Strategic imperative digital transformation in capital projectsEndeavor Management
Radical changes to megaproject delivery will bring first adopters a distinct competitive edge, while writing the epitaph of those who stay stuck in legacy ineffective practices. Whether you are an operating asset owner or an EPC, you are confronted with reinventing the core of your capital projects delivery through digital solutions. Such strategic transformation requires holistic change that focuses not only on installation of a new software application, but also on people and work processes to achieve a sustained, culturally intrinsic result from new technology .
Your Challenge
As the market evolves, capabilities that were once cutting edge become default and new functionality becomes differentiating.
Vendors use a lot of marketing jargon, buzzwords, and statistics to sell their solutions, making objective evaluation rather difficult.
The endpoint protection (EPP) market is overcrowded and fragmented, resulting in information overload and consequently, a difficult vendor assessment.
Disparate product solutions are being bundled into one-off solutions or suites, often resulting in less efficient solutions than the more niche players.
Imminent obsolescence is an issue. Previous EPP solutions have not adapted with the rapidly evolving threat landscape and are no longer relevant, resulting in breaches or vulnerabilities.
Critical Insight
Don’t let vendors and market reports define your endpoint protection needs. Identify the use cases and corresponding feature sets that best align with your risk profile before evaluating the vendor marketspace.
Your security controls are diminishing in value (if they haven’t already). Develop a strategy that accounts for the rapid evolution and imminent obsolescence of your endpoint controls. Plan for future needs when making purchasing decisions today.
Endpoint protection is a matter of defense in depth and risk modelling, there is no silver bullet protection and mitigation solution. As end-client-technology providers release regular product/software updates, security tools will become outdated. Multiyear endpoint protection commitments will leave you playing a constant game of catch up.
Impact and Result
The solution is a holistic internal security assessment that not only identifies, but satisfies, your desired endpoint protection feature set with the corresponding endpoint protection suite and a comprehensive implementation strategy.
Use this blueprint to walk through the steps of selecting and implementing an endpoint protection solution that best aligns with your organizational needs.
Nine keys to successful delegation in Project Managementmrinalsingh385
Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification has been ranked the number 1 certification and is globally acknowledged as a standard for demonstrating your experience, education and ability to lead complex projects as project managers. It also helps you get a better salary.
Your Challenge
Companies are approving more projects than they can deliver. Most organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to.
While organizations want to achieve a high throughput of approved projects, many are unable or unwilling to allocate an appropriate level of IT resourcing to adequately match the number of approved initiatives.
Portfolio management practices must find a way to accommodate stakeholder needs without sacrificing the portfolio to low-value initiatives that do not align with business goals.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Failure to align projects with strategic goals and resource capacity are the most common causes of portfolio waste across organizations. Intake, approval, and prioritization represent the best opportunities to ensure this alignment.
More time spent with stakeholders during the ideation phase to help set realistic expectations for stakeholders and enhance visibility into IT’s capacity and processes is key to both project and organizational success.
Too much intake red tape will lead to an underground economy of projects that escape portfolio oversight, while too little intake formality will lead to a wild west of approvals that could overwhelm the PMO. Finding the right balance of intake formality for your organization is the key to establishing a PMO that has the ability to focus on the right things.
Impact and Result
Eliminate off-the-grid initiatives by establishing a centralized intake process that funnels requests into a single channel.
Improve the throughput of projects through the portfolio by incorporating the constraint of resource capacity to cap the amount of project approvals to that which is realistic.
Silence squeaky wheels and overbearing stakeholders by establishing a progressive approval and prioritization process that gives primacy to the highest value requests.
The global research programmes that deliver the best value are not the most standardised - and they are not usually the most elaborate. Learn how brands have created strong, flexible protocols by focusing on shorter, smarter surveys, local engagement and active leadership at the centre.
Successful Digital Transformation starts with a well defined StrategyGlen Alleman
Leading successful Digital Transformation projects cannot be successful without a Strategy for their success.
