Atlas Group's New England, New York, and California offices leverage our Biddeford, Maine operations center to deliver excellent and unique project based solutions.

Project Management

As Information Technology (IT) deadlines become more critical to the business bottom line, professional project management methods become indispensable. Project management is a well-developed discipline that combines proven processes with leadership and experience. Atlas Group prides itself on delivering projects On Scope, On Schedule and On Budget.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a project as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service.” Planning and setting a mutual expectation are absolutely critical to project success. The objective is the foundation for planning and should be agreed to by all stakeholders.

Benefits

  1. The project plan creates an agreed approach, resource assignments, concrete deliverables, schedule and budget to measure progress against.
  2. Project decisions can be made methodically with accountability by several levels of stakeholders.
  3. Problems can be identified before they affect the final budget or end users.
  4. Deliverables are consistently on schedule, on scope and on budget.

Project planning is critical for success. A well run project will consistently meet the objective. Therefore, setting the right objective is critical, while gaining consensus on a specific objective is usually a challenge. The six steps for project planning are listed below.

PLANNING STEPS

  1. Define Objective - Should be specific and short stating what, how, where, when, who, how much.
  2. Approach - Layout a flow chart showing the major project activities and dependencies from beginning to end envisioned to meet the objective.
  3. Scope - Break down each Approach activity into 2-10 tasks and/or deliverables.
  4. Schedule - Put critical dates next to the Approach activities. Load the dates, activities, tasks and dependencies into a Project Management software Gantt chart.
  5. Resources - Apply available personnel, space or other constrained resources to the Gantt chart.
  6. Budget - Run the cost for the given scope schedule and resources to determine the budget.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES

  • Project Management Institute - U.S. based professional, non-profit organization. www.pmi.com
  • Prince - U.K. based CCTA govn. Organization. www.prince2.com
  • Software Engineering Institute - Non-profit technical organization associated with Carnegie Mellon Univ. and U.S. govn. www.sei.cmu.edu

MATHEMATICAL DURATION MODELS

  • Critical Path Method - CPM Calculates a single early and late start and finish date for each activity based on sequential network logic.
  • Graphical Evaluation and Review Technique - GERT Allows for probabilistic treatment of both network logic and activity duration.
  • Program Evaluation and Review Technique - PERT Uses sequential network logic and a weighted average duration estimate to calculate project duration.

CLOSE OUT

In order to be deemed successful, a project must:

  1. Complete the activities on scope, on schedule and on budget based on mutually agreed metrics.
  2. Teach the users how to best use the installed system(s) or process(es) to meet the objective and solve the original business problem.
  3. Verify that all vendors have completed their contractual obligations and been paid.
  4. Document all changes to operations, list new equipment and provide clear vendor service contact information.

Recommend any further actions, improvements or comment on project challenges in a closing report.