Our client is one of Canada’s leading national communications providers, delivering phone, cable tv, internet and network services to residential customers and businesses in Western Canada. Their Technology Division approached PVA to create a methodology to face unprecedented growth of projects in their IT and Engineering departments.
Their IT department develops strategic architectures for technology focusing on the development of standards, plans, designs and provisions for their client’s computer networks, base computer hardware platforms, operating systems, operational support systems and products. They also supply, install, and repair all PC’s and corporate printers, while also providing Tier II and Tier III support and delivery for their desktop environments. Their Engineering department focuses on the engineering of the core, access and wireless networks, while completing the project work that is coming from the planning group.
Objectives
Absorbing more project work.
Reducing the cost per project by 20%.
Improving internal customer service and satisfaction levels.
Fine-tuning and installing key project metrics (KPI’s) and Management Operating Systems (MOS).
Training and performance coaching of the Supervisors and Managers related to their roles and responsibilities.
Assessment Findings
Work was “self-assigned” with no expectations from the Managers and little effective follow-up during the day.
Lack of communication of objectives at the beginning of the week or review of work completed or problems identified as the projects were progressing.
Rework of project activities was not identified, communicated nor documented.
Inadequate work delivery/quality that caused problems for downstream functions in the company.
Ineffective planning and scheduling of work.
Weekly work assignments did not match the total available work time of the employees.
Emails broadcast to large groups caused everyone to spend time sorting and reading them.
Attending meetings where no value-added contribution was made.
No discussion of percent complete during the day or how much work in general had been accomplished.
Not coding their work time appropriately.
Managers rarely communicated expectations with regard to how long tasks should take.
Managers believed their people knew what to do and would ask when they needed help.
Many of the daily issues and problems did not get identified and resolved because they had become part of the work process as it exists today.
Meetings rarely started or finished on time.
Agendas were not distributed prior to the meeting, and participants were not properly prepared.
Key scheduled meeting participants were not always available during the meetings.
Numerous interruptions including phone calls, email and late arrivals to the meetings.
Action plans were not formalized at the end of the meeting, and no one was assigned to take notes or minutes.
Follow-up meetings and reviews were not always scheduled.
PVA's Response
Developed and implemented timely follow-ups by the First-Line Managers to assess project work performed and measure against project schedules.
Ensured priority changes were being communicated with time expectations to the employees.
Developed and installed weekly reviews on all projects to allow the First-Line Managers to reset priorities for the following week, to identify variances to plan, and to reallocate resources as required.
Ensured 100% compliance to the estimating of project milestones.
Developed and implemented project schedules for all projects.
Reduced and controlled the levels of indirect hours as a percentage of direct hours.
Identified and developed meaningful operational metrics (Key Performance Indicators) for Executive Dashboards, including reviews of time allocations and estimates by project and due dates.
Developed and implemented clear roles and responsibilities for all levels of management.
Prioritized and reduced administrative tasks.
The Results
Hover over graphs for more information
Some significant results obtained by our Client included:
20% improvement in time charged to value added activities.
25% reduction of time charged to internal cost centers.
Overall attained an average level of 30% manager presence on-the-floor (12 hours / week).