This briefing shows how to develop and apply a Strategy for Program Success through clear and concise descriptions of the strategic outcomes, Measures of Effectiveness and Performances, and identification of Value needed to meet business goals in a timely manner for the needed budget.
In this webinar, Build Consulting expert Peter Mirus explains how to build a technology roadmap that will guide your organization to a successful future.
Peter draws on years of experience consulting with nonprofits on technology projects to give you practical steps to implement quickly.
Don’t miss this chance to learn how your organization can create a technology roadmap that is right for you.
As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.
Read this Executive Brief to understand why your team should make the case to modernize your communications and collaboration infrastructure.
Understand why it's time to move forward with modernizing your communications infrastructure.
Discover the productivity and efficiency gains you can achieve.
Redefine how you think about communications.
Learn how to build a strategy that addresses both unified communications and collaboration.
Understand Info-Tech's methodology and approach to modernizing communications and collaboration infrastructure.
Strategic imperative digital transformation in capital projectsEndeavor Management
Radical changes to megaproject delivery will bring first adopters a distinct competitive edge, while writing the epitaph of those who stay stuck in legacy ineffective practices. Whether you are an operating asset owner or an EPC, you are confronted with reinventing the core of your capital projects delivery through digital solutions. Such strategic transformation requires holistic change that focuses not only on installation of a new software application, but also on people and work processes to achieve a sustained, culturally intrinsic result from new technology .
Your Challenge
As the market evolves, capabilities that were once cutting edge become default and new functionality becomes differentiating.
Vendors use a lot of marketing jargon, buzzwords, and statistics to sell their solutions, making objective evaluation rather difficult.
The endpoint protection (EPP) market is overcrowded and fragmented, resulting in information overload and consequently, a difficult vendor assessment.
Disparate product solutions are being bundled into one-off solutions or suites, often resulting in less efficient solutions than the more niche players.
Imminent obsolescence is an issue. Previous EPP solutions have not adapted with the rapidly evolving threat landscape and are no longer relevant, resulting in breaches or vulnerabilities.
Critical Insight
Don’t let vendors and market reports define your endpoint protection needs. Identify the use cases and corresponding feature sets that best align with your risk profile before evaluating the vendor marketspace.
Your security controls are diminishing in value (if they haven’t already). Develop a strategy that accounts for the rapid evolution and imminent obsolescence of your endpoint controls. Plan for future needs when making purchasing decisions today.
Endpoint protection is a matter of defense in depth and risk modelling, there is no silver bullet protection and mitigation solution. As end-client-technology providers release regular product/software updates, security tools will become outdated. Multiyear endpoint protection commitments will leave you playing a constant game of catch up.
Impact and Result
The solution is a holistic internal security assessment that not only identifies, but satisfies, your desired endpoint protection feature set with the corresponding endpoint protection suite and a comprehensive implementation strategy.
Use this blueprint to walk through the steps of selecting and implementing an endpoint protection solution that best aligns with your organizational needs.
Nine keys to successful delegation in Project Managementmrinalsingh385
Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification has been ranked the number 1 certification and is globally acknowledged as a standard for demonstrating your experience, education and ability to lead complex projects as project managers. It also helps you get a better salary.
Your Challenge
Companies are approving more projects than they can deliver. Most organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to.
While organizations want to achieve a high throughput of approved projects, many are unable or unwilling to allocate an appropriate level of IT resourcing to adequately match the number of approved initiatives.
Portfolio management practices must find a way to accommodate stakeholder needs without sacrificing the portfolio to low-value initiatives that do not align with business goals.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Failure to align projects with strategic goals and resource capacity are the most common causes of portfolio waste across organizations. Intake, approval, and prioritization represent the best opportunities to ensure this alignment.
More time spent with stakeholders during the ideation phase to help set realistic expectations for stakeholders and enhance visibility into IT’s capacity and processes is key to both project and organizational success.
