Aligned initiative selection with objectives and increased efficiency and transparency of planning process

1. Challenge
The executive management at a major financial institution was faced with making project planning decisions across
departments that did not share a clear, organization-wide set of objectives. The manual, time-consuming process for
planning lacked a standard methodology to allow planners to align initiatives with objectives, create an understanding
of cross-initiative impacts and dependencies, and ensure visibility and reporting. Collectively, the five-month annual
planning process was overwhelming the ability to make optimal initiative investments based on organizational objec-
tives and current information about each initiative.
External market forces, including increased regulatory pressure from the government, dictated that this method of
planning initiatives could not be sustained.
Solution
UMT consultants assisted the company in defining a corpo-
rate standard, process and configuration of Microsoft Office
Project Portfolio Server (formerly known as “UMT Portfolio
Manager”), for initiative planning & reporting. Through facili-
tated workshops and iterative configuration prototyping, UMT
designed and gained consensus on process and Microsoft
Portfolio Server configuration that was both robust and flexi-
ble to meet the company’s specific but varied initiative plan-
ning needs.
Major Financial Institution Rationalizes Project
Budgeting Process
Aligned Initiative Selection with Objectives and Increased Efficiency and
Transparency of Planning Process
A UMT Case Study
Create
Portfolio
Select
Portfolio
Plan
Portfolio
Manage
Portfolio
Contributors: CEO, CIO, Dir of IT Project
Management, 2 UMT Consultants & 1
UMT Manager
Time to Success: 12 Months
Deliverables: Create central listing of all projects; Assess
project strategic alignment
Key Benefits: Improved reporting, status updates

2. With a proposed solution in place, UMT consultants conducted
numerous customized presentations on PPM processes and the
Microsoft Portfolio Server configuration to ensure buy-in and
ease adoption, in addition to Instructor-led customized training
both on the process and tool. With feedback from all of the
company’s divisions and extensive walkthroughs with the com-
pany’s corporate planning team, the PPM team at the company was confident of a successful deployment.
Results
A pilot included fifty users within the finance organization using the solution to actively track and generate monthly
initiative reports. Integration with the transactional cost tracking system, removed the manual aggregation, data en-
try, and reconciliation that used to be required for initiative costs reporting, also eliminating the occurrence of manu-
al errors. Furthermore, the standardized status report with defined and automated status indicators ensured that
management had a consistent view across initiatives.
Subsequent to the success of the PPM pilot, the company is in the process of an organization-wide rollout of the Mi-
crosoft Portfolio Server and process to over 300 users across the organization.
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Software
Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Reporting Services
Microsoft Windows Server