How to manage requests for integration into IT project portfolios? Feedback from the Loiret GHT

How was the IT request management process thought through? How do you manage a large number of requests from 11 different establishments? To coordinate and reconcile this flow of requests within their IT project portfolio, the GHT chose Project Monitor software. This project portfolio management software enables the implementation of forms, dashboards and project reviews. This facilitates the lifecycle of a request. We asked the PMO to share with us the arcana of request management, which brings together IT managers, business representatives and the Digital Director every fortnight.

Interview with Mickaël MALLET, PMO at the Loiret GHT Digital Services Department,

Sandrine DESSI, Director of Digital Services, Groupement Hospitalier de Territoire du Loiret

and Jocelyn CADON, in charge of the IS - DSN Master Plan for the Loiret GHT.

Feedback from the Loiret GHT on the requests management process

Groupement Hospitalier Territorial du Loiret: 11 establishments in convergence 

Groupements Hospitaliers Territoriaux (GHT) were set up following the law modernizing the healthcare system (in 2016). This is a structuring and ambitious measure: 898 establishments have been grouped into 136 GHTs, including the Loiret GHT. The aim is to improve coordination and cooperation between hospitals, for better access to care for patients in the region. 

For the Loiret GHT, 9 healthcare establishments on 11 sites have been grouped together. As a result, the proximity strategy has been strengthened. 

The challenge for the Loiret GHT is to pool resources and support functions (including CIO).

"The GHT must have convergent and unique tools on the territory to support the trades in their care of proximity and safety." 

Where there's a challenge, there's a plan to meet it: in 2019, the GHT director, with the help of the strategic committee, validated the master plan for the GHT's IS. This will provide a convergent roadmap for the next 5 years. A portfolio pilot for the GHT was therefore recruited to align the information system master plan with the GHT's strategies. In particular, the shared medical project. He contributes to the annual update of the implementation and maintenance of these projects. At the same time, he is responsible for all phases of IS transformation, which were previously spread across each site.

The DSN contributes to this transformation and convergence of resources, with 70 employees managing a portfolio of 250 applications. The projects are varied: they may be specific to one of the 11 sites, or apply to the whole GHT, or even be regional or national (via digital redesign and transformation policies).

Setting up the PMO office 

In addition to steering the Information System Master Plan, they realized that the role of a PMO was essential. In order to cope with the sheer number of establishments, requests and consequent projects. 

At the Loiret GHT, the PMO is centrally positioned. He has an overview of all project management processes. Mickaël Mallet's role is to consolidate requirements, validate them with the business units and then transform them into a project. At CHR Orléans since 2005, Mickaël was in charge of Application Studies and Projects, before being promoted to PMO in 2019.

In these times of the covid epidemic, a great deal of thought has gone into project management. And this, on all sites: common methodology, request processes, continuous improvement cycle...

And what about the tool? 

Beyond these reflections and the role of PMO, it became necessary to have a management tool to support them (Excel had had its day!). At the end of 2020, we opted for Project Monitor, a Project Portfolio Management (PPM) tool. The parameterization had already been thought through upstream (project request or project process), so that the tool went into production on April1, 2021. 

The initial focus was on claims management. The first objective of the Project Monitor deployment process was to consolidate requests. The second was to create projects. Very often, the approach goes the other way round: you start with projects to better track them, and then ask yourself how to manage project requests. 

Requests are piling up at DSN, but they're keen to maintain their agility in responding to requests. This is particularly true when it comes to the health situation. A portfolio of requests is therefore established, as well as a portfolio of projects. The project portfolio contains around 150 projects, with around a hundred requests and projects from the latest local GHT sites currently being included. 

How does the IT project application process work? 

This detailed process is the culmination of all the thought that went into setting up the PMO role and managing requests and projects. 

IT requests come from a variety of sources

There's no single format for these requests: they can come in the form of an e-mail, a report on exchanges between several departments, or a chat over the coffee machine. 

