Professional Services Project Management

Customer success = GitLab product implementation, on time, on budget delivery of agreed upon scope, faster time to value that leads to satisfied customers that see the added value of GitLab products and PS

SOW Close

Given the close collaboration between the PS Project Management and PS Operations team functions, please refer to the PS Operations Wiki for details on processes related to scheduling, reporting, billing, partner processes, and more.

Project Initiate & Plan

1. After obtaining Legal approval, PS Quote triggers an Epic in Gitlab.com around the recently sold Professional Services Project, at the Professional Services Group level. This Customer Epic is labeled as SOW# + Customer and includes links to relevant Customer & contract information
2. Once a prosepctive Services deal reaches “Stage 5” (likely to close) or “Stage 6” (closing) in the PS Customer Journey, the PSOps team refers to the Customer Epic to find the “Scheduling Intake” issue. From this issue, the Resource Scheduling team works to gather the initial information needed to assign the PS Resources (PM, PSE, TA)
   • To find the right resources required, the PSOPs team will refer back to the Customer Epic to find the “Scope Engagement and Write SoW” issue (managed by the Engagement Managment Team). This is where the scheduling team confirm skillsets needed, timing of the project, Project type (Time & Materials or Fixed Fee), etc.
   • This scoping issue this is where the PM’s, TA’s, and PSE’s work to gather the initial project information, scoping breakdown, and estimated schedule
   • For Consulting Blocks please see below
3. Below you can follow the steps of the Scheduling Intake process. Note: Before the PSOPs team can begin PM assignment The Engagement Management Team must ensure Steps 1-2 are considered The full checklist is available within the Scheduling Intake Issue, found within the Customer Project Epic
   • Step 1: Customer Goal Summary - EM to provide
   • Step 2: EM/Sales defines the roles and personalities of all customer stakeholders
   • Step 3: PSops works with PMO Manager on PM assignment
   • Step 4: PM confirms information & PSops Schedules PSE
   • Step 5: Introductions - EM/AE
   • Step 6: Collaboration approach & Onboarding Gathered by PM
   • Step 7: Collaboration Space Preparation - PM
   • Step 8: Conduct Stakeholder Meeting - PM
   • Step 9: Step 9: Conduct Kickoff & Forecast Updates - PM

Collaboration Space Guidelines

1. Create Project in Gitlab.com using CP (Customer Project requirements) new steps to CP coming soon

   • Create sub group with customer name under Gitlab Professional Services Group if staffed internally or Gitlab Partner Collaboration Group if staffed fully or partially with partners
   • Create a blank project under your new subgroup with SOW-<sow_number>
   • Add epics for each activity including labels: “PM::name” “PSD Workflow::Not Started” “SOW-00”. Issues will be created at a later stage by the technical team under the right epic

2. The PM to ensure the communiation plan, delivery methodology, scope definitions, time, and budget are aligned as we head into Delivery. All professional services engagements that are successful essentially follow 11 steps, regardless of specific customer framework, process, or SDLC flavor involved. The steps are:

• Identify, document, and conduct an engagement strategy based on the specific customer situation
• Build awareness and excitement at all levels - regularly communicate status to all relevant parties: executives, buyers, stakeholders
• Identify MVP pilot project(s) - we always utilize one or more MVPs to prove out our engagement strategy
• Train the customer development team(s)
• Develop product backlog and estimates for the engagement
• Run iterations / sprints producing incremental value
• Identify metrics - make data centric decisions
• Gather feedback and improve – adjust the process
• Mature - Delivery Kits, Runbooks, Tooling
• Scale across other teams, programs, portfolios - scale in waves
• Regularly Assess and Refine

For Consulting Blocks and Dedicated Engineer Projects

1. Description of Work (DoW) is used when a scope discrepancy (or lack of definition/clarity) is identified in the SoW and both GitLab and the customer agree to the scope change that does not impact the project budget ($0), project duration, project finances or any legal aspects. Unlike the Change Order process, for the DoW, the GitLab & customer signatory will be the technical stakeholder, or, a Director.
2. The DoW is also used to add additional detail to a Consulting Block SKU that has been sold. A DoW is created by the Engagement Management team and attached to the Customer Epic prior to the Customer Success Planning call.
3. If the DoW is intended to be reviewed and completed/approved during the Discovery meeting with the Customer, the EM needs to request this in the intake issue so the Delivery team can work on gathering the necessary inputs for Delivery.
4. Template for a DoW can be found here
5. The DoW does not need to be signed by the client. Simply attach the document, or write out the confirmation in an email, and request for Customer approval. Whichever is more convenient for the Customer. Attach the screenshot in the Epic.

