How to define a scope for an Enterprise Integrator Engagement?

May 12, 2023

Introduction

This blog outlines the methodology for effectively managing the Enterprise Integrator engagements. Its purpose is to guarantee the delivery of high-quality services and the fulfillment of all service level agreements (SLAs) in supporting the customer platform. It covers key aspects such as the account management structure, account planning, and program management processes. These processes are designed to ensure consistent and reliable service delivery across the account.

What is the best approach? Let us look into this from a perspective (I am using Oracle’s Envision, Implement and Manage) approach here

The Project Management Office (PMO) ensures that customer support aligns with customer expectations.
The PMO defines governance and standards to facilitate consistent delivery of enhancement projects.
The approach, centered around the Oracle Unified Method (OUM), focuses on three areas: Envision, Implement, and Manage.
While Envision and Implement are relevant to the work performed for the customer, the Manage focus area is crucial for comprehensive program management.
The Manage focus area follows principles from the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Body of Knowledge.
The Enterprise Integrator provides document templates, standards, and conventions, as well as establishes an electronic document repository for version control and reviews of key program and project deliverables.
The Enterprise Integrator employs a primary approach for managing areas such as Scope, Work, Issue, Problem, Risk, and Communications.

Scope

Defining the scope is a tedious task, and the outcome is the slave labor you put into understanding your customer and endless interview sessions. Let us look at some of the key areas in Scope that one must focus on.

The scope defines the specific boundaries and deliverables that the team will implement.
The scope will be actively managed throughout the entire project lifecycle, from request initiation to closure.
The primary source of the enterprise integrator scope is normally outlined in the contract with the customer.
When requests are made by the customer or the Application System Integrator (ASI), the scope will be evaluated and, if necessary, appropriately amended.
This evaluation and amendment process will be carried out through the change control process and the project approval process, which will be further explained in subsequent sections of the document.

Work Management

The Enterprise Integrator has defined work management execution processes and policies. These processes and policies include the definition of and weekly monitoring of:

Team member time and expense entry and approval into a designated project accounting system
Task status reporting and tracking is performed weekly

Through various internal meetings, team members will be advised of their upcoming tasks in advance so that they can plan their work schedules appropriately. From a Platform support perspective, periodic reviews of overall staffing levels will be conducted to ensure that work is being performed as effectively as possible while still meeting all agreed upon SLAs.

For enhancement projects, the work plan is the most important document the Enterprise Integrator has for communicating project progress and status. One can utilize Microsoft Project or any other one as the a scheduling tool for creating the work plan. The Enterprise Integrator develops, communicates, and maintains a work plan for each of the enhancement projects approved to be initiated by customer. The most current copy of any work plan, along with other key deliverables outlined as part of a Project Charter, are stored in the appropriate customer project site in a shared repository to ensure that all team members always have access to the most up to date documentation.

Issue Management

The Enterprise Integrator defines issue management as a structured process for identifying, documenting, tracking and resolving issues as they occur throughout the life cycle of a project or service request. The System Integrator and Operations Manager defines, obtains agreement on, and communicates, a structured process to capture and track issues. It is the Enterprise Integrator’s responsibility to record, assign, and track issues as well as to drive the resolution of open issues as it relates to the Platform or any projects that are being managed by the Enterprise Integrator.

Key aspects of issue management include:

Analyzing cause and effects associated with issues
Capturing, analyzing, and resolving or escalating issues
Establishing reporting metrics (e.g., issues by category, issues by application, issues by flow)

Issues will be discussed and reported to customer through regularly scheduled Platform M & O Status and Whiteboard meetings for both projects and the Platform, status reports, and at quarterly business reviews—all of which are outlined in the Enterprise Integrator Program Communication Plan.

Problem Management

A problem is defined as a perceived variance between the expected and observed ability of an item to fulfill its defined purpose (e.g., a software bug, consistent unexpected downtimes, a faulty design, TARs/SRs). The Enterprise Integrator documents and captures problems on a formal problem log, assigns individuals responsible for problem resolution, tracks the resolution of problems, and—in those instances when the team cannot resolve the problem—escalates as appropriate following our escalation management process.

Key aspects of problem management include:

Analyzing cause and effects associated with problems
Capturing, analyzing, and resolving or escalating problems
Establishing reporting metrics (e.g., problems by category, problems by application)
Establishing a process to determine and report root cause analysis (RCA) of problems to identify and take corrective actions to prevent problems in the future

Problems and RCAs are discussed and reported to customer through regularly scheduled Platform M & O Status and Whiteboard meetings both projects and the Platform, status reports, as well as at quarterly business reviews—all of which are outlined in the Enterprise Integrator Program Communication Plan.