Too much intake red tape will lead to an underground economy of projects that escape portfolio oversight, while too little intake formality will lead to a wild west of approvals that could overwhelm the PMO. Finding the right balance of intake formality for your organization is the key to establishing a PMO that has the ability to focus on the right things.
Impact and Result
Eliminate off-the-grid initiatives by establishing a centralized intake process that funnels requests into a single channel.
Improve the throughput of projects through the portfolio by incorporating the constraint of resource capacity to cap the amount of project approvals to that which is realistic.
Silence squeaky wheels and overbearing stakeholders by establishing a progressive approval and prioritization process that gives primacy to the highest value requests.
The global research programmes that deliver the best value are not the most standardised - and they are not usually the most elaborate. Learn how brands have created strong, flexible protocols by focusing on shorter, smarter surveys, local engagement and active leadership at the centre.
Successful Digital Transformation starts with a well defined StrategyGlen Alleman
Leading successful Digital Transformation projects cannot be successful without a Strategy for their success.
This briefing shows how to develop and apply a Strategy for Program Success through clear and concise descriptions of the strategic outcomes, Measures of Effectiveness and Performances, and identification of Value needed to meet business goals in a timely manner for the needed budget.
In this webinar, Build Consulting expert Peter Mirus explains how to build a technology roadmap that will guide your organization to a successful future.
Peter draws on years of experience consulting with nonprofits on technology projects to give you practical steps to implement quickly.
Don’t miss this chance to learn how your organization can create a technology roadmap that is right for you.
As with all our webinars, this presentation is appropriate for an audience of varied IT experience.
Read this Executive Brief to understand why your team should make the case to modernize your communications and collaboration infrastructure.
Understand why it's time to move forward with modernizing your communications infrastructure.
Discover the productivity and efficiency gains you can achieve.
Redefine how you think about communications.
Learn how to build a strategy that addresses both unified communications and collaboration.
Understand Info-Tech's methodology and approach to modernizing communications and collaboration infrastructure.
Cloud computing implications for project management methodologiesLivingstone Advisory
Cloud based technologies are becoming increasingly pervasive across society and are considered by many in business as the next major disruptive innovation. For the first time, organizations can consume, as needed, on-demand, business ready Cloud based enterprise services. This is also known as the Consumerization of IT.
Transitioning to, or deploying new IT systems and services using Cloud technologies present their own unique set of challenges to the IT Departments, Project managers and Pproject management Offices (PMO) alike.
The primary objective of this presentation is to provide a number of key considerations for Project Managers in dealing with projects involving Cloud computing technologies.
This was presented at the 25th International Project Management Institute's Global Conference in Australia on the 11th October 2011 by Rob Livingstone
Power, Gas and Certificates Trading Industry in EuropePMILebanonChapter
Elie El Haddad is the speaker for the monthly lecture of the PMI Lebanon Chapter and the presentation title is "Projects for the Power, Gas and Certificates Industry".
Lecture Outline and Objectives:
Outline
Power generation industry
Power scheduling, routing and balancing
Power trading
Challenges of project management for the power industry
Objectives
How the energy is produced
How the energy is delivered to the end customer
How the pricing is made
How the risk management is calculated
Project implementation for the power industry
Career implications for the Business Analyst in the age of digital disruptionLivingstone Advisory
The fact that business and societal change is being fueled by innovative, emerging and disruptive information technologies is well known. Its impacts being felt in almost every facet of life. However, the forces driving the evolution and adoption of such technologies are complex, diverse and not always well understood. In addition, the rate of change is accelerating.
Knowledge intensive IT careers, once considered to be at the forefront of information technology developments are being progressively impacted by the new world of IT, shifting customer expectations and business change.
Question is, how will the IT professions - in particular, the BA - be redefined? More importantly what steps should the BA profession consider taking now, to ensure its continued relevance in years to come
Fostering a Startup and Innovation EcosystemTechstars
We are on a mission to make the world a more innovative and prosperous place, one community at a time.
