management
- Time reporting
Project Description
The project consisted of two phases: Initiation and Discovery. During the initiation phase, the business needs, goals, and stakeholders were identified. In the discovery phase, basic requirements for the new system were collected, the possibility of internal development was investigated, and external vendor offerings were analyzed.
As part of the project, more than 40 stakeholders were interviewed, approximately 45 external solutions—from different vendors—were evaluated and analyzed, and four leading external vendors were identified.
After, the team created a build versus buy report that was delivered to the client. The team presented its research results to top management.
Value Delivered
As part of the project, the benefits of implementing the PGS were defined.
- Reduction in project failure rate
- Reduction in successful project cost overruns
- Reduction of project throughput times
- Reduction in the number of low-value projects
- Reduction in administrative time (status reporting and facilitation)