Risk Management

A risk is an uncertain event or condition, which if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a request’s objectives. The Enterprise Integrator develops and manages risks per the following process. Risk management does not necessarily eliminate risk but attempts to reduce the exposure to risk. A risk is viewed in two dimensions:

Risk probability: The likelihood that a certain risk will negatively affect a project
Risk impact: Measures the anticipated severity of a risk

Examples of common risk sources include

Size and complexity of effort (e.g., solution footprint, number of business units, geographic breadth)
Technical (e.g., infrastructure technology, applications, third party, legacy)
Staffing (both customer and Enterprise Integrator)
Organizational change management
External factors

The Enterprise Integrator follows a risk management process that includes the following components for both Platform activities as well as individual projects led by the Enterprise Integrator:

Risk identification: Notification when a risk is identified and turned into a problem.
Risk analysis and prioritization: Regular assessment of open risks and criticality of each.
Risk response planning: Possible options assigned to risks include avoidance, transfer, mitigation, accept and control. If mitigation is the approved approach, mitigation plans are identified and documented along with the risk.
Risk monitoring: The process for reviewing risks before they are identified as having occurred.

Risks are discussed and reported to customer through regularly scheduled Platform M & O Status and Whiteboard meetings for both projects and the Platform, status reports, as well as at quarterly business reviews—all of which are outlined in the Enterprise Integrator Program Communication Plan.

Communications

The Enterprise Integrator provides all quality data, analyses, deficiency reports, corrective action plans and other QA data to customer routinely via normal program and task management channels, such as monthly program reviews, quarterly business reviews, status reports, and other technical interchanges and as defined further in the Communication Plan.

Achieving Quality

Enterprise Integrator brings a concentrated focus on quality assurance (QA) methods. Because of our process-driven orientation, BIAS consistently meets or exceeds customer requirements, as evidenced by having received numerous customer recognitions during the past five years, including awards, certificates of achievement, and letters of commendation.

A Quality Assurance Plan consists of planning and prioritization, performance and quality assurance reviews, corrective actions, and client satisfaction surveys. This plan defines the methodology for validating performance with Platform requirements. The goals of this Quality Control Plan include the following:

Focus quality control efforts on the areas of greatest importance for the customer Agency of One vision
Provide a comprehensive and verifiable approach for monitoring contractor performance
Promote consistent, accurate, and effective communication of contractor performance
Implement a self-sustained approach to continuously improve performance
Motivate innovative use of available resources to benefit customer and the Enterprise Integrators as partners in the program

Project Planning and Prioritization

Quality is best achieved when it is built into the initiative from planning phases. The delivery methods include a robust planning and mobilization phase. The purpose of this phase is to help confirm that you have a thorough understanding of the customer goals and expectations, business cases, existing management structure and processes, and other key criteria. The planning approach involves confirming the program scope, refining estimates, finalizing resources and work planning, and confirming assumptions, risks, and dependencies.

Finally, identify controls and their reporting frequencies to provide a process for monitoring the achievement of the goals associated with each program, project, and task. This information is documented in a project charter that is approved by customer before any project activities can begin in earnest. The Enterprise Integrator’s Program Manager and Project Manager would have primary oversight of the planning and proper prioritization of customer goals and expectations. Through a series of meetings with the customer Program and Project Manager, the Enterprise Integrator management team confirms and refines all previous planning work and begins mobilizing additional team members to start implementation activities. This assures the onset of correct plans for quality and performance.

Client Expectation Management

To help validate that we continue to meet customer expectations, we will implement a Client Expectations Management process. We will use this process to gain an understanding of how customer executives define satisfaction with our overall efforts.

The Enterprise Integrator directors will meet with customer management to answer two key questions:

How would customer judge our performance?
How would customer judge our contribution to their success?
Would customer recommend using the Enterprise Integrator to another department or colleague?

Confirm expectations with customer, have follow-up meetings to determine how you are performing with these expectations, and to determine if expectations have changed.

Customer Management

Relationship management involves key stakeholders on all Platform initiatives. The relationship management approach we propose includes:

Defining program objectives and validating they are aligned with key business objectives
Verifying that each major project and program affecting the Platform is well defined with accountable sponsors and champions; accountable meaning they own the business outcomes
Determining project success criteria during the inception phase of the project
Identifying clear delineation of roles, responsibilities, and authority commensurate with their roles across Enterprise Integrator, Application Systems Integrator, and customer teams
Providing proper management methodologies and tools in place and providing adequate support for delivering and reviewing deliverables and outcomes
Developing timely, accurate, and fact-based reporting
Facilitating controlled and timely resolution of issues and risks with a clearly defined escalation path
Develop RCAs and other means to foster continuous improvement efforts