We believe that entrepreneurs are critical to driving a strong global economy and a better world. We do our part by supporting the grassroots leaders who are at the core of every strong entrepreneurial community
SMAC is upsetting the domain. No CIO dialogue is accomplished devoid of considering influence
of SMAC on industry and business. Rapid developments in this technology pile are accumulating
value to complete breadth of businesses and industries. Rewards are several and appear very
captivating, with assurances being made as big as - forecasting future (Analytics), accessible
everywhere (Mobile), everything is so easy and networked (Social), and at a very low cost (Cloud).
This fresh technology pile has begun changing tomorrow's organization and has influence on every
part of a business, therefore consequently on the every software applications being utilize inside
the company and by the company.
In this presentation, Rishabh introduces the concept of SMAC and discusses trends.He is interested in using SMAC to create solutions that positively impact customer experience. The applications that he intends to develop will be available anytime and anywhere is what he says.
In this presentation, Nitish introduces the topic of SMAC and associated trends. His interest area lies in cloud computing deployments that are cost effective.
In this presentation, Pratyusha introduces SMAC and associated trends. Pratyusha is interested in Big Data Analytics of customer data to take automated decisions.
In this presentation, Manoj introduces the concept of SMAC and discusses technological as well as platform trends. Manoj's interest area lies in cloud computing because of advantages in cost reduction and scalability.
Becoming a Software-Centric Business - Best Path Forward in an Uncertain Post...Cognizant
Innovating in a post-pandemic world will pose new challenges — from unpredictable shifts in customer behavior to development teams that work from home by necessity or choice. Adapting quickly to new risks and opportunities requires a modern infrastructure and application architecture, new processes and a culture that rewards experimentation.
Web and internet computing is evolving into a combination of social media, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) solutions. There is a need for an integrated approach when developing
solutions that address web scale requirements with technologies that enable SMAC solutions. This paper presents an architecture model for the integrated approach that can form the basis for solutions and result in reuse, integration and agility for the business and IT in an enterprise.
Web and internet computing is evolving into a combination of social media, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) solutions. There is a need for an integrated approach when developing
solutions that address web scale requirements with technologies that enable SMAC solutions.This paper presents an architecture model for the integrated approach that can form the basis
for solutions and result in reuse, integration and agility for the business and IT in an enterprise.
Lean Digital Enterprise Evolution in a Hyper Connected World VSR *
In the digital era, every enterprise is Digital Enterprise and every digital enterprise must be Lean. Lean digital enterprises are future proof & future ready. This white paper highlights about the nature of software applications and paradigm shift required in Global Delivery Model to support Lean Digital Enterprises....
In this presentation, Manogna. has discussed the impact of SMAC technologies on Banking and retail industries and how cloud technologies are enabling this tranformation.
In this presentation, Vyas introduces the concept of SMAC and associated trends.Vyas's interest area lies in Data analytics and cloud computing where the focus is to analyze data and deploy finding in business processes rapidly.
In this presentation, Joshna introduces SMAC and associated trends. Joshna's interest area liest in cloud computing where she wants to optimize resource usage by current systems.
1. Mantra for leveraging Emerging Trends
Rahul Ghodke
Sr. Director Automation Services
Microland Ltd.
2.
3. As projects are becoming more complex and project management more onerous, there has been an
increased demand for more sophisticated and holistic project management solutions in the PM: 3.0 era
(For Third Generation Project Managers). SMAC (Social Media, Mobile, Analytics & Cloud) has emerged
as one of these solutions. SMAC makes available the right information at the right time so project
managers can make the right decision the first time, and it empowers stakeholders both within and
outside the enterprise through effective collaborations. Such tools are not without their own challenges,
and their success is reliant on disciplined collation and organization of multiple levels of information.
While these SMAC trends have made a profound positive business impact for some organizations, not all
organizations have been able to harness the value of their SMAC investments. The value of these
investments depends on many factors, such as business model, operating model, type of business
service/product, customer demographics, organization size, processes, applications, integrations,
organization culture, and so on.
