Case Study: ODOT Enterprise Project Management Consulting

Advisicon provided successful consulting services to the Oregon Department of Transportation. As a result ODOT was able to increase efficiency, resource visibility, and perform “What If…” scenario modeling.

Business Situation

The number of ODOT construction projects was increasing, but the budgets and resources needed to deliver the projects were restricted. The system they were using to plan and manage projects was not working as expected and had been rejected by most of the project and resource managers as being too cumbersome to deliver the reports and information needed.

Key pain points included:

Lack of resource utilization and workload visibility for planning and forecasting
Managing and updating project schedules was tedious and difficult
Needed more integration of their technology with the ODOT project management culture
Lack of organizational standards and metrics for reporting
Systems needed to integrate with line of business systems currently in use

ODOT is the transportation infrastructure for the State of Oregon, handling the construction, maintenance, planning and management of the state’s transportation needs and requirements. It is also one of the largest departments of the Oregon state government. The Highway Division manages approximately 450 active STIP/OTIA projects at a time and delivers approximately $600 million of STIP/OTIA projects annually.

Once the OTC approves a STIP project under the OTIA, Project Leaders refine the schedule with a Project Delivery Team that includes technical specialists from the various technical discipline units (including Bridge, Survey, Environmental Services and Roadway Design) required to complete the design activities of the PE design project.

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Solution Delivered

Advisicon evaluated the business needs and recommended several technology solutions that would address their EPM and resource management needs. ODOT commissioned Advisicon to rate and rank the possible solutions. After ODOT decided to implement Microsoft® Project Server, Advisicon implemented the system throughout the ODOT system statewide and delivered the following services:

Stakeholder analysis and requirements map
Customized and configured the system to meet reporting needs
Trained resource managers, tech center managers, project leaders and executives how to use and leverage Microsoft® Project Server for ODOT’s project management activities

Audited all local configurations and trained users statewide
Cross-trained the ODOT administration team to continue to customize and configure Microsoft® Project Server as needed
Assisted with the integration of ODOT’s programming and database configuration with other line of business systems

Benefits

Benefits ODOT received by implementing this solution through Advisicon:

Reduced requirement time for forecasting and planning from weeks to hours
Increased resource management and workload visibility
Provided web-enabled views of project, task, issues, risks, documentation and resources
Ability to drill down into resource capabilities within regions, projects and tasks
Delivered all required web portfolio reporting functionalities (from OLAP Cube)

Integration of SharePoint Services to support and establish project site workspace and project teams collaboration
Provided “What If” scenario modeling for new projects to allow resource availability and more flexibility in managing State-legislated project mandates
Knowledge transferred to internal resources to enable continued, self-directed adoption

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