Projects Are Unique, But Also Similar…

It’s been said that Projects are unique, setting them apart from Business as Usual (BAU) activities. While projects typically have a defined start and end date and aim to create or change something, it’s not uncommon for organisations to undertake projects that are similar to others. Projects need resources (more often people and/or money), in fact, your organisation may be running some projects that closely resemble past initiatives, perhaps without you even realising it.

At Project Portfolio Office (PPO), on any given day our consultants, support team and success managers can work with organisations in the United States, UK, Ireland, Czech Republic, Australia, South Africa, or Nigeria. Our clients range from smaller niche consultancy, big 5 consulting and audit practices, government departments, health care organisations, retail groups, fast moving consumer good (FMCG) companies, large financial services organisations and construction and mining houses.

And while projects are unique here are just some examples of what we at PPO call Template Projects:

  • An IT consultancy implementing a software solution for their client;
  • A healthcare group rolling out solar installations to their health care facilities;
  • A financial services company onboarding a new corporate client onto their retirement product;
  • A fast-food outlet opening a new store;
  • A professional services company completing an annual audit for their client;
  • A branding and marketing organisation hosting a quarterly promotional launch for their clients;
  • A retail outlet rebranding their store with the new corporate look and feel;
  • A PMO conducting their annual performance reviews and goal setting for the new financial year;
  • PPO (ourselves) conducting a PPPM maturity assessment for an organisation;
  • A mining house conducting a feasibility assessment on a new potential site; or
  • A government department conducting a tender process for a required service.

We introduced Template Projects to PPO more than 10 years ago to cater for the types of projects above. So how does this work?

Within PPO’s Business Rules we support various types of projects and the applicable one to make use of for template projects is the Create Items From Template Projects.

In a nutshell, organisations will add a project to PPO and then populate it with all the information (in each PPO entity) that would be applicable for that project. In most cases you probably already use this function to copy over a default set of health indicators and comments for all your projects when they are added as well as governance requirements, but the functionality extends to all entities in PPO.

  • Tasks – A standard set of tasks can be added to the template project so that when the new project is loaded, it inherits a full project plan for the project already. Using PPO’s multiple edit, the project manager can quickly allocate the necessary resources for this specific project and edit the start and end dates as required.
  • Risks – Are there common risks that you can expect when running this project, remember you’ve run similar projects before, so you might need to keep your eye on a specific risk or set of risks.
  • Issues & Actions – Do you always start the annual performance review process with the same issues and actions, load them up front in the template so that you can start to action and manage them on day 1 of your new project.
  • Documents – Do you need to complete specific documents, artwork approval, store layouts, user requirement specifications, project team organogram. The templates for these projects can be automatically populated and added to your new project from the template, in a working or draft status.
  • Stakeholders – Every roll out to the health care facility requires the same roles (hospital manager, procurement manager, health & safety official, maintenance manager), the names are different for each hospital, but the roles and effort are the same.
  • Benefits – Do you have the same benefits for all marketing launches in terms of number of attendees, leads generated and hits on your socials or website, add these to the template project and they will automatically be added to your new project.
  • Costs – Do these projects have similar line items for hardware, software, training, consulting services that can be pre-populated and even with standard rates for some of the components.

So, once you’ve set up your template project on PPO, go to the business rules and for each entity you want to copy over, simply set up the business rules making use of the action, Create Items from Template Project as shown below:

Some tips:

  • Ensure you have a Project Type for the template project so when you add your new project you simply select Type = Store Roll-Out and PPO will know which template to use.
  • Name the Project Template Project for …. This will help when searching it and making changes down the line.
  • In the Project Description, give it a proper description indicating that this is the template project that is used by ACME for each new store opening that they do and will ensure that all store openings have the same data start.
  • Mark the project as Inactive (archive it), as users or not even PPO, need to see the project on a day-to-day basis.
  • Remember you can copy a project in PPO, so you might even want multiple templates, based on the size of the roll out, or the modules of the IT system you need to implement, or the product you need to launch.

This is just another way that making use of PPO, will help standardise your approach, automate a large amount of the information initiation and planning and provide Project Managers with a quicker and simpler way to successfully complete their latest Unique, yet Similar project.

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Author: Guy Jelley

Guy is one of the founders of PPO and is the company’s CEO. He is very passionate about the Project Management industry, and through this also very driven. Guy is a husband & father of 2, loves jazz, soccer and is a huge Spurs fan.

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