The Gen-Next Project Management will become more and more involved in social, mobile, analytics, and
the cloud (SMAC), which will mean redefining and refining project templates, life cycles, approaches, and
best practices. SMAC means the emergence of a new kind of project management altogether. This paper
describes SMAC, its necessity and benefits and presents a practical discussion on the overall SMAC
Framework and how to successfully drive its adoption across various project types and industries
4. Social media, mobile devices, analytics and cloud computing (SMAC) have combined to create a
technology ecosystem that supports disruptive and sustaining innovation. The ready availability of the
SMAC ecosystem connects customers to new innovations and supports shopping on e-commerce sites
and in brick-and-mortar stores. Importantly, the SMAC application has transcended retail and consumer
marketing activities, and also has significant relevance in banking, healthcare, and other business
functions.
Using the SMAC platform, project managers can develop new products and services by renting
technology capability without owning the infrastructure, software, and support staff. Project management
information systems (PMIS) can leverage the SMAC platform over a secure Internet connection to
support collaboration between team members and enable transparency about a project's health. Social
media, mobile devices, analytics, and cloud computing are the amalgamation of mature technologies for
the 21st century. SMAC will mean redefining and refining project templates, life cycles, approaches, best
practices and a whole new framework to delivery projects and programs in the era of disruptive
technology innovation. It is inevitable that Gen-Next Project Managers’will need to levarage these
tenchnolgy trends and focus on SMAC to deliver high quality projects.
Prevalence of social media, smart devices, instant connectivity have radically altered expectations of
customers. Business growth in 2014 will largely be driven by the opportunity in technologies. Moreover,
integration and confluence of these technologies will form the bedrock of future solutions. According to
the Deloitte Global CIO survey, adoption of these technologies is seen as next highest priority by over 50
percent of global CIOs. Using SMAC technologies, project managers will be expected to deliver a smart,
secure and connected experience. So what does the ‘smart, secure and connected experi ence’ entail? A
smart project will be known for intelligent decisions powered by actionable advanced analytics.
The connected experience will emerge from unified communication, machine-to-machine ecosystem and
a single view of customer(s). All this will not be possible without the underpinning of a secure
infrastructure. Key elements of this secure infrastructure would be: governance and risk compliance,
5. access management, security analytics and threat management. The end result will be true to customers’
expectations: real time, in-context and personalized experience across channels.
Social collaboration is expanding the way people interact with one another and businesses. Mobile
devices have enhanced
customer’s reach to
information from various
sources. Mobile applications
will help businesses reach
these customers and interact
with them at personal level.
These applications can also
collect information regarding
what customers say about
their products. SMAC
technology will help
companies to move into high-margin
businesses due to its
global reach, low overheads
and high availability.
Digitization of business models and processes is key for Project Management in the new era. As society
and national GDPs continue to migrate to the Internet economy, traditional business processes, business
models and even entire industries are being disrupted as products and services become ever -more
digitized. While many industries have already experienced this disruption, such as those in media and
entertainment whose primary
product or service has become
completely digitized (e.g.
books, music, movies, maps),
the next wave is now being felt
as other industries see
aspects of their physical value
chain become ever-more
technology-enabled and
optimized. Newer projects are
conceptulized for SMAC and
delivered with SMAC! SMAC
penetration is forcing
organizations and project
managers to embark on digital
transformation
So what does SMAC mean for Projects Managers? Every day, we are surrounded by digital
technology, such as social media, mobility, analytics, and cloud – otherwise known as SMAC. We rely on
it to make our world, literally, “tick”! The industry analyst firm Gartner recently released its Top 10
6. Strategic Technology Trends, illuminating how people, places, information and things will all be
connected via the Internet relying on cloud, mobility and smart machines.
Increasingly project managers are using technology to connect with the project teams, vendors and
stakeholders, as well as using it to consume resources & services. SMAC for projects mangers opens up
a plethora of opportunities for faster and easier collaboration and communication, instant information
sharing, greater insights into project health, a uniform and standard project management and control
framework at a lower cost and more off project information is available anytime and anywhere.
