Clarity

  • 1.  Fast Track

    Posted Jan 11, 2017 10:47 AM

    How does your organization use Fast Track? 

     

    Does your PMO have rules around what is & isn't Fast Track? Terms of use, business rules and processes around Fast Track?

     

    We're interested in learning what others do.



  • 2.  Re: Fast Track

    Posted Jan 11, 2017 10:59 AM


  • 3.  Re: Fast Track

    Posted Jan 11, 2017 11:14 AM

    Hi Andrew. Sorry, no, I'll be more precise. 

    There's a 'Fast Track' attribute in PPM that comes (I believe) with the PMO Accelerator. The spirit of it in a PMO is "this is critical and needs to be handled different". I hear some base different demand management, governance & staffing workflows off of this. We're interested in learning more about how others have operationalized this.



  • 4.  Re: Fast Track
    Best Answer

    Posted Jan 23, 2017 12:30 PM

    Hi Rob,

     

    There's two tracks to this, how it works out the box and how it could be used.

     

    Out the box:

    From what I understand this flag when combined with the idea review process allows the idea to skip the review stage and go straight to approved and converted. (see image below)

    As far as I can see that is its purpose and isn't bedded into the product in terms of any other business logic. 

     

    I imagine if you tried to use this process as is, users would just take the easiest route and always set it to fast track.

    Thus as is, could be a little dangerous especially if simply having a active project code allows spend.

     

    Generally you'd want to add constraints i.e. pre-approval added for fast track or  "under $50k it's ok".

    Plenty of ways to make this slicker and safer.

     

    Real world example:

    Looking at it from a governance view, if you approve projects on a monthly/annual basis you could use this flag and a process to manage project initiations trying to skip the normal business process due to time constraints on delivery.

    You'd use it to get it reviewed asap, to ensure resourcing and funding is available sooner.

    It also gives you a chance to adjust the portfolio proactively if needed

     

    I used to help run the project initiation and we always had urgent projects needing start up sooner. We couldn't get everyone together more than once a month so we'd just email the business case out to get confirmation on resource and yes/no from the business groups. At the next meeting, we'd review the impact further and work out funding gaps.

     

    Inspired by that here's a simple example

    • submissions via ideas, review portfolio in a monthly meeting and approve/reject new
    • If idea submitted with "fast track" selected then email portfolio manager(s) to review and approve/reject now.
      • otherwise do nothing (wait till monthly meeting)
    • fast track ideas shown in monthly meeting (what was the impact to portfolio, what do we now need to stop, resource capacity etc)

     

    We can take that simple process much further, but I hope it's enough to illustrate a use case.

     

    Idea review process for reference

     



  • 5.  Re: Fast Track

    Posted Jan 18, 2017 03:58 PM

    Don't have a real answer but I'm also interested in what others have to say. We never used the attribute (I dont think we have one in our install, just searched the project object for "fast" but I have nothing) but we did use the idea of "Fast Track"  a couple years back on a particular set of projects, but all it basically meant was "these projects resource needs trump any other projects" so projects that were in queue for months waiting for a particular role got bumped if any Fast Track's needed the same role. I think there was some slightly reduced paperwork overhead involved as well, but it was primarily for the resource requests/allocations

     

    It didn't go over too well, but it served its purpose I guess.



  • 6.  Re: Fast Track

    Posted Jan 26, 2017 10:08 AM

    Thanks All! I'm sending your feedback to my PMO & Demand Management thought leaders.

    I'll mark Andrew correct for putting in some Art Class time with the image & drawrings. Lino - I owe you one.

     

    Thanks!