PROJECT EMC2
Created by a project manager.
Born out of necessity
Project EMC2 is the tool that I wished I had for the last decade of my career.
When I became CIO of a large university organization and teaching hospital, the first task was to combine the two existing IT groups into one. The independent groups were not operating at a level to keep pace with the demand of the organization and had accumulated a backlog of 85 projects. The complexity of the projects ranged from a few months' effort to multi-year, multi-million-dollar initiatives.
As part of the reorganization, I created a project management office (PMO) and trained a few managers. We cobbled together a set of disparate tools to help us manage the large portfolio, because there was no one solution that met all of our needs.
Fast-forward 3 years and we had everything under control, with the new norm settling in at an average of 15 projects in progress and 5 waiting in the queue at any given time. But it was not without a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
The solution
A few years later I reached retirement. The one thing that kept nagging me was the lack of a single solution that could have helped get us out of that very large hole. I still love coding, so I decided to get to work.
I took all of our experience and combined it with all of the best parts of the tools, techniques, and methodologies we had developed for our PMO. The result is Project EMC2, which focuses on the daily grind of project management. In fact, Project EMC2 stands for "Project Execution, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing," which are three of the project management processes that trained Project Management Professionals (PMP) will recognize.
Well, necessity and passion
Project management is a passion that I inadvertently discovered late in my career. I had always enjoyed coding, but was surprised to find just how much I enjoyed project management. Almost every software development endeavor is a project, and like many others, I had been managing them for years before I realized it was "a thing." I discovered project management training, and became a PMP.
After completing the certification, I joined my local chapter of project management professionals. The community is thriving and helpful, and I learned a lot from my membership and volunteer participation. Now I want to give back, and Project EMC2 is the result of that experience and effort. I sincerely hope you enjoy using it, and I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Randy Anderson
MSCS, PMP #1693689