Clarity

Hello all - 

Our company just passed our 1-year mark of using CA PPM in December 2016, and we're looking to expand our knowledge of the Applications, Incidents, & Ideas features of CA PPM. Right now, the "Project" object is all we're using to track work/time and we're finding that our agenda is extremely bloated with small projects (8-16 hours for miscellaneous work). In prior discussions with CA during onsite visits, they recommended a "proof-of-concept" be done about seeing how Applications, Incidents, and Ideas could be use as a better framework to capture and track our work.

We primarily serve as the IT counterpart for our company - providing software development, systems support, and technical solutions. Because of this, we are responsible for tracking 100% of our daily time (opex and capex alike). What we're really looking for is a more appropriate structure to use for the small stuff rather than a full-blown project, which is very heavy. It is important that whatever structure we use be able to be extracted via a process/API out of CA PPM for our external financial system. 

Do any of you have any experience with these features and would like to offer some honest feedback? We're located in Northwest Arkansas, and could be interested in a few one-on-one visits in our region (Kansas City, Dallas, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Little Rock) depending on experience. We're running 14.4 On Premise with SQL Server, and will be looking into 15.2 once available.

Thanks,

ABTech Project Support

The easiest and most common solution for your immediate problem is to create Support projects that can be associated to the Applications that you are supporting.  The small activities that you describe would be added as Tasks to those support projects.  There could be a support project for individual Applications, or for groups of Applications depending on the level of data granularity that is needed.   This type of structure is easily set up and managed. It also allows you to plan resource usage against support activities without needing to know in advance what the detail of those small support activities are comprised of. 

The actual set-up and use of the Applications object is fairly straightforward and provides numerous advantages in terms of rolling up costs and effort against those Applications if you are looking into Total Cost of Ownership or similar related data.  Their use in this scenario is optional and may depend on the level of detail that you need to see, and how your financial usage is structured.

Ideas are generally used more in terms of total project/initiative life-cycle, and integration into Portfolios.  A few organizations use them as a front-end to small efforts, but they will add an additional layer of administration that will need to be considered in terms of value-add for small activities; i.e. do you really need Ideas to kick-off a small support deliverable?  In some situations this can work, but they are a minority.  Ideas are very valuable when used to consider potential larger projects and initiatives, and determine which may be worthy of promotion to Projects (and when), and can be especially invaluable when Portfolios are also used.

John

Without knowing how your organization is Categorizing, Classifying and Initiating work, it is difficult to give you the best answer for your individual organization. However, based on your high level description of the problem, I would direct you to look at Incidents.  It sounds as if these small projects could fit under an umbrella of day-to-day/maintenance type activities, representing work you do to keep the lights on.  You mentioned CAPex vs OPex, and typically these smaller "projects" fall under the OPex category.  That said, I have worked with an organization to use the Project side of the house for this type of work, because it fit their unique needs, we found a way to group the work by using attribution at the task and project level.  It could be by application as John has suggested, or it can be division/team, work type, category, etc.   Again, it depends on how your organization wants to track and report.   If the work you are doing can be clearly defined by application, and this is how your organization likes to track resources and cost, then Application could be a good path to explore as well. 

I know you wanted a recommendation, so I have to say explore Incidents first.  Ultimately you may want to use all three of these features, as each most likely resides in your portfolio of work/demand.  All of these options are not hard to use from the CA PPM perspective.  The bigger challenge is defining a way to use the tool that will support the organization's need for data with integrity, without making it harder for the people involved to do their jobs.  I would be happy to have a no obligation conversation with you if you would like to discuss this topic in more depth.   

Carol

Thank you for the quick follow-up. I've reached out via LinkedIn to connect with you further regarding a more in-depth discussion. 

I do not see a message to me via LinkedIn.  You can contact me at either of these emails:

jfechenbach@qwestoffice.net<mailto:jfechenbach@qwestoffice.net>

john.fechenbach@egoconsulting.com<mailto:john.fechenbach@egoconsulting.com>

or directly on my cell of 303 887 9514.

I will be happy to discuss possible options with you at a convenient time in a call, or continue the conversation via email.

Best Regards,

John Fechenbach

ABT_Project_Support,

You can refer to this link to get detailed information on Incidents and how to manage that area of PPM:
Manage Incidents - CA PPM - 15.1 - CA Technologies Documentation  

ABT_Project_Support

This link will tell you more about IDEA and its usability: 

Manage Ideas - CA PPM - 15.1 - CA Technologies Documentation