Project Management Basics

The Strategic Project Review and Resource Committee (SPRRC) is made up of representatives from each major VP division on campus and they review all new cross-divisional project requests. The process and committee seek to bring visibility to cross-divisional project requests to discuss resourcing needs across the institution, and to ensure strategic alignment of projects with core university goals and objectives. By reviewing all requests for work and prioritizing them against approved metrics, all divisions can improve resourcing efforts and allocation of project workload. Information about SPRRC is currently added to the ITS site while a new SPRRC site is built.

Projects are reviewed and approved on a quarterly cycle. Requests for each quarter must be submitted to the committee to be reviewed a month before quarter end. Project submissions are then reviewed by SPRRC and given a priority. Work is assigned based on priority and resource availability.

• Log into ServiceNow and type in Demand in upper left hand corner.
• Scroll down to Demand > Demands and select Create New
  
• If you have not done so already, toggle annotations ON via the “…” in the upper right-hand corner of the page:
  
• Open the ServiceNow PPM: Submit a new Demand Knowledge Article, which will guide you through each field that must be filled out for a cross-divisional Demand to be reviewed by SPRRC.
  • Please note that this KB article can always be found on the Business Case tab of the Demand record when annotations are turned on.
• Fill out all fields as noted in the KB article, including the guided fields on the Business Case tab, to the best of your ability.
  • If you have any questions about how to fill out your Demand, please contact the Demand Intake Project Manager or Portfolio Manager or e-mail ITSPMO@nau.edu.
• Once fields in the upper section of your Demand have been completed, click Save in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
• You will see that a series of tabs will appear on the bottom of the page. Scroll down and click the “Resource Plans” tab. Fill out all Resource Plans to the best of your ability.
• Select Submit in the upper right-hand corner of the page when finished.

Note: This section was updated on 8/31/2021 and will be updated in the PPM Knowledge Base in Winter 2021.

According to the Project Management Institute, a Project is defined as “A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.”

This means your project has:

• Defined and measurable goals/objectives to achieve
• Start and end dates

Each division may have different rules and guidelines about how projects are requested, reviewed and approved.  In addition to each division’s project review process, the university-wide governing board called the Strategic Project Review and Resourcing Committee (SPRRC) meets weekly to discuss and review all cross-divisional projects (excluding capital building projects).

Projects must be reviewed by SPRRC when:

• • Projects are “cross-divisional,” meaning they require resources from more than one VP line.
  • Projects require more than 10 hours of total resourcing time from another division within an 90-day cycle.

For NAU employees without access to PPM:

Please email a report request to: ITSPMO@nau.edu

For NAU employees with access to PPM:

Projects that require ITS resources, or that have been submitted through the SPRRC committee may be viewed on the by anyone with an ITS login in ServiceNow by doing the following:

• On the upper left hand corner type in “Reports”.
• 
• Select “Reports-View/Run”
• Select “All Reports” from top menu.
• On the right side search bar type in: “SPRRC”
• For the current Quarter: Select report “SPRRC Active Projects”
• For the next Quarter: Select report “SPRRC Projects Rolling Forward”

Please note that some projects may have a dedicated website with additional project details (such as the OGEI project, or the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.2 Upgrade).  Watch for communication from these projects for more detailed information and site links.

If you have specific questions about Project Management processes at NAU, you may find answers via our ServiceNow Knowledge Base.

If you have any additional questions or needs, please reach out to us at ITSPMO@nau.edu and we will discuss available options with you.