Project Management/2011 Q4/Updates/Project Funnel - Short-Term Proposal

Purpose

Based on the outcome of the project management survey, we need to develop a short term solution to gain visibility across the organization on our projects. As of 2011-11-10, nearly 51% of the 150 respondents have said that quarterly goals are at risk due to their group being over utilized. This is a comment problem voiced by employees due to so many projects requiring assistance from multiple other groups. The purpose of this proposal is to create a short-term solution to help all employees to work together as a single team to better understand how to move all of Mozilla forward.

Probing Questions

How we can bring more visibility to projects to help all of us to better understand what is being requested of each team? If you put in a bug for a team to complete by a specific date, and they say they do not have the bandwidth, what do you do? How can we compare the relative importance of all requests and decide on what moves forward if we don't have a view of everything being asked? If prioritization is really about making choices, how we can make informed decisions without knowing all of the available options?

Proposal

Note: A planning period will often be a quarter, but it doesn't always have to be.

• Develop a simple Google Doc form to capture all major projects at Mozilla.
• Only make the form available during a predefined and communicated period near the end of the current planning period.
• Ask all product owners, project/program managers, and leaders from the entire organization to submit their projects by a specific date.
• Sort and organize the results of the form submissions in a Google Doc spreadsheet.
• Remove duplicate projects and clean up submitted data.
• Communicate to the organization the summaries and metrics of the submitted data.
• Perform a project prioritization process on the submitted projects.
• Review and adjust the list of projects that should be priority for the next quarter.
• Gather feedback from all Mozilla groups if all priority projects are technically possible within the defined period of time.
• Adjust priorities based on what is possible given all of the internal constraints and feedback.
• Approve priority list and communicate the goals and priorities to the entire organization.
• Focus the upcoming period of time, usually a quarter, on executing on priorities.
• Projects not completed or started for a given period of time should be added to a backlog for the next planning period.

Intake Form

The following is an example form that could be used to intake projects from the entire company.

• Mozilla Project Intake Form

Project Spreadsheet

Example Timeline and Intake Phases DRAFT

DRAFT schedule

• One month before quarter begins, mozpm sends email to all@ announcing "project submissions will start in two weeks, so start planning."
• Over the next two weeks product owners, project/program managers, and leaders from the entire organization work with their teams to hone their project list and priorities.
• Two weeks before quarter begins, mozpm sends email with link to the submission form, announcing that the window for submissions has begun and will end the day before quarter begins.
• Product owners, project/program managers, and leaders from the entire organization have a two-week window to submit their projects.
• First day of the quarter, mozpm sorts and organizes the results of the form submissions in a Google Doc spreadsheet.
• mozpm removes duplicate projects and cleans up submitted data. 2-3 days
• mozpm communicates to the organization the summaries and metrics of the submitted data by end of week.
• (Steering committee? Directors?) perform a project prioritization process on the submitted projects. 2 days.
• (Steering committee? Directors?) review and adjust the list of projects that should be priority for the next quarter. Sends results to mozpm. 2 days.
• mozpm gathers feedback from all Mozilla groups if all priority projects are technically possible within the defined period of time. 3 days.
• Adjust priorities based on what is possible given all of the internal constraints and feedback. 2 days.