Example: In the conventional approach, Telco buyers (principal) – Figure 4 and sellers (contractors) each
have their own project management systems. Project information is transacted manually via complex
paper documentation. Systems require significant user training and familiarization before they can be
utilized effectively. The large amount of paperwork, specific software, hardware and network configuration
result in high operation costs, high maintenance needs and lack of synchronicity between buyer and
seller.
In the SMACéd approach, all the parties — buyer and sellers — are into one project cloud, where they
are integrated into one system. Cloud computing allows project information to be accessed, anytime,
anywhere instantly via desktop, laptop or mobile. Cloud-powered systems require only a web-capable
device and Internet connection: no specific software installation, network setups or dedicated hardware
are needed. This not only saves immediate costs on infrastructure, but also on paperwork, maintenance
and floor space. Maintenance and update works can be carried across cloud-based systems can be with
far shorter downtime than traditional systems. With SMAC, key information is automatically synchronized
so that users are always up-to-date with the project progress through social feeds and assessed using
the power of analtics. Information discrepancy between users and network is a thing of the past.
The key to successful project management in the SMAC eco-system is to create and manage a project
management framework that embeds best practices of project management, cloud computing, social
media, mobility and project analytics methodologies into how one manages projects, inside and outside
the cloud. The impact of SMAC on project management will include a higher emphasis on security,
parallel processing, scalability, and the ability to utilize infinite resources.
7. There are multiple things that Project Managers need to collect and share. First, there are project specs,
changes, and status. Then there’s diagnosing and solving problems that come up during the life of the
project. And, of course, there’s always a need to communicate milestones and accomplishments. For all
of the above, the principles of SMAC can be extremely useful in managing the inflow, interpretation, and
outflow of project information.
SMACéd Project Delivery Framework represents a dramatic shift toward having collaboration as the heart
of project management. As a result, Projectplace focuses on:
Collaboration, communication & commitment
Transparent information sharing
Analytics, social media & cloud inspired tools
Intuitive and easy to use features
8. The key elements to be considered while setting up projects on a SMAC based project management
platform are summarized below -
People: Create a meaningful, on-going dialogue with colleagues, customers and partners to build and
strengthen relationships and conduct day-to-day project activities to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
The collaboration platform should enable the following:
Manage Project Relationships More Effectively
Set up private workspaces for each of the partners, vendors and suppliers and use them to
share updates and engage in discussions - all from one central location.
Improve Team Communication
Increase social team collaboration with discussion forums, blogs and comments. Keep the team
updated on what you're working on, meet online, and collaborate on projects.
Increase Accountability
Task assignments and reminders reinforce team accountability and highlight individual team
member contributions. Extended the platform reach to mobile devices for easy access
Build Customer Loyalty
Use customer extranets to easily share documents, projects and data in a single, secure
location. Work transparently and build loyalty by creating an open, centralized communication
system.
Projects: Quickly, easily and securely accomplish the project goals. Communicate and share important
project deadlines, goals, documents and presentations with everyone involved.
Stay on Top of Project Deadlines
Assign tasks, manage approvals, schedule and conduct online meetings and manage
milestones for the team to ensure no missed project deadlines.
Get Customers and Business Partners Involved
Invite customers, vendors and contractors into the project workspaces to increase
communication efficiency.
Encourage Team Communication
Simplify project communication using online documents, comment threads and discussions.
Access Project Information from a Central Location
Store important project information securely online so the team can access vital project
information after-hours and while traveling.
9. Track Progress
Track time spent on each task and milestone to ensure proper allocation of resources to
projects' goals. Use analytics to access constrains & health of the project for status reporting.
Workflow Automation: Automate and streamline the existing business procedures, increase efficiency
and productivity.
Assign and Prioritize Tasks
Recurring administrative tasks and reminders can be set up on a workflow that repeats the task
daily, weekly or monthly. Each task can be set priority levels, due dates and update requests and
should have the flexibility to assign as many team members to it as needed.