Forecasting Process for PMO Team

PS/PMO Cadence Schedule

• Pinned to the ps_pmo Slack channel
• The purpose of this reference is to understand the relationship between PMO updates to Projects (health, forecasts, timecards) and PS Operations (reports, resource scheduling). Goal is to ensure Project and Program Managers are updating Project forecast in a consistent and symbiotic way to support both our PS Ops teams, as well as communicate our PS Project Portfolio review across the GitLab organization

Kantata

Kantata is our primary Resource Management software. From here the PMO team reviews and manages the Delivery team hours against the Project scope in order to effectively report on Project progress with the Customer.

1. Make sure you are assigned as the lead of the project in Kantata
2. Go to Kantata > Resourcing > Resource Center > Projects and filter by Project Lead = you to review the allocations for your projects
3. Go to Kantata > Resourcing > Resource Center > Team Members to see a specific resource(s) availability in case you need to change or increase allocations
4. There are 2 types of bookings:
   • Soft bookings are non-confirmed allocations for team members (displayed as striped cells)
   • Hard bookings ate confirmed allocations (displayed as colored cells)
5. Allocations’ review: *Soft allocations are introduced by the Operations team when opportunity is won and it needs to be reviewed once project is assigned *You can request your soft bookings to become hard bookings and hours to be adjusted as needed and agreed with the customer during the kick-off. You can do that from the Resource Center by clicking the resource row under the project and entering your request as a message for your assigned OPS person under Activity. Don’t forget to click “Post” once ready!
6. If you need to create a new resource request, you do that from the Resource Center > Projects. Under the list of assigned team members, you can click “Add Team Member” or “Add unnamed Resource”, fill-in the information at the top of the pop-up and click “Submit Request”. NB: Clicking “Post” will not submit the request.

Billable vs NonBillable information, please refer to Team Metrics page

Reporting Project Health

The PMO team ensures our forecast & upside is updated by Monday, 11am EST, as the PS Ops team prepares the weekly reports per the PS Reporting schedule. The Top Customer is provided to the PM team by PS Ops by 12pm EST on Tuesdays, and the PM team is expected to update the notes (as outlined below) by The PS Reporting Schedule, Weekly Revenue Forecast Reports, and Kantata information pinned to the ps_PMO Slack channel

Time & Materials (T&M) vs Fixed Fee (Fixed Fee) *defintions to be added_

Forecasting Time and Materials (T&M) and Fixed Fee (FF)

Forecast allocations impact PS revenue forecast and team members availability, utilization and planning

• Soft allocations are used when final schedule is not known yet, for visibility and planning. Soft allocation will not promise team member availability for a project, and will not be projected into the revenue forecast

• Hard allocations will promise team member availability, for the requested hours, once approved by the project coordinator. The allocated hours will also project into the revenue forecast

• For T&M and FF projects, it is the responsibility of the PM to forecast (hard-book) the PM, PSE, and TA time for the project 2 months out in Kantata. Our goal is to be able to be accurate within +/- 5% of our estimated forecast.

• For Consulting Blocks and Dedicated Engineer Services, we sometimes enter these engagements knowing very little about the project (as it is generally purchased as a SKU). Therefore, our goal is to be within +/- 10% of our estimated forecast after we have our initial EM>PS Transition Meeting

• To ensure forecast revenue is accurate go under Resource Center in Kantata:

  1. Select “Project Tab” and filter via “My Projects”
  2. Expand project you are allocating for so you can see all PS Engineers and yourself
  3. Click on each team member’s name and submit RR request via the “activity” window opened and assign to Project Coordinator as recipient

• If it’s a FF project, we need to update the dates on the Milestones in order for it to reflect in our forecast:

  1. Open your project and open the “Task Tracker” tab
  2. Expand milestones
  3. Update sign off date

• It is helpful to call out forecast that “pushes” in the Top Customer report

How to Track Upside

• Upside is reviewed on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. There are four scenarios around when we need to track upside within our weekly revenue tracking sheet (which is pinned to our ps-pmo channel)
• If we are unable to confidently forecast the project resources 2 months out, we need to soft-book their/our time in Katata, and ensure that time is added to the upside report.
• If we have a pending CO that is not yet reflected in Katata, add it to Upside if the work in the CO will be completed this quarter
• If we anticipate a Milestone date will be adjusted to complete in the quarter, but it has not yet been confirmed/verified, add it to the Upside
• It is helpful to call upside out in the customer report. ex: can only soft-forecast “x” amount because of “y” restraints

