Anticlue

Oh I think I need a murder board

Oh, I think I need a project murder board. For those of you who aren't familar, a murder board is a group of individuals from key business constituents who decide whether a project cuts the mustard or doesn't. Organizationally, I'd like to have a such group in place, but let me share a little history.

First, this is a new gig for me, and I really enjoy it. It is a great place to work with a good work-life balance. I've been challenged with implementing a project management office. To start with we have more projects than can be reasonably completed by the amount staff we have in place. We could grow to more staff, but currently a majority of the project work is individual department requests. There are more than a few capital initiatives which are aligned with strategic goals.

I've derived a centralized project listing to replace everyone's individual list and categorized the project work as active, inactive, requested, completed/cancelled. We had a good sized listing of active project work, about twice the amount we can complete with our staffing model today. I can see we are at the project log jam in the river, with stealing peter to pay paul from a resourcing perspective.

Our next step is as a leadership team, to gather several categories of which to prioritize project against. We decided on a good set of criteria based upon the five pillars of healthcare - Service, Financial, Growth, People, Quality and Safety. For good measure we have added a technology category to position needed items for technology building blocks. Currently we are engaged with our customers of prioritizing all active work according to the criteria.

Simultaneous, we are starting an Investment Council for Information Technology (IC IT). This council is comprised of the senior leaders of the institution making the decisions for which capital projects to invest within and the timing of that investment. Right now, we are in the politicing and gathering stage, but it is a key factor to our success. Assuring the right and accurate information is in the hands of the decision makers, with proposed business cases having all the resourcing and justification from the technology and business partners. It just sets up the organization for successful implementations.

As we go through this process, there will be the outliers, the pet project. Here is where the project murder board comprised of a few key executives would help. Here is where project sponsor's would have a place to present their concerns if their project doesn't rate above the line. The decision to resource would need to be at this level if the project passed the boards inquiry.

Althought I'm wondering if there are any other techniques individuals have tried... All suggestions are welcomed.