Giving rhythm to the project roadmap thanks to the Quarter Plan

How do you manage the transformation of the IT department of a large group? Without methodology, project culture and appropriate tools, the answer is: difficult.

This is why many CIOs are turning to a pragmatic, structured approach: prioritization and quarterly planning, also called Quarter Plan.

A look back at the first quarter of a successful Quarter Plan, in a prestigious fast-growing hotel and leisure group with Emilie, CIO Office, in charge of portfolio management, methodology and budget.

The initial context: A draft project culture and demand management

When she joined the company as a CIO Office, Emilie discovered how the IT department was (very recently) reorganized. Previously segmented between project studies on the one hand and design on the other, the IT department has reorganized itself to be able to directly serve businesses: hotels, restaurants, casinos, as well as support and marketing functions.

Despite the necessary reorganization, Emilie notes that it is complex, as it is, to manage the project portfolio.

• On the one hand, she must manage 60 to 65 projects per quarter... on Excel. Every CIO knows how much of a headache managing capacity and a roadmap in Excel can be!
• On the other hand, Emilie realizes that demand management is not structured at all. As she says, the IT department is “a mailbox”, which receives requests from unstructured projects.
• Finally, she has to deal with a very heterogeneous project management tool between the different IT teams: some use MS Project, others use MS Project, others Excel, others Teams... Result: when it receives requests, the formats differ.

A heterogeneous project culture, and an absence of structure and rhythm, which make the portfolio management task very complex for Emilie.

The challenge: Structuring and giving rhythm to the project roadmap

The objective for Emilie? Better manage the project portfolio, by injecting methodology into demand management, capacity analysis, and reporting.

Among the challenges she comes back to for us, she cites us:

• Have a single source of truth in terms of PPM - will which then emanates from the Management itself.
• Giving visibility to top management on the progress of projects, to report better to the COMEX.
• Confronting demand and the ability to do, to accelerate the transformation of the company and improve the deliverability of projects.

The solution: A PPM tool as a single source of truth, and a quarterly methodology to better plan the roadmap

That's good news: when Emilie arrives in office, the AirSaaS solution has already been chosen by her N+1, to manage the project portfolio in a macro and transversal way. Convinced that an approach that involves businesses is crucial for this management, she supports the deployment of the Quarter Plan.

First, Emilie works hand in hand with AirSaaS experts to define a manifesto of the company's project culture. During workshops, IT teams are invited to collaborate to find a common definition of “project”, “milestone”, and all the other terms necessary to collaborate well.

This step was crucial for Rethink all project governance of the organization, but also all the ways teams work. A method that upsets the established order - and therefore requires a genuine Change Management.

Once this manifest is created, the AirSaaS solution is deployed to IT teams. Quickly, Emilie takes over the “Quarter Plan” feature, and is implementing this approach in the organization.

The idea: prioritize and plan projects on a quarterly basis, to align demand and real capacity.

Thanks to AirSaaS:

• Teams declare their ability to work on the tool
• The CIO can arbitrate incoming requests against actual capacity
• She can then continuously monitor the delivery and execution of projects, and adjust priorities if necessary.

The results: A shared culture based on the Quarter Plan, and a new way of reporting

At the end of Quarter Plan's first quarter, Emilie is formal:

In addition to being able to manage macro and transversal teams thanks to the Quarter Plan, Emilie arbitrates by comparing business requests with the real capacity of the teams, and reports more fluidly.

The IOC can now report to the entire DSI and to the CODIR DSI in a simple way, but also with each bubble during team meetings. The platform saves him a significant amount of time.

On the Quarter Plan side, Emilie feels that things are starting to change - especially in terms of Project culture. Thanks to AirSaaS and the Quarter Plan approach, the IT department is much better able to commit, meet deadlines, and be accountable inside and outside the cluster.

For the future, Emilie wants to set up a demand management ritual to further structure the milestones - which will have a positive impact on her Quarter Planning. And further? A deployment of AirSaaS and the quarterly methodology among the businesses themselves:

Before/After AirSaaS

Emilie's 3 keys to success in implementing AirSaaS

• Have the choice of a tool or an approach such as the Quarter Plan sponsored by the CIO. If the manager is not convinced of the value of the methodology and the tool, he cannot make it known internally to gain the support of everyone. In short, the CIO must lead by example!
• Do not underestimate the manifesto phase of project culture. This is an essential phase for the framing of projects - and is therefore essential for any project, whatever it may be.
• Put a lot of effort into supporting change, both at the level of teams, and at the level of managers. “You don't get hold of a tool that easily” - especially when it uses a methodology that is different from that of the organization itself. So increase the number of training courses, Q&A sessions, and exchanges with users.

About the company

Emilie's company is a group that manages numerous assets in luxury hotels and leisure, and generates 700 million euros in turnover per year.