Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Customer Solution Case Study

School District Addresses Core Educational Goals with Automated Project Management

Overview “Project Management Office … ensures Country or Region: United States consistency in developing, executing, and Industry: K-15 Education measuring performance on projects.” Customer Profile Vijay Sonty, Chief Information Officer, Broward County Public Schools Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) is the nation's sixth largest school district and one of the fastest growing districts in the nation. During the 2004/05 school With over 271,000 students and over U.S.$60 million in outlays year, the district served more than 271,000 students. for IT projects across the district, the technology infrastructure of Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) rivals that of Fortune Business Situation Inefficient manual project management 1000 companies. The district’s project management processes processes did not allow BCPS to address had evolved as new technologies were adopted and as the technology needs in a fair, balanced, and cost-effective fashion across the district. district tried to meet the changing technology needs of individual schools. The result was an inconsistent and often uncoordinated Solution Microsoft® Services and Pcubed deployment of technology resources that failed to address collaborated to deploy an EPM system technology needs fairly and cost-effectively. BCPS turned to based on Microsoft Office Project Server 2003, Office Project Professional 2003, Microsoft and Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Pcubed to Windows® SharePoint® Services, and recommend an EPM solution. Based on Microsoft Office Project SQL Server™ 2000. Server 2003, Office Project Professional 2003, Windows®

Benefits SharePoint® Services, and SQL Server™ 2000, the school  Automated project management  Improved communications between district’s new EPM system, Project Management Office, has departments automated and centralized management of the district’s IT  Able to manage projects as a collective portfolio initiatives.  Improved collaboration in decision making “We knew that we Situation achieve this, Sonty asked Becky Schmaus, Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) is Project Manager at ETS, to manage needed to develop a one of the fastest growing districts in the implementation of the EPM solution, called strategy for automating nation. With the administrative office located Project Management Office (PMO). in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the district the entire lifecycle of serves a unique urban/suburban mix of “The purpose of PMO is to implement a technology initiatives— students. During the 2004/05 school year, state-of-the-art enterprise project the BCPS served the educational needs of management system to satisfy a long from conceptualization more than 271,000 students, up from sought-after workspace that will save time, and deployment, to 266,000 in 2003/04. money, and establish a uniform process. Projects benefit from realistic forecasting of management and To support this growth, the school district’s schedule and budget, coordination of migration.” Education Technology Services (ETS) purpose, and implementation between department has been mandated to harness themselves and other projects. PMO Becky Schmaus, Manager, Project technology to provide leadership, quality enables our school district to be in a better Management Office, Broward County Public services, and support that will enable the position to track and align projects with long- Schools Education Technology Services school district to achieve its educational and term strategic goals,” says Sonty. business objectives. According to Schmaus, tracking IT projects In recent years, the Broward County Public and prioritizing needs against available Schools IT department manually managed financial, human, and technical resources over 78 IT projects with timelines that have always been challenges for BCPS. But extended anywhere from 6 months to 5 two trends have converged to address these Forest Glenn 8th Grader, Shari Ramchel, years and accumulated over U.S.$60 million challenges: answers questions about her project at in capital outlays. Inefficiencies associated this year’s History Fair. with manual project management processes  The imperative to be more efficient, fair, have affected the ability of the IT and effective increased in recent years as organization to address the district’s students, parents, and teachers became technology needs in a fair, balanced, and aware of what technology should deliver. cost-effective fashion. This in turn has often  New project management technologies complicated the process of securing have emerged to improve how IT additional resources during the annual initiatives are conceived, planned, budgeting process. resourced, implemented, and tracked.

