UCI-OIT PMC Meeting - 6/16/16

• Eric Puchalski
• Kian Colestock
• Sarkis Daglian
• Bee Walden
• ROBERT KELLER
• Eric Taggart
• Carmen E Roode
• Kelsey Layos

Absent: 

• Shirley Sharon Stevenson

Location: PSQ-126

Action Items From Prior Meeting:

• Add Robert Keller to DL for PMC. (Eric Puchalski ) COMPLETED
  UPDATE: Added Robert to the PMC mail list.

• Refresh UCI Project Management Community (PMC) page to cover specifics for those looking for assistance. (Eric Puchalski ) IN PROGRESS
  UPDATE: The rewrite is in progress and can be viewed here: UCI Project Management Community (PMC) Resources and Tools

• Schedule a meeting to discuss creation and implementation of single phase-gate. (Kian Colestock) UNKNOWN
  UPDATE: This item was not discussed and its current status is not known.

 Agenda:

1.  (Eric Puchalski ) Classified Data Flag in Projects
   • Discussion: This was discussed at length and the group decided that it would probably not be a useful addition and would add to the complexity of the maintenance forms. There is another effort under way to attach a similar field to the CMDB which would allow projects referencing flagged CIs to be separated from those that do not require access to restricted data.
2.  (Eric Puchalski ) The "Hold" state was added some months ago and is not part of the out-of-the-box installation so there is nothing in the system that would automatically put a project on hold. However, the scripts that run when a project record is updated are designed to put all tasks associated with a project into the same state as the project. Even tasks that are marked “closed” are changed to match the state of the main project. If this is something we want to change, we have a couple choices:
   • • Modify the business rules and scripts to ignore tasks that are complete, or
     • Coach users to set status at the task level and not adjust the top level project once it’s open or in progress.
   • Discussion: It was determined that this behavior is too unpredictable to be allowed to remain in place and a change in the function is needed. Eric P will write up some options and distribute them for the consideration of the PMC members.
3.  (Eric Puchalski ) Provide an update on the effort to identify the problem with projects being updated with an actual completion date when the project is still open.
   • Discussion: This issue is causing errors in status reporting as projects that are still under way get flagged with a completion date. ServiceNow has done some troubleshooting and has suggested that it may be caused by an error in the coding of a system include file that was added by UCI. Eric P said that even after making the recommended changes to the include file the problem is occurring sporadically and additional analysis is required. Eric will continue working on the problem and report back to the PMC as progress is made.

Notes:

1. During the discussion about adding the classified data flag, the purpose of the PMC was discussed and it was again decided that the PMC serves as an advisory group for project managers and users of the ServiceNow Project Management application. However, some of the members voiced a reluctance to incorporate changes to processes or the PM application in ServiceNow without some sort of formal governance procedure. This would include discussion of a change, vetting with the affected users, a recommendation for the change, and formal change management.

Action Items:

1. Prepare list of options for how to deal with the cascading state issue. (Eric Puchalski )
2. Determine if cascading project states is still a problem in Helsinki. (Eric Puchalski )
3. Complete the evaluation of the problem with projects closing more or less at random. Understand how to trigger the problem, document workarounds, and prepare options for resolution. (Eric Puchalski )
4. Prepare a presentation and demo of the ServiceNow PM application under Helsinki. Show this at the July PMC meeting. (This may be pushed to August, depending on everyone's vacation schedules.) (Eric Puchalski )
5. In advance of the PM application demo, send out links to release notes for PM under Helsinki so PMC members can review them prior to the meeting and presentation. (Eric Puchalski )
6. Define a process for implementing changes to the ServiceNow PM forms and the OIT PM methodology. Have this ready for review at the next PMC meeting. (Eric Puchalski )