First of all, a Project Opportunity Form (POF) is opened for each project request. It's important to understand the need, as all the business lines are represented. These requests are recorded in a portfolio of requests for arbitration, then eventual inclusion in the project portfolio.

The process is led by the PMO, the DSN director and the portfolio manager.

In order to :

The PMO will take a step back from the demands, which are very varied. In Mickaël Mallet's experience, it is necessary to dedicate oneself fully to this position, and to be supported in this by one's management.

Poll - Who drives the IT request management process? 

During this webinar, we asked our listeners the following question:

While the PMO plays a key role in many organizations (40% of people according to the survey), there isn't always someone in charge of project requests... CIO or the business lines can be more involved in this process. 

A key cog in the process: the POF (Project Opportunity Sheet) 

The objective of the POF is to measure opportunity. It's a way of deciding whether or not to include the request in the portfolio. There are a lot of requests within the GHT, and there are no lulls in the year to take a breather.

This OPF was created as soon as the request and project management process began. The GHT established several versions, with the support of ANAP (Agence Nationale de la Performance sanitaire). This body produces tools to help analyze the value of projects and portfolios. This is an invaluable aid to methodology.

"All new applications are presented in the project application reviews, even if they have not yet been processed. We highlight all new applications so that we can position ourselves, to know if we're continuing to study the application or we already know if they're going to be refused straight away. The POF can take as little as two hours to complete, or as long as several weeks. 

"As a PMO, we can receive requests from all departments, from all businesses." 

Applicants often need assistance with drafting, as well as the involvement of experts (project managers, administrators, DPO, security manager, etc.). It is necessary to obtain a complete appraisal of the request, which will then be submitted for arbitration. 

What is the Project Opportunity Sheet? 

This FOP is initiated as soon as the request appears. It involves categorizing and describing the request. This description takes into account weighting criteria fed by the drafting of the POF. 

4 indicators are included: 

All these indicators can be used to give a weighting to the request, and a final score to compare requests with each other. 

How do I manage the Project Opportunity Sheet in Project Monitor ? 

The Project Opportunity Sheet document remains in Word, as it is a working and exchange document with other professions.

Then, each Project Opportunity Sheet is integrated into a project form in the PPM tool. This makes it possible to retrieve all the indicators. The advantage of this is that the data entered on the form can be used to create a formula, enabling easy comparison between requests. 

How does an IT requirements review work at the Loiret GHT? 

Frequency

The IT request management review takes place every 15 days. This frequency was defined from the outset, as there was a significant backlog of requests. The flow of requests arrives as we go along, so this meeting takes place all year round. It lasts around 1h30, and is attended by the DSN director, the PMO, the portfolio manager, and representatives from various departments.

Organization

The agenda is set according to the priority of requests. And Project Monitor is a tool that responds well to the GHT's needs, as it enables requests to be listed and cut to the chase. The request portfolio includes global indicators, as well as notions of status and priority.

"Each request is processed one by one, and the decision is recorded via the flash report. Timing is given to process each request within the total time of an hour and a half, and then a global report is created automatically". 

At the end of the arbitration, we communicate with the applicant and the prospective or chosen project manager. 

Not all requests are handled by this body, and some go through more decision-making bodies linked to the healthcare world. 

The benefits of the IT request management process

The reporting functionality in Project Monitor is essential for decision support. It gives you an overall view of the situation, and a bird's-eye view of your decisions. For example, a bubble graph with all project opportunities to compare them in terms of value and criticality.

Find out more about Project Monitor, the PPM tool that simplifies IT request management 

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Starting with a portfolio of a hundred projects, the gains are spectacular! Project reporting divided by three, average project duration reduced by a third, project review 2 times more efficient...

Facilitate your project management with a complete tool: portfolio, project model, dashboards, workload plan, schedule, kanban, time tracking, request management, budget tracking, animation of project committees and governance bodies, ...

