Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) – Phase One
LCRA plays a variety of roles in Central Texas: delivering electricity, managing the water supply and environment of the lower Colorado River basin, developing water and wastewater utilities, providing public recreation areas, and supporting community and economic development.
Project Background
LCRA recognized the need for project schedule software in 2004. Originally, the project management office developed two solutions: Project Management Information System (PMIS) for the corporate business units and PROJ1 for the Transmission business unit. As the years evolved, LCRA recognized the value that could be derived from utilizing the same software: standardization of project management processes, standardization of reporting and more accurate resource allocation.
Project Goal
LCRA hired Cognitive Technologies to perform two very difficult tasks: consolidate two separate project servers (PMIS1 and PROJ1) into one corporate project server and upgrade the existing Project Server and SharePoint software to Microsoft® Project Server 2007. Additionally, Cognitive Technologies was asked to install and configure Microsoft® Project Portfolio Server and customize to fit LCRA’s processes and specifications. The project involved moving over 700 projects and 500 SharePoint sites.
Solution
Cognitive crafted a plan to minimize risk during the implementation, as well as the upgrade. Special scripts, macros, and processes were created by Cognitive staff and then used to assess, test and eventually automate the integration and then the upgrade of the corporate projects and data. The newly upgraded PMIS 2007 provided more functionality and better stability to users without losing the history and data of the projects. The new benefits included:
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Faster open / save / publish through Active Cache
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Improved integration between applications
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Versioning and check-in / check-out features
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Implement records / policy management rules
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Overhauled Server Settings pages
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Redesigned Central Administration site
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Cross-project reporting / data aggregation
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Business process improvement / standardization
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Automated and monitored business process workflows for each business unit
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Improved risk management / lessons learned / reporting
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Enhanced portfolio management / reporting capabilities and portfolio standardization across business units
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Elimination of duplicate maintenance costs
Cognitive Technologies Value Added
Professional, skilled project managers, technical specialists and business analysts were utilized to provide a seamless consolidation and upgrade of the systems, while ensuring they were adopted into LCRA with minimal impact to the organization. Cognitive Technologies provided the following value:
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Professional project management techniques to plan and keep the project on track and out of trouble;
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Configuration requirements gathered from the client before the system was altered to ensure the tool suite met their needs;
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Flexible schedule and work around the organization’s timeline;
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Monitoring the change management process to ensure that the system and its processes are adopted by users of the system;
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Customized Microsoft® 2007 tool suite training.