Top Customer Report

• Updated by 8am EST Wed
• Pinned to ps_pmo Slack channel
• Update the following in the Notes section
• 1-lined progress update
• If there is an issue, what is the proposed action + timing of fix.
• If there is assistance needed
• DRI & contributors
• Internal temperature (R-Y-G) | Customer temperature (R-Y-G)
• Link to RAID & Internal Customer Epic if Y/R (to review WE, CO, WaR)

Forecast call prep (to be complete by 10am est Mondays)

1. Run “Remaining Funds to Forecast” report   a. Select project status b. Sort by project lead/PM
2. Ensure that you have start/complete dates in for ALL of your project tasks
3. Run your Forecast report and ensure it’s accurate
4. Add upside added to forecast sheet (daily/weekly):
5. Run the “Task Audit Report”
6. a. Sort by PM b. NOTE: Donita will create a Loom recording to walk through the details of this new report
7. Run the Allocation report a. Review all soft & hard bookings and look at all team members in light blue b. Help to find work for these team members as they are under allocated!
8. Review all soft-bookings Allocation report a. Select All roles b. Select Full quarter c. There should be no soft allocations for the current month unless the project has just kicked off d. Ensure hard bookings are in place for all projects post kick-off

Deliver, Train, and Monitor

Please reference the PSDM (Professional Services Delivery Methodology) page for more information.

*this also includes information on how we track/report on risk and escalated projects (via RAID), internal retrospective guidelines, tracking lessons learned, and capturing Customer and Project wins

Iterate and Validate

Managing to Project Scope Changes

Project scope for Professional Services is the outline of the work required to deliver a Service against the Customer use case. This includes an overview of the work to be delivered (scope definitions), duration, and resources (cost). All of which is included in the Statement of Work (SOW). If there is a change in project scope, the Project/Program Manager will follow the guidelines below to ensure we properly capture

1. Change Order

   • Change orders (CO) are common elements of Professional Services engagements that can modify the scope definitions, duration, or cost of an ongoing project. A change order issue and a change order template is created by the Project/Program Manager and communicated with the Engagement Manager and Account Team. It is always attached to the Internal Customer Epic Issue.

   • Common project scope change scenarios:

     • Does need a CO:
     • Change of scope definitions where the project budget requires additional funds. The PM should work with the EM/Account Team to fill out the Change Order template. From here, the EM will create a new PS opportunity for the amount required to fulfill the scope change. A new Kantata project will then be created by the PSOps team.
     • If an existing project is requested to be pushed out two months, with similar project activities and deliverables as the original scope, and the customer agrees to use the original SOW, a change order must be created and associated with a new PS opportunity that reflects the extension.
     • If the Project moves from T&M to FF (or vice versa)
     • If you feel the Project needs a CO (especially on FF projects)

   • Does not need a CO:

     • If there is a change of project scope definitions within the SOW duration and budget, no change order is needed. The PM must get written confirmation with the Customer on the change of Scope definitions. This written confirmation must be screenshot & attached to the associated Project Epic.
     • For extensions less than 2 months past the SOW expiration, the PM should capture written confirmation (from email or Slack) and attach the confirmation to the “Scope Engagement and Write SoW” issue found within the customer Epic.

2. Work at Risk (WaR)

   • A WaR issue serves as a means to gain approval from PS leadership to commence project staffing or initiation before all paperwork is finalized. This approval is necessary whenever there’s a requirement to commit to project start dates before the opportunity is completely closed. It’s essential for both consulting and training projects. The responsibility for initiating WaR lies with the assigned Project or Program Manager with the EM/AE teams. This will enable the Delivery team to start staffing the project promptly. When seeking approval for Work at Risk, please follow the steps outlined in the WaR template above.
   • A WaR is not billed to the customer until after the contract is signed
   • Common scenarios:
     • Kicking off a project before SOW is signed by the Customer
     • Resuming work before the CO is signed by the Customer, or the change is captured in writing

3. Work Exception (WE)

   • A Work Exception is used by a PM when seeking approval for a project to exceed the hours/budget originally allotted. Use the Work Exception issue template to gain approvals from PS leadership. It can be used independently or including a CO.
   • Ensuring we include labels as a PM is crucial, as this is how we will better track and improve our transition process from Sales to PS.

   Work Exception Report - callouts for reasonings behind additional PS effort without a CO request. This includes Product challenges, scoping definition misalignment, insufficient PS hours, or other PS related items.

Deploy & Close

to be updated

• Complete this sign off workflow
• Schedule Project closure meeting
• Schedule Project Retrospective
• Regional Manager to provide a closeout report including estimated hours, actual hours, deliverable documents, and lessons learned to broader team. Post this in #ps-project-leadership and make sure to mention the Engagement Manager team @em
• Request/capture CSAT responses from Customer
• Close Project in Kantata

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