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How do I manage project requests with Project Monitor ?

5 steps to efficient IT project request management with PPM software Project Monitor !
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Questions / Answers


Here are some of the questions asked during our interactive webinar, and the answers from our speakers Mickaël MALLET and Jocelyn CADON.

How was the business included in the project request process?

This is one of the virtues of the FOP: very naturally, the profession has become involved in the development and acculturation of project management (very often, applicants can't imagine the road they have to travel to bring a computerization project to a successful conclusion).

How do you reconcile the ability to do (available J/h, key skills) with demand?

We focus a lot on the value of the project. We may choose a project request thinking that it will bring value to the hospital. And we'll pass it on to the "later plan" if the availability or capacity of resources isn't sufficient. This requires a long-term vision of projects. We also need to have a vision of projects already underway, and there is a body in place for scheduling requests. Another objective is to improve capacity management by providing projects and requests with a macro schedule and an estimated load.

How are application priorities managed?

There are no rules for processing requests, and it's up to the portfolio manager to prioritize them. On the other hand, some requests are regulatory (e.g. with a deadline of 12/31), so there's no choice but to put them first. A Quick-Win project (high-value, low-impact and quick to complete) can be given priority.

Is the entire application process handled by Project Monitor , or is it handled by other tools?

Time for dialogue with the business lines or with people involved at strategic level is not necessarily available in Project Monitor. Otherwise, everything is processed there: project opportunity sheet data, reporting, arbitration bodies...

With such a large flow of requests, isn't there a risk of accumulating non-priority projects that haven't been started? How can we give the business a start-up perspective if other priority projects are regularly added?

We sometimes think we need to "turn off the tap" to deal with current applications, so that the portfolio can be updated... We try not to forget any applications, and sometimes applicants withdraw their applications too.

Is OSF systematic, even for small projects? And if not, how are decisions made?

As a general rule, a POF is produced for each request. On the other hand, when we fill in the POF, we realize that it's a small project that we call a "realization". In other words, it's a production job that will take less than 5 D/H to process.

Will the Opportunity Sheet be the project sheet afterwards, or a separate element?
The Project Opportunity Sheet is a separate element contributing to the project, to which the project manager can refer. The project opportunity sheet is currently being formalized at GHT 45.

How does the POF data go into the project sheet if it's a separate element?
The POF is one of the first deliverables of the project and is used during the project scoping/design stage.

Why Project Monitor and not someone else? What other solutions did you evaluate?
The customization capabilities that allow us to materialize our request and project processes were decisive. We evaluated 3 other PPM solutions before choosing Project Monitor.

How do you deal with "parasitic" projects, such as Biomed implementations, which require CIO to be involved in part of the project, without having been brought into the loop beforehand?
These cases are entered as "realizations" rather than projects. But even a minimal POF makes it clear that this is an achievement for the DSN and a project for the biomedical department. What's more, the biomedical department has provided us with its 3-year equipment plan, enabling us to begin coordinating IT and their department.

What type of PMO (operational, strategic, etc...) have you defined and what were the criteria used to guide this choice?
We're talking about a multi-faceted type of PMO. They tend to become strategic PMOs as the years go by. The choice depends on the number of projects to be managed and the number of resources dedicated to the PMO. In the long term, I see a Strategic Project Management Officer for requests, and an Operational Project Management Officer to monitor the portfolio of ongoing projects and provide methodological support for active projects.

How do you define the boundary between the FOP and the feasibility phase of a project?
The feasibility of a project is included in the FOP through the participation of experts (CISO, DPO, Project Manager, AMOA, Admin Infra, urban planner, etc.).

How many people are involved in Arbitration?
In the Digital Services Department, between 5 and 10 people are involved in reviewing project applications. The Director of Digital Services makes the final decision.

Are project applications entered without pre-sorting for project relevance?
All applications are entered, if only to sort them afterwards. Project relevance is judged on the basis of the project opportunity sheet.