Automate Work Order Requests
A customer can submit a work order request, triggering an email notification to a contractor with
appointment time and details.
Automate Internal and External Request Processes
Use of dynamic online databases and workflow capabilities to automate both internal and
external request processes, such as vacation or information requests.
Streamline Document Approval Process
Once a document is created should be able to notify subscribers, which triggers a workflow that
creates a task to edit the document by a due date.
Collaborative and Social Workplaces: Work together with project teams, customers and partners within
secure or open (but controlled) online environments. Set up workspaces according to department,
customer, vendor, project or product. Each workspace can include its own file system, projects, task lists,
blog, forum, calendar and more.
Company and Department Intranets
Set up a custom-branded intranet for the team(s). Use the intranet to share internal information
such as employee directories, company announcements, training manuals and HR forms. Each
department within a company can also set up its own workspace to share team-specific
information.
Client Extranets and Social Sites
Customer extranets provide a secure, easily accessible location to track projects and share and
store project reports, files and communication.
Project Workspaces
Create workspaces for specific projects and use them to manage tasks, schedule meetings,
share files and collaborate in real-time on documents. Invite contractors, vendors and other
10. external members who are involved with the project into the workspace for easier collaboration.
Partner Portals
Connect with business partners outside the firewall in a secure, password-protected
environment. Share marketing materials, product information, promotions, announcements and
more. Control external members' permissions and parameters to make sure that this exchange
of information is only being seen by the right people.
Documentations: Powerful document editing and collaboration features, enhanced with social features
such as comment threads and notifications, make document collaboration easier. The SMAC
collaboration platform should enable to following:
Create and Share Files
Create online documents, spreadsheets and reports inside the platform or upload or
import data from Word or Excel.
Store Files Securely in the Cloud
Upload and store files in one central location with secure access to view, edit and
download content anytime, anywhere.
Control Document Versions
Review past versions of documents to see what changes were made and who made
them. Restore a previous version as needed.
Locate Files in Seconds
Find any document, file, web clipping or image in seconds with an integrated full text
search tool.
Web Folders
Upload, modify and delete files wherever needed. Maintain a central project repository
While SMAC is shifting much of the computing from dedicated IT environments to a combination of both
private and public clouds with extended mobility reach, the fundamental business functions (marketing,
sales, design, delivery, implementation, support etc.) and associated processes (concept-to-offering,
order-to cash, prospect-to-customer etc.) remain intact. Today, more than ever, the rigor of project
management is needed to ensure these functions and processes deliver the expected results while taking
full advantage of the benefits offered by the SMAC environments. So what does SMAC mean to project
management and what will the rise of the new dominant players in cloud portend for the project
management discipline?
11. At a minimum, SMAC will:
Usher in large complex projects, which in the past were not feasible due to limited compute,
storage or network capacities within an organization
Enable the parsing of multiple transactions in a highly distributed environment made up of
multiple providers, to be processed in tandem and subsequently aggregated
Provide real-time collaboration between globally dispersed teams
Allow rapid staging, set-up and take-down of a variety of compute environments as needed to
test/validate an application
Enable real-time project management software with a rich set of web-based tools.
Provide rich analytics capability to access and predict project behavior and status
Help in alleviating some of the pressures they have faced keeping pace of projects with the
escalating demands of corporate executives, strategic business units, and end-users.
Ease of information sharing between delivery team members, customer team members and
executive management
Enable rapid dashboard info on portfolio of projects
Facilitate more remote management & Meetings using web-based tools
Enable collaborative tool for resource management & used for projects with unpredictable
scalability
Lead to greater resource sharing, greater economies of scale, and greater levels of architectural
standardization and process optimization[1]
Realize project savings through agility and speed of implementation. It enables projects to cut
back on capital spending and optimize operational expenses[4]
Enable users of IT-related services to focus on what the services provide to them rather than how
the services are implemented or hosted[2]
Leverage the virtually instant agility, flexibility and reach, to dynamically access anything or
anybody, and the virtually infinite diversity of available functionalities arising from composite
applications and components allowed by cloud computing[3]
Provide higher value for creativity and innovation as it enables enterprises to focus on business
objectives and, therefore, allocate more resources to solve business problems. It enables IT
availability to broader masses of individuals, thus creating a pool of talent that has not existed
before.
