Give ‘Em a List: Merging Organizational, Vendor, and Departmental Project Management – Van Pelt

Abstract:

Most organizations have a project management methodology – but how does a project manager navigate the collision of organizational PM with vendor PM methodologies? What about multiple vendors? Multiple organizational methodologies? At the same time? For multiple enterprise changing projects? In 18 months? Now imagine that each project has organizational team members that cross project boundaries and want to strictly adhere to their own departmental project management process instead of the PM teams’, or the vendor’s methods. If reading that made you reach for your antacid tablets this might be the presentation for you!

In 2021 Mohave Community College embarked on an ambitious program to upgrade the college Student Information System. The project then morphed to include a new HR system, a new Learning Management System and a new Capital Management System – each from different vendors with different PM methodologies. Follow along with a project team that successfully engaged multiple simultaneous, enterprise spanning capital projects over an extremely aggressive timeline while balancing the needs and expectations of multiple vendor teams, multiple stakeholder teams, and an understaffed IT department. We’ll discuss what we did to manage the communications, processes, vendors, executive expectations, and stakeholders during a crazy-making 18-month engagement that moved our college off of several outdated systems and into the future.