Hi-Tech Gateway focuses on four elements in the Management practice area. They are Change Management, Project Management, Testing, and Business Process Design. With our expertise in Change Management, we help you manage change to achieve your desired results and ready your resources to embrace and effect change.
Along every step of the way, Hi-Tech Gateway employs rigorous and tight Project Management skills to assure timely deliverables, high-quality results, smooth resource planning, and clear communications. Our approach to Testing and Validation produces a powerful, flexible, and cohesive system for assessing products and services. In our Business Process Design efforts, we design and operationalize new business processes and improve technology, workflow, and information. These efforts result in cost efficiencies and improved effectiveness, preparing you for the rapidly changing, fast-paced future.
Hi-Tech develops Management solutions for many industries; we have extensive experience in the Law, Travel, Financial Services, Medical/Healthcare, Energy, Communications (Telecommunications), Entertainment, and Banking industries. Specifically, Hi-Tech Gateway expertise includes:
Document Management Systems
Validation and Testing in a Regulated Environment
Product Development Process
Organizational Structure for Change
Support for Deregulation (Telecommunications, Energy)
Teleservices, Direct Marketing, and Promotional Management
Management of Complex Projects in Highly Regulated Environments and those Less Regulated
Managing for Compliance
New Product Entry
RFP Analysis
Risk Management
Tools for Project Management are essential to ensuring success and enhancing the overall performance of the project team. Many tools are available to manage a project so a selection has to be made regarding applicability and value for effort expended: "bang for the buck." For instance, some tools take so long to implement that the value is never realized in the course of the project. The Project Management tools used in this project are each a deliverable to the client. A brief description of each Project Management tool follows:
The Leadership Agreement is a process with a clear deliverable for up front planning for projects. It lays the foundation for tools that can dynamically be used for good project Management throughout the project.
This process assures clarity and understanding of goals and expectations and alignment of resources and actions to those goals. It also establishes the framework for detailed activity planning, risk assessment, budget planning, boundary/constraint/ assumption identification, team processes and resource assignment. By developing this detailed information up front, this allows for Executive/ Sponsorship understanding, awareness and commitment and involvement. It also produces an output that can be dynamically used throughout the management of the project and that establishes the foundation for decision making, resource assignment, event planning, scheduling, budgeting, etc. It promotes the initial engagement of the Core Team and helps forge their working relationship for the upcoming project. In this case, it was put together during the first three months of the project. All stakeholders in the project signed-off on the agreement to assure commitment.
The Project Schedule describes the milestones and task details of the project. On this project, the tasks were organized by major milestone and functional area. Major revisions of the schedule took place 3 times during the project. Updates to track progress took place every week. Each task is color coded where green dots signify completed tasks, white are on time, yellow are slipping, red are late. This offers a strong visual presentation of project status to team members reviewing the plan. Statistics from the schedule are input to the key indicator report. The schedule keeps all team members abreast of progress in the effort. A copy of the updated schedule is furnished to each Core Team member and the project Sponsor.
The Fourteen Day Look Ahead report consists of tasks filtered from the project schedule using the criteria of all tasks up to two weeks ahead including late tasks and sorted by functional area. The report is provided to each Core Team member each week. It helps the Core Team member focus on the tasks at hand and the late tasks. Again, each task is color coded where white are on time, yellow are slipping and red are late.
The Key Indicator Report is the cornerstone of the measurement phase of the project. It brings together all of the performance data collected throughout the project including planned vs. actual tasks completed, milestones met and issues resolved. In this case the report was broken out into the functional areas. Generated weekly, the Key Indicator Report is distributed to the Core Team and the Sponsor serving to keep everyone abreast of team performance while highlighting imminent and potential problems.
The Issues Management System is a database of issues raised during the project. Issues defined by the Core Team. Documenting the issue allows it to be tracked to completion. Issues are logged by Core Team members as they arise. Most issues come out of design review meetings and are cross referenced in the issues management database to facilitate audits. The Issues Management System promotes timely resolution off issues through the reporting system. Source and resolution device history file IDs are tracked to facilitate clear audit trails. Open issues reports are generated weekly for the Core Team and follow-up on by the Project Manager. Issues performance is reported in the key indicator report.
The Design History File (Fact Book) is the complete documentation of the project. All essential documents are organized into volumes, one for each guideline in the FDA Quality System Regulation (QSR): Planning, Design Input, Design Output, Design Verification, Design Validation, Design Transfer, Design Reviews, Design Change, Index & Cross Reference. Each volume is divided into functional areas. All documents are listed in the DHF matrix with all the essential descriptive information about document type, location, author, responsible party, functional area and so forth. The unique DHF number for each document is used to track and cross reference the document to the issues management system. The DHF makes it possible to readily find all relevant documents for the project using one of several sort keys or search criteria. It is available to all team members both in hard copy and electronically.
The Hi-Tech Deliverables are delivered in each phase. They are:
Problem/Opportunity - Identification- Problem/Opportunity Statement- usually 1 paragraph to 1 page identifying the problem or Opportunity, Assumptions, Constraints, Goals at a high level.
Diagnostic - Diagnostic Report- A detailed report delivering the results and analysis of the Diagnostic effort. This can be assessment, process diagramming, gap analysis, etc.
Design & Recommendation - Design/Recommendations- Usually 1 to many pages depending on scope of project.
Development - The deliverables can vary here depending on the nature of the project. For Development efforts these deliverables are Specs, Engineering drawings, etc as well as a Project Plan.
Implementation Planning - Implementation Plan detailing the who, what, when, how and where of Implementation.
Implementation - The deliverable here is the results of the project's Implementation.
Measurement - Measurement Report which reports on how well the results met the initial Goals.
