AT&T Project Management Centre of Excellence Shen Ling Ye （1000819063）

Q1.PMCOE faced the largest challenge due to the merging of SBC and AT&T. Describe whether this challenge was seen as a positive or negative risk. What could be the project team’s response strategy?

Actually we can’t say that the merging of SBC and AT&T was a positive or negative risk in the project management, because it brought not only challenge but also opportunity. Legacy companies SBC and AT&T merged, bringing together two distinct project management improvement organizations with slightly different areas of focus. This change forced the PMCOE to re-evaluate the project and determine how to appropriately fuse the strengths of the two organizations. If the strengths of the two organizations were combined and exerted reasonably, the challenge would be changed into a positive risk. On the contrary, if the PMCOE couldn’t deal with the differences between two legacy companies properly, then the opportunity would be turned into negative risk. Besides, a general definition of a project risk is an uncertainty that can have negative or positive effect on meeting project objectives. Therefore, this challenge was a positive also negative risk, and opportunity resides in the challenge. In short, the organizations can survive over the long term when they take risks that creates great opportunity.
All projects involve uncertainties that have negative or positive outcomes, the question is how to identify and manage project risk throughout a project’s life cycle. Thus, the project risk management appears to be particularly important, and it can be viewed as minimizing potential negative risks while maximizing potential risks. There are six major processes involved in risk management, namely, risk management planning, risk identification, qualitative risk analysis, quantitative risk analysis, risk response planning, risk monitoring and control.
PMCOE had realized and identified the risks during project activities, those are the merging of SBC and AT&T, the support of project management community and the communication management. Then the PMCOE took steps to enhance opportunities and reduce threats to meeting project objectives. The first priority was to ensure that the merging of the PM practices between legacy companies ran smoothly. As such, the PMCOE followed a five step process as established by PMI for successful project management: the Initiating Process, the Planning Process, the Executing Process, the Monitoring and Controlling Process and the Closing Process. As a result, the PMCOE team could establish the merged PMCOE, determine which project management products and services from each legacy team continued to add value to the project management community, execute the outlined plan which resulted in delivering the project on time, under budget and with quality, complete the integration of the legacy teams and repeat the process (Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Controlling) when legacy BellSouth and legacy Cingular project managers were incorporated effectively into the PMCOE Business Plan. What’s more, the PMCOE established consultants who were designated to support the various business units within the company and distributed both company-wide and business unit surveys to identify problem areas and determine what needs its audience had which could potentially be met by the center. Through these response strategies, lessons learned were identified to assist with future planning.


Q3.The project manager realized that effective and efficient communication was a key element for the success of the PMCOE, and they had to determine how to best share valuable information on a large scale. In your opinion, which main process of project communication management are affected by this challenge, and how did the project team handle this?

In my opinion, four main processes are affected by this challenge: 1.communication planning (which involves determining the information and communications needs of stakeholders), 2.information distribution (which involves making needed information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner), 3.performance reporting (which involves collecting and disseminating performance information) and 4.managing stakeholders (which involves managing communications to satisfy the needs and expectations of project stakeholders and resolve issues).
Faced with communication risk, the PMCOE established a formal Communications Management Plan which promoted awareness and use of PMCOE products and services throughout the company (correspond1.). Targeted emails to known project and program managers of each legacy company were used to announce the center’s purpose and mission, offering to support their professional needs. In addition, the PMCOE launched a monthly newsletter containing recent project management accomplishments, success stories, upcoming events and reminders of best practices. It was distributed via corporate email to ensure that information was being disseminated effectively (correspond3.). More recently, the PMCOE is expanding communications through rich content on the corporate intranet using the latest in Web 2.0 technology (correspond2.). Additionally, to further promote the PMCOE and communicate the mission of the center, an annual AT&T PM Symposium was established to bring significant recognition to the practice of professional project management at AT&T. The annual event provides training and empowerment for project managers as well as the opportunity to network and collaborate with peers. Communication with these corporate leaders has also been a critical success factor for the PMCOE. AT&T has found that when executives and middle managers support the mission of the center, their words have a significant influence on the project management community (correspond4.). As a consequence, the first PMCOE Client Satisfaction Survey showed greater than anticipated awareness and appreciation of the PMCOE mission, objectives and offerings.