Project Management Overview

Project Management is a process where a specific objective concerning requirements and demands gets achieved.

The Portfolio Management application comes up with both, Agile and Phased (or Waterfall) project management to support your teams to work efficiently and flexibly on projects. Having automated processes, the Project Management module allows you to manage your tasks just by dragging and dropping via Gantt and Kanban.

The project is broken down into stages which helps to keep track of:

Budgets
Risk of Projects
Sprints or Phases, Tasks, and Subtasks to look at the progress in detail
Has a dedicated Manager

Project Management allows viewing and creating sprints or phases, and tasks with allocated resources. A detailed Gantt diagram can be seen from Project which allows you to view the schedule, helps access the duration of the project, determine the resources required, and plan to complete your tasks on time.

An agile project helps in managing a project by breaking it into several sprints and involving constant collaboration with stakeholders and constant improvement and iteration at every sprint.

The phased project's main purpose has always been to help internal teams more efficiently through the sequential phases of a project.

Project Management roles

The following end-user roles are for the Project Management module of the Portfolio Management application.

Project Manager

Project Managers have the responsibility for the planning, procurement, and execution of the projects to which they are assigned as project managers. They also take care of creating and scheduling sprints, phases, and tasks for the projects. The project manager has access to create Ideas from BMC Helix Digital Workplace and Portfolio Management application. They can view, vote, and add activity notes in ideas created by him/her and other contributors as well. The project manager can access those demands which have created projects and are assigned as project managers. For more details, see Product Roles under Orientation.

Project Task User

Project Task Users implement or deploy the tasks assigned in different projects. They also take care of the tasks assigned to the teams to which the task user belongs. A task user can be assigned to tasks in different projects and belongs to different teams. For more details, see Product Roles under Orientation.

Project Master

The Project Master has complete access to all the Projects and can create and schedule sprints, phases, and tasks for the projects. Project masters can access the demands that have created projects. For more details, see Product Roles under Orientation.

Portfolio Manager

Portfolio Managers can create and edit projects and demands in the portfolios to which they are assigned as the portfolio manager. For more details, see Product Roles under Orientation.

End-to-end process

The following figure provides an overview of the project lifecycle.

The following figures provide an overview of the sprint and phase.

The following figures provide an overview of the task lifecycle.

The project management process consists of the following procedures for handling new projects.

The portfolio manager logs in to the Portfolio Management application and creates a new project by following the steps in Creating projects.
The project is created in 'Draft' status. Once the portfolio manager considers it feasible and necessary they assign a project manager and change the status to 'Plan/Prepare' by following the steps under Changing project statuses. Projects, created by Demands, are in 'Plan/Prepare' status where initially the project manager is assigned to the portfolio manager.
Once the portfolio manager assigns a project manager, the assigned project manager gets a notification. For more details, see Notification Matrix.
The project manager introduces project details, see Viewing and updating project details, and identifies the work:
1. creates sprints by following steps Creating sprints in status 'New' or phases in status 'Staged' by following steps Creating phases. Upon creating new sprint/phase, the assigned sprint/phase manager gets a notification. For more details, see Notification Matrix.
2. creates tasks in the backlog of the project, see Creating tasks in backlog. Upon creating new task, the assigned Task Assignee OR (Project Task User) gets a notification. For more details, see Notification Matrix.
3. relate tasks in the backlog with sprints or phases, see Relating tasks to a sprint or a phase and unrelating. When a task is related to a Sprint or Phase the status task is updated to 'Selected for Sprint' or 'Selected for Phase' automatically. Once the Sprint has tasks added the status changes to 'Plan/Prepare'.
4. defines teams to work on the project by following the steps in Defining teams.
5. assigns tasks to the teams or task users in the team, see Viewing and updating task details.
6. schedules the project using the Gantt Diagram tool, see Gantt Chart.
The project manager decides to start the project implementation and changes the status of the project to 'In Progress' status by following the steps Changing project statuses.
- If the project type is Agile, the project manager moves the sprints to the 'In Progress' status by following the steps Changing sprint status, then all task-related to the sprints are updated to the 'To Do' status automatically, and the project task users assigned can start with the implementation.
- If the project type is Phased, the first phase in the project moves to 'Active' status automatically, then all tasks related to the phase are updated to 'To Do' status automatically and project task users assigned can start with the implementation.
Project task users implement the assigned tasks and update the status of the tasks to 'Done' by following the steps Changing task statuses. Project task users can create subtasks into the assigned tasks to split the work, see Creating subtasks, and assign the tasks to other task users or teams in the project.
The project manager can complete Sprints or Phases where all the tasks are 'Done' or 'Cancelled' by following the steps under Changing sprint statuses or Changing phase statuses. If the Automatic Done field of the Sprint or Phase is 'Yes', the Sprint or Phase changes to 'Done' status automatically once all tasks are 'Done'.
If the project manager decides to cancel the project and updates the status to 'Cancelled', see Changing project statuses, all opened sprints or phases and tasks related to the project are cancelled automatically. When a project manager cancels a sprint or phase by following steps under Changing sprint statuses or Changing phase statuses, all opened tasks related are cancelled automatically.
Only when all sprints or phases of the project are 'Done', the project manager can change the status of the project to 'Completed', see Changing project statuses. During this stage, the main emphasis is on:
- Result
- Delivery of requirement
- Quality, Bugs, Documentation
- Release of project resources
- Communication to all stakeholders on completion

Project Management data access model

The Project Management application uses row-level security (RLS) to control access to the record and fields. RLS is applied using Security Labels in BMC Helix Innovation Studio.

The following table describes the Security Labels required for Project Management:

Security Label name	Description
Project Owner	Access to the project, sprints/phases and tasks. Grants write access to modify the project, sprints/phases and tasks. The permission is assigned to the submitter when the project is created (generally the portfolio manager).
Project Assignee	Access to the project, sprints/phases tasks. Grants write access to modify the project, sprints/phases and tasks. The permission is assigned to the project manager, who can change the assignments.
Project Teams	Access to the project and sprints/phases but without write access. Grant write access to modify tasks. The permission is assigned to the members of the teams of the project.
Demand Assignee	Access to the project but without write access and any access to sprints/phases and tasks. When the project is created by demand, permission is assigned to the demand manager. The assignments are automatically updated when we change the demand manager for the given demand.
Portfolio Assignee	Access to the project, sprints/phases and tasks. Grants write access to modify the project, sprints/phases and tasks. The permission is assigned to the portfolio manager of the portfolio. The assignments are automatically updated when we change the portfolio manager for the given portfolio.
Program Assignee	Access to the project, sprints/phases and tasks. Grants write access to modify the project, sprints/phases and tasks. The permission is assigned to the program manager of the program. The assignments are automatically updated when we change the program manager for the given program.
Additional Read Access	Access to the project, sprints/phases tasks but without write access. The permission is assigned to the users added to the 'Additional Read Access' list within the project. See Setting additional access for a project.
Additional Write Access	Access to the project, sprints/phases tasks. Grants write access to modify the project, sprints/phases and tasks. The permission is assigned to the project managers added to the 'Additional Write Access' list within the project. See Setting additional access for a project.