In 2005, Vijay Sonty, Chief Information “We knew that we needed to develop a Officer of Broward County Public Schools, strategy for automating the entire lifecycle of turned to Microsoft and Microsoft® Gold technology initiatives—from Certified Partner Pcubed for an effective conceptualization and deployment to enterprise-wide approach to project management and migration,” says Schmaus. management. “It is gratifying to see that effective IT project Sonty wanted the project scope and initial management is being recognized by the proof of concept deployed in 90 days. To education field as a means to better achieve their primary objective of improving the integration with other line-of-business educational experience for our children. (LOB) systems. Broward County Public Schools’ Project “We are now able to Management Office is setting the precedent  Microsoft Office Project manage projects as a for meeting this critical and important Professional 2003—enterprise project objective,” states Bill Raymond, Vice management software that provides tools collective portfolio, and President of Solutions and Technology for to align IT investments with business involve more people to Pcubed. objectives, ways to improve performance, Solution quality management capabilities, planning make effective In an effort to address industry best and scheduling capabilities, enterprise decisions without practices and standards across the school templates, skills-based resource district, BCPS decided early in the process assignment, and resource availability creating confusion or that it would base its project management views. adding time to the platform on Microsoft® technologies.  Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services—a component of the Microsoft project. In fact, we are Pcubed worked in conjunction with Windows Server™ 2003 operating system reducing the timeline executives from Microsoft Services to that provides team services and Web sites recommend a Microsoft solution for for information sharing and document for our IT projects developing an Enterprise Project collaboration. Windows SharePoint significantly across the Management (EPM) system. Dell Services, Services enables issue tracking, risk which was managing the hardware management, and document district.” component of the project, also provided management, including check-in/check- support in optimizing a SQL clustering out and version control features. Becky Schmaus, Manager, Project solution for this project.  Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000—data Management Office, Broward County Public management software that provides Schools Education Technology Services The combination of technologies from business intelligence and analysis Microsoft and Dell, with Pcubed’s extensive services, including data warehousing, a experience deploying EPM software, relational database engine, data mining brought the district the best solution with the and rich data analysis, and support for most value in the shortest timeframe. Web-based queries. Specifically, Broward County Public Schools deployed: Benefits According to Schmaus, within three months  Microsoft Office Project Server of the start of the EPM solution deployment, 2003— enterprise project management BCPS was able to automate the project software that provides centralization and management activities of 84 initial projects, standardization of project and resource training 60 project managers in the process. information to enable enterprise resource Today, approximately 300 executives have management, Web-based time and status been trained on the school district’s Project reporting, Web-based views of portfolio Management Office, and the EPM solution is and project performance and data, being used to conceive, deploy, and manage portfolio analysis and modeling, and all new technology initiatives in the school district. presence with a wide range of successful Sonty says, “Project Management Office has client engagements: from multibillion dollar been incorporated into our organization to government, automotive, and infrastructure establish enterprise standards and improve programs to smaller-scale information communication on project status through a technology projects. formal IT process that ensures consistency in developing, executing, and measuring performance on projects.”

“Among the benefits that we have been able to secure from the EPM deployment is much better communications between our various school district departments,” adds Schmaus. “We are now able to manage projects as a collective portfolio and involve more people to make effective decisions without creating confusion or adding time to the project. In fact, we are reducing the timeline for our IT projects significantly across the district.”

The EPM solution also allows IT resource managers and line-of-business managers to see joint initiatives in a more integrated fashion.

“Rather than seeing projects as a series of stand-alone events made up of discrete deadlines, we can still hold the project to a strict discipline but we can manage our project portfolios by continually identifying, prioritizing, and investing in projects that align with our strategy of supporting educational excellence throughout the Broward County Public Schools,” says Schmaus.

About Pcubed Pcubed is a global program management services and solutions company focused on helping clients deliver complex and critical programs. With offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia and Asia, Pcubed has a global For More Information Microsoft Office System For more information about Microsoft Microsoft Office is the business world's products and services, call the Microsoft chosen environment for information work Sales Information Center at (800) 426- that provides the software, servers, and 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft services that help you succeed by Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- transforming information into impact. 2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- of-hearing can reach Microsoft text For more information about Microsoft Office telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) System, go to: 892-5234 in the United States or (905) www.microsoft.com/ ‌office 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com

For more information about Pcubed products and services, visit the Web site at: www.pcubed.com

For more information about Broward County Public School District, visit the Web site at: www.browardschools.com

Software and Services  Technologies  Products − Microsoft Windows SharePoint − Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Services − Microsoft Office Project 2003 − Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Hardware Server 2003  Dell servers − Microsoft SQL Server 2000 − Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Partners Standard Edition  Pcubed  Services  Dell Services − Microsoft Services

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, the Office logo, SharePoint, Windows, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published March 2006