Moscow Department of Information Technology + Project practice

Proyektnaya praktika Group in 2012 for the benefit of the Moscow Department of Information Technology (DIT) organized Project office for operational management by implementation of the state program "Information city".

Prerequisites

In 2012 the Moscow Department of Information Technology gave start of the large-scale program "Information City" which purpose is significant quality improvement of life of Muscovites due to widespread introduction of the information and communication technologies (ICT) to different spheres of city life.

Within the state program, in particular, it is supposed:

• transfer 100% of state services which can turn out in electronic form to an electronic form;
• bring a share of objects of municipal economy which condition monitoring is performed using ICT to 70%;
• implement electronic educational resources, electronic diaries and magazines, monitoring systems and estimates of educational achievements in education;
• create the uniform electronic center of acceptance of addresses of residents in the field of municipal economy;
• finish the number of the traffic lights managed as a part of "Intelligent transport system", etc. till 1700.

For coordination, development of electronic projects in different areas of city life and their implementation, creation of infrastructure of the Information city DIT created Directorate of the state program of Moscow "Information city". It was supposed that the Directorate of the Program will provide consistent coordination of the newly created and operating information systems, and resources, including due to determination of the most effective methods and mechanisms of implementation of means of ICT in processes of management of the industries of municipal economy of the city of Moscow.

Project Tasks

For effective operational management implementation of the state program "Information city" in 2012 by the staff of Proyektnaya praktika Group for the benefit of the customer organized Project office. Feature of Project office was the fact that during operating time at different stages from 25 to 40 specialists of different qualification and competences among which there were administrators, methodologists and the head of Project office entered it.

The purposes determined by the customer for Project office looked as follows:

• ensuring integrity of management model with program implementation and unities of architecture of the created information systems;
• ensuring transparency and controllability with program implementation;
• ensuring compliance is more whole than creation of separate information communications systems to the program implementation purposes;
• ensuring efficiency of creation and operation of the created information systems (investment soundness in the created information systems).

The tasks set for the staff of Project office came down to:

• to project implementation administration;
• to conducting project document flow;
• to maintaining planned and actual schedules of works by specific contractors;
• to collecting of actual data;
• to reporting on accomplishment of working plans and public contracts, monitoring of accomplishment of plans and target indicators of projects and Programs;
• to information support and organization of interaction of project participants;
• organizations of working meetings for project management;
• to risk management.

Eventually specific tasks which were selected in a priority for 2014, in particular were revealed:

• process automation of internal current activity of DIT on joints of the industry, legal block, block of technical policy;
• standardization of procedures of management of standard projects;
• expansion of procedures of examination on all project lifecycle of informatization.

Project Progress

For the successful solution of assigned tasks specialists of Project office rendered the following services:

• organization and holding meetings, recording;
• control of execution of project solutions;
• formation and monitoring of schedules;
• preparation the status reports on accomplishment of project solutions and works of the schedule;
• formation of risk registers on projects;
• monitoring of achievement of target indicators of projects;
• filling of the project portal project information;
• filling of the IC of the customer (ACS PRIZE);
• conducting project document flow;
• development and updating of regulations and document templates on project management;
• organization of examination of reporting documentation (technical, industry, compliance assessment).

By project office it was developed and a number of the documents necessary for implementation of project management was used:

• Regulations of holding meetings;
• Regulations of control of execution of project solutions;
• Regulations of formation of KP;
• Regulations of formation and filling status report;
• Regulations of planning and monitoring of accomplishment of target indicators of the project;
• Regulations of risk management and problems;
• Regulations of organizational support of examination of the materials connected with program implementation
• A set of templates and document forms (annex to regulations) — the agenda of a meeting, meeting minutes, the schedule, the status report, the register and the report on achievement of indicators, the risk register.

Project Results

In the first year of work specialists of Project office in short terms could start services of the organization of meetings, recordings, KIPR. Besides, thanks to involvement of business analysts and developers the Project portal which, as well as an ACS the PRIZE (the customer's IC), was timely filled with up-to-date information (minutes of meetings, schedules, risk registers) was organized, collecting of notes and wishes on improvement of work of the portal was performed, the glossary on projects was created.

Originally not all employees of the customer accepted methods of project management, new to themselves. However eventually project services showed the demand. For example, in 2013 formation of the schedules (S) was optimized within projects: much more active work with RP of DIT and contractors on formation of S and their subsequent monitoring was conducted. For comparison: in 2012 monitoring of S and indicators was practically not carried out by RP of DIT. Besides, many RP began to use actively scheduling in the current sales activity of projects, noted in "Project practice".

At the same time, terms of preparation of documents also improved. In particular, the plan of informatization for 2013 was finally created only in February, 2013, and here the plan for 2014 — in October, 2013.

In 2013 in addition to a standard set of services monitoring of intermediate indicators on 6 pilot projects was started (together with McKinsey and RIA Novosti). As a result service of monitoring of intermediate indicators showed efficiency and became popular on 3 projects, in the others "did not get accustomed".

In addition, an important point was the fact that in 2013 the approval process of the created Project charters — the state customer, the functional customer and the contractor began at once three parties.

By 2014 it was succeeded to achieve that schedules were developed almost on all accompanied projects and are loaded into the customer's IC (an ACS the PRIZE) on MS Project Server. In addition to this work? templates and representations for increase in informational content and functionality of a system were created.

The project office of Directorate showed good results of the work: on average every year specialists of Proyektnaya praktika Group accompanied about 150 public contracts according to 80 projects implemented within the Information City program.

In total for operating time of Project office since 2012 the number of the accompanied projects was about 200 that speaks both about scale of the Information City program, and about the big involvement of Project office and interest of the customer in the rendered services which promoted implementation of this program.

Besides, thanks to activity of Project office about 13 thousand project decisions (about 26 in day) which provided the timely solution of assigned tasks and achievement of the designated purposes were made.