IT Project Management & Quality Assurance Process

Project Managment Process

ITS Project Management at BGSU is a blend of textbook Project Management best practices and years of real world higher education IT management. The goal of all projects led by ITS is to provide effective planning, coordination and management of all information technology projects within the given resource and timing constraints. ITS projects follow the Project Management Institute's (PMI) methodology for initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing projects, with many IT resources trained in Project Management Professional's (PMP) best practices or fully certified through PMI. The benefits realized through formal Project Management include:

• Centrally organized projects within strategic portfolios.
• Enhanced project tracking and monitoring of projects and documentation.
• Facilitation and coordination of project priorities and resources.
• Delivering more projects successfully within approved timelines.

IT Quality Assurance Process

The ITS Quality Assurance process at BGSU is associated with continuous improvement and process analysis to deliver results that are aligned with customer expectations. Building Quality Assurance into the entire Project Management process assures that project objectives are aligned across functional user groups and all ITS project resources. We foster an environment of open communication and feedback throughout the project lifecycle to ensure the customer is receiving value added.

Project Closing

BGSU ITS' formalized project closing process is vital in avoiding unfavorable and adverse outcomes as a project comes to a close and functionality is handed over to the Sponsor and Sponsor-area. Finalizing all project activities allows the project team to conduct a final review of the  project completion criteria and key benefits, as well as an inventory of any outstanding (not completed items), support hand-off documentation and final sign-off.

Documenting and approving the closure of a project increases accountability, provides necessary next steps, and allows for final and vital communication between the Sponsors and the project team before the resources are released.

As large and complex projects are completed, an additional layer of closing may be required in the form of a 6-12 month “check-in”. The purpose of the check-in is to compare original expectations with the actual value of what was achieved by proceeding with the project. This allows the project governance committees to further refine the portfolio of projects that are the most beneficial to BGSU using post-mortem data.