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IT Program Management Office Integration Effort for Zain Iraq
Challenge
Zain Iraq has grown from literally a capitalized project started in Kuwait to a more than one billion dollar business with over 7.8 million subscribers in just four years. The challenges facing any organization in this type of growth environment are substantial. Add to this a highly volatile security situation in many areas of Iraq and it is easy to see not only the remarkable achievement this represents but the obvious vision and leadership of Zain Iraq's management team. To manage this effort, the organization needed to be highly focused and extremely efficient in everything it did. The vision of the CEO was to create a Program Management Office (PMO) that transcended the traditional boundaries of a PMO and truly bridged the gap between strategy and execution. One of the single largest challenges is managing and building an enterprise and technical Information Technology (IT) infrastructure that can support as well as sustain the business while continuing to provide the highest level of quality service. In addition, this needed to be accomplished within the normal boundaries of telecom best practices for IT spending.
Solution
Zain Iraq had contracted previously with our international partner SLMM International to create their corporate PMO. As an extension to the corporate PMO already created, Zain Iraq again asked SLMM International to perform department level PMO's for critical path functions like IT. These PMO's would serve as feeders to the corporate PMO and Executive Committee to ensure that the operation was meeting its objectives. The four key objectives of the IT PMO were as follows. First, ensure the establishment of a formal, fair, and objective IT Governance Committee (ITGC). The ITGC evaluates the overall portfolio of IT projects against the strategy, the critical path needs of the organization, and the overall financial impact both from a cost and revenue perspective. This included preparing a detailed Master Plan which established clear IT milestones, functional tasks, responsibility assignments, as well as an update/review process. Second, it is a well known fact that more than 50% of IT projects come in over budget and over time estimates. A scoring criteria and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) management system was setup specifically to manage this. Third, provide a mechanism for evaluating new needs or requirements as submitted by the operation or demanded by the market. Here SLMM International established an initiatives evaluation system that could be used by non IT executives to rank and score proposals. Finally the IT PMO effort for Zain looked to create clear business leadership, define IT strategic direction, as well as maintain focus on daily business objectives within the scope of IT.
Benefits/Outcome
The IT PMO has allowed the IT organization in Zain to reduce its operating budget by more than 30% and ensured the timely delivery of critical path initiatives. Additionally, the IT departmental PMO has created a much closer role and link between the technology side of the business and its ability to create a strategic competitive advantage. |
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