Setting the context for Advisory Services at Cambridge Technology Partners

Statistics on IT project delivery
Although there has been some improvement on IT project delivery since the Chaos Reports was first published in 1999, the situation has unfortunately not changed dramatically. 2/3 projects are still canceled or challenged, and only a 1/3 are truly successful.



There are also some other statistics which can be found in all kinds of reports:

• $80 -145 billion per year is spent on failed and canceled projects (The Standish Group International, Inc.)
• 60% - 80% of project failures can be attributed directly to poor requirements gathering, analysis, and management (Meta Group)
• 40% of problems are found by end users (Gartner)
• Poorly defined applications have led to a persistent miscommunication between business and IT. This contributes to a 66% project failure rate for these applications (Forrester Research)

If you want to be part of the 35% successfully delivered projects, CTP can help you with our Advisory Services offerings.

Cambridge Technology Partners offers

1. Project Management as a service
   
2. Business Analysis as a service
   
3. System Architecture as a service
   

We bundle our core knowledge coming from different areas of expertise to offer Services to our customer to overcome the well know challenges.



Projects bring together resources, skills, technology and ideas to achieve business objectives.

Project management helps to ensure that these objectives are achieved for the defined scope within budget, within time and to the required quality.

• CTP is the pioneer of the fixed time / fixed price approach and an early adopter of strong delivery and project management methodologies
• CTP continues to tailor its methodology to new business challenges, including Global Sourcing & Global Testing

Business analysis helps to identify business needs and determines requirements to meet business objectives.

• With our knowledge and techniques, CTP can quickly identify, develop and prioritize business requirements.
• With strong facilitation and communication skills CTP can help to close the gap between Business and IT.
  

System Architecture ensures that your defined business requirements fit into your IT landscape.

• Our experienced system architects at CTP will turn your business requirements into your IT solution.

The entire CTP Advisory Services Presentation is available at our CTP knowledge repository: Link (internal network); Link (vpn-portal)

Project Management & Business Analysis Certification Path at CTP

Certification gives recognition of competency, shows commitment to the profession, and helps with job advancement. Cambridge Technology Partners sustains continues education and sponsors professional certifications, in order to advance the professionalism of its employees.

Cambridge Technology Partners advocates the PMP certification for Project Managers and the Business Analysis Certification for the Business Analysts.

As part of the Advisory Services Solution at