PeopleSoft 9.1 Upgrade Project Charter

Project Name:
PeopleSoft  9.1 Upgrade 		Project Customer: 
Project Sponsor: Richard Cate Date: 04/14/2011
Project Manager: Susan Skalka, with Julia Russell Revision Number: 0

A Project Charter’s purpose is to reach a common understanding with everyone who has a stake in the success of the project including:

Why the project is being conducted;
What results the project will deliver; and,
How, through whom, and over what time frame, the project will deliver those results.

PROJECT GOALS & DESCRIPTION

The focus of the PeopleSoft 9.1 upgrade project is to continue improving services to the University community and maintain our long-term investment in the Oracle PeopleSoft administrative suite.  

UVM purchased the PeopleSoft administrative suite including the Financials, Human Resources and EPM systems in 2004.  Given the constant demand for system change based on regulation changes and demand for new services, as well as increased speed of technological changes, this software is constantly updated.  This means that continuous updates to our production systems must be made, and major upgrades which provide new functionality, performance and technology updates will generally need to occur every few years. This should be looked at as the new state of affairs; software updates will continually be released and we will need to apply them in order to stay current.

Oracle/PeopleSoft will stop support for our existing 8.9 versions of PeopleSoft at a certain point. Therefore, UVM must upgrade to maintain support and to have an upgrade path to the future Oracle/PeopleSoft versions. The upgrade will also put us in a position to be able to leverage new and improved functionality within the PeopleSoft software.

DELIVERABLES
  • A project scope document for each sub-project, EPM, FSCM and HCM
  • A plan for an initial readiness assessment and fit-gap process for each system
  • An overall communication and change management plan
  • A detailed project plan for each sub-project, EPM, FSCM and HCM
  • An overall strategy for customization review, to include a strategy for handling queries during the upgrade, and a signoff step
  • A overall development standards document
  • An Test Plan, and Test Inventory for each system
 
Provide a high level list of “what” needs to be done in order to reach the goals of the project.  Each deliverable should be sufficiently detailed so that the Project Team will understand what needs to be accomplished.  Describe the deliverable using action words (verbs) such as “deliver, provide, create, research, etc. 
 
Deliverables should be measurable, so the Project Sponsor and Team can determine whether the deliverable has been successfully completed at the project’s conclusion.
 

ACCEPTANCE / SUCCESS CRITERIA
 
Describe what acceptance criteria will be applied to the deliverables.  How will the Project Sponsor and Team know that the project goals have been met?
 
We will know that we have been successful if each system is upgraded to PeopleSoft version 9.1 and those who use the software are able to conduct their work without interruption or slowdown. The number of calls for support and footprints should not increase over our current volume after an initial period of adjustment time of two months.
  
 

 PROJECT MILESTONES
 
  1. Initial Planning Documents Completed
  2. Change Management plans completed
  3. For each system:
  4. Database ready on version 9.1 with existing tools
  5. Assessment Sessions held
  6. Customization analysis completed, and customizations applied
  7. Database ready for testing
  8. User testing begins
  9. System testing begins
  10. Training documentation updated
  11. Training sessions designed
  12. Training delivered
  13. Go Live
  14. Post-Go Live Debrief Session
 

 ASSUMPTIONS, CONSTRAINTS,DEPENDENCIES & HIGH-LEVEL RISK ASSESSMENT

Staff availability: staff identified in this plan must be available to work on the upgrade on the defined schedule
Task Coordination: Close coordination of decisions related to database readiness, the PeopleTools upgrade, set up, business process change, modifications and interfaces is critical so no system is adversely impacted. Likewise, close coordination of upgrade tasks, particularly where start-to-finish dependencies exist and ownership of upgrade progression changes hands needs to be managed tightly with frequent communications and clear handoffs by the Project Management Team.
Staff Attitude: The staff involved in the project need to be on board with the project and publically support it.
   
Risks: Adding a PeopleTools upgrade as well as an Oracle Database upgrade, database operating system upgrade and database hardware upgrade during the same timeframe and for the same go-live date as the 9.1 upgrades introduces more risk to the project. This will impact the availability of resources, and the number of factors that could contribute to issues.
 
Identify the assumptions that were made to form the basis of defining scope.  Also identify any assumptions that will be made for the purposes of planning the project.   The objective here is to set the boundaries and address how the triple project management constraint (scope, time and cost) are potentially impacted/managed.
 
List any constraints  (potential factors that will impact the delivery or make it difficult to manage the project) on the project or dependencies on resources or funding to the project.  Consider time, cost, dates and regulatory issues as constraints or dependencies to the project.

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

After the Assessment sessions are held, we will determine if any consulting or other additional resources are needed.