Requesters as Project Owners

[MelanieM1]

My company is headed down a path where they are going to have Requesters creating their own projects "to speed up the process."  We have anywhere from 50-70 Requesters.  This seems like a nightmare in my opinion, but does anyone else work like this?  If so, can you share your experience?  I only foresee issues with this, but it's not my call.  I can only inform them of the pros and cons so reaching out to this helpful community for tips and advice.  

[KellieGardner]

Biggest con in my opinion would be resource management and priorities downstream. If you have 50-70 people assigning work to the same resources, how will priorities be determined and how will teams know what work they should be doing. 

[skyehansen]

how often does each requester submit a request? Creating projects isn't something I would just let people do randomly, and if requesters don't get into the system frequently enough they are at risk of error.

I would sooner try and get an automation set up for projects to create themselves than have to train 50-70 people to do this (plus keep training them) -- you can use the cost savings from not having to assign and maintain 50-70 paid licenses, to pay for this easily.

[MelanieM1]

Yes it would involve a lot of training!  We currently have Placeholder programs built through Automation.  I will check with the team to see if they can create automated projects.  I wonder if the Requester could still submit their request as normal and then it gets auto-converted to a project with the correct template under the correct portfolio.  We will still have some PMs but very few compared to what they have now, so a PM is not going to be able to manage all these projects.  

[skyehansen]

yes, this is what we do. (requester submits and fusion auto converts to a project using a template and places under the correct portfolio)

not mentioned in your original question but what else is the requester responsible for (especially since you mention PM cannot manage these projects)?

[Madalyn_Destafney]

Hi @skyehansen , just curious, once your projects are set up, who manages/drives them during execution?

[skyehansen]

For the workflow I was talking about, we have PMs based on the line of business. So it would be whoever is the PM who is automatically assigned based on the line of business that were selected by the requester. For example, it would be a different PM if they submitted a request for a "cell service" marketing campaign vs "internet service" (just making up two lines of business)

[Madalyn_Destafney]

Smells like a clear argument to get a couple more PMs... : )