UMT’s client is a major public sector agency with over 5,000 employees. Its main focus is the administration of federal funds in the form of grants and loans to its constituents. Based on goals and objectives in the agency level strategic plan, the client was manually prioritizing the portfolio of investments without repeatable processes or tools. UMT worked with the client to centralize business case collection, capture budget formulation data, standardize the prioritization process, enable cultural change in the organization and support portfolio level what-if analysis based on presidential and congressional mandates.

1. Executive Summary
UMT’s client is a major public sector agency with over 5,000 employees. Its main focus is the administration of federal funds
in the form of grants and loans to its constituents. Based on goals and objectives in the agency level strategic plan, the client
was manually prioritizing the portfolio of investments without repeatable processes or tools. UMT worked with the client to
centralize business case collection, capture budget formulation data, standardize the prioritization process, enable cultural
change in the organization and support portfolio level what-if analysis based on presidential and congressional mandates.
Situation Analysis
UMT’s team worked with multiple groups within the client organization to establish processes and implement supporting
technology to support their end-to-end investment and project management life cycles. The primary contributors to the
design of the solution were the Strategic Investment Governance group and the Program Management Office.
The Strategic Investment Governance team handles investment governance, business case collection, business case
prioritization, portfolio optimization with the goal of establishing a balanced portfolio of spend while formulating a budget
that was executable. The Program Management Office provides guidance to and standards for the initiation, planning,
execution, and close out of programs/projects in the organization with the goal of providing repeatable processes based on
their Life Cycle Management Methodology (LMM) in an automated environment to improve visibility in to program/project
health.
Both groups wanted to improve their methodology and technological capacity. UMT team worked with the client teams to
identify key objectives:
 Create a solution that would cater to the flexibility required to meet the changing needs of the agency and
unplanned federal mandates.
 Mediate cultural differences between the traditional public sector methods and private sector best practices.
 Create a central repository for artifacts and data to establish consistent and repeatable standards for data/
document capture.
 Establish a repeatable investment ranking and selection process based on private sector best practices.
The client needed better visibility, transparency, and accountability within the projects, programs, and investments in order
to:
 Simplify reporting processes;
 Enforce standardized data collection;
 Enable budget formulation and out year planning;
Standardizing Project and Portfolio Management
Processes to Increase Data Confidence and
Improve Decision Making
A UMT Case Study

2.  Identify issues and risks early on in the process;
 Provide a single location for work related artifacts;
 Identify and eliminate bottlenecks in approval chains;
 Provide program/project teams with collaboration tools;
 Integrate the Lifecycle Management Methodology with the solution.
The client was looking for a solution that would be end-user friendly and had a familiar interface in order to minimize the
transitional period, reduce the amount of training required, and ensure end-user experience and efficiency.
Solution
UMT collaborated with the client teams and created the following solutions:
 Derived enterprise business drivers to rank the investments from the agency five-year strategic plan.
 Facilitated driver prioritization sessions focusing on driving on consensus among the senior executives.
 Conducted detailed training on the UMT Six-Step Process for Investment Prioritization for executives along with the
emphasis on detailed role-based training for Project Managers and Team Members.
 Worked with the LMM working group to establish an initial plan to integrate the LMM tools with Project Server and its
enterprise work breakdown structure.
 Standardized business processes and automated Microsoft Project Server 2010 implementing EPTs, customized
Project Site Templates and various workflow configurations and utilized UMT Project Essentials 2012 for in-depth
financial management and workflow capability.
 Generated reporting capabilities to cater to the growing need for more accessible information, identifying
discretionary and operational spending within one clear view.
 Supported the maturation of Project Portfolio Managers as internal advocate teams through fostered relationships
with the operating executives and their representatives to sustain the longevity of the changes.
Results
Through comprehensive collaboration efforts, UMT team helped this public sector agency to get a clearer, more
transparent view of its portfolio, data, and programs, and, then, aggregate all of that information into comprehensive,
customizable, multi-dimensional reports. This enabled the client to plan and justify fiscal year budgets for the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) more effectively. The flexibility of the supporting platforms for the solutions gave the
agency the ability to configure the solution and reports to match changing congressional or presidential mandate.
With standardized business processes and management methodologies, the agency is able to move forward with a solid
toolset and foundational practices beyond CPIC and into the realm of efficient, effective, controlled, accountable, and
transparent program, project, and investment management.
UMT’s client organization was provided with capabilities for Project and Portfolio Management, Standardized Investment
Prioritization, Integrated Enterprise Business Drivers, Visible Data and Artifacts through Report Generation, and
Automated Project Site abilities through Microsoft Project Server 2010 and UMT Project Essentials 2012.
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