Despite these expected gains, it will require, the rigor and discipline of the time tested Project
Management approach, methodology and perseverance, to fully realize these benefits. Like an air traffic
control system, the project management discipline in the SMAC world will be tasked with the responsibility
for overseeing, organizing, managing, and guiding a highly complex mixture of transactions that are
processed concurrently in different parts of the cloud. Just as the safety of passengers and airplanes
depends on the skills of controllers and pilots, the successful completion and delivery of the SMAC
enabled projects will depend on the Project Managers, empowered with project management frameworks
and proven methodologies, and combined with experience and discipline.
Communication & Ownership: SMAC is scary for many people since it puts all data into someone else’s
data center in the cloud. The communication of the cloud based projects needs to be done at every level
of organization and should have full executive support & buy in, otherwise the project will languish for
weeks or months waiting for people to grab onto the concept.
12. Activities Logging: Organization should have a better way of getting and processing logs on the cloud
and social media. This helps for satisfying the needs for compliance reporting and preventing
unauthorized access to production systems.
Documentation: Organizations should not rely on the Vendors Documentation for SMAC based projects.
Either they should take the approach of own documentation in such a way that everything should be
followed to duplicate past processes in the accurate manner. SMAC systems should be documented as
the organization internal project.
Access Control: Project Information on the SMAC platform when extended on mobile devices exposes
risk of miss handling. A robust assess control framework and authentication is key for SMAC platforms
ROI: When organizations leverage SMAC there will be obvious measurable cost savings in the offering.
Organization should manage the SMAC projects in such a manner that they should not overspend on
platform management vs. actual project management.
User Management: Administration should provide the access to the tools or servers based on certain
specific roles to the user. The tools that provide auditing and reporting needs to be used that helps in
logging the user activities. Use of shared credentials should be avoided.
Even in a dedicated IT environment, the possibility of project failure is high. In the SMAC case, the risk
grows exponentially. The parallel processing, easy social & mobile information reach, dependency on
analytical framework and on-demand scalability that the cloud offers requires a robust project
management discipline to guide through the dark as well as friendly clouds while execution. This will call
for higher scrutiny on security and a much more technologically savvy project teams.
When embarking on SMAC initiatives, organizations have to consider their strengths and weaknesses
with respect to their own culture, change management capabilities, and so on. It is a best practice to
develop the strategy and architecture at the enterprise level and implement them in a phased manner.
Organizations should build the strategic foundation while implementing quick -win and tactical initiatives
and then leverage these investments
13.
14. [1] “Economies of Scale Are the Key to Cloud Computing Benefits”, Gartner, June 2008
[2] “SMAC: Defining and Describing an Emerging Phenomenon”, Gartner, June 2012
[3] “Cloud-Computing Service Trends: Business Value Opportunities and Management Challenges, Part
2”, Gartner, February 2010
Dr. Rahul Ghodke, PMP® has fourteen years plus experience in large infrastructure and IT service
transition, transformation and implementation projects in ITIL-based managed service environments. As a
Sr. Director at Microland, he heads automation services and has vast experience in developing and
managing SaaS based ITSM tooling solutions.
Rahul has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA- Information Management) from SP Jain
Institute of Management Research, Mumbai, India and a Doctor of Communication Design (Information
Systems) from School of Information Arts and Technologies, University of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Rahul is also a Certified Project Management Professional from Project Management Institute, USA and
holds Expert, Masters & Foundation certifications in ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)
from ISEB, UK and EXIN, Netherlands.
Rahul is a frequent speaker at multiple international conferences on IT Service Management, Project/
Program Management and High Maturity Best Practices and has received multiple leadership awards.
Rahul is a SMAC evangelist and believes and works towards building a true connected universe.
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