OTS staff is involved in strategic and tactical initiatives that deliver on the needs of our credit union partners and our organization. These needs translate into a significant percentage of our organizational capacity being dedicated to project support. To optimize the balance between the supply and demand for project resources, established portfolio and project management processes exist.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Project Portfolio Management processes ensure that projects are initiated and executed with awareness and authorization from appropriate stakeholders. This starts with a yearly project planning process (an input into OTS’s resourcing strategy), is followed by a prioritization and scheduling process and continues with the formal initiation and monitoring of projects in the portfolio.

Since OTS is a shared, information technology services organization, the portfolio management processes are governed by a cross-credit union committee. This committee ensures that both the project portfolio and OTS resources are serving the collaborative and individual needs of our partners.

Project resources are managed by technical specialty. Monitoring the capacity and demand for OTS’s technical professionals ensures a balance between project demands and the available resources, both by project but also by resource role.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The ultimate goal of any project management process is to ensure timely, quality delivery that meets or exceeds customer’s needs. OTS delivers project management services through collaboratively-defined methods using a mix of experienced project managers and capable technical professionals.

The Project Life Cycle (PLC) methodology, a proprietary process for initiating, planning and executing projects is followed on all projects managed by OTS. It was collaboratively developed with our credit union partners to ensure consistency, flexibility and fit across the organizations.

OTS provides its member partners with seasoned project management staff that provide project management and project coordination services. Project manager expertise is matched to the complexity of each project. A flexible resourcing strategy allows OTS to extend its experienced project manager capacity to meet the needs of the portfolio. All professionals fulfilling project management roles in the organization are encouraged to pursue professional certification and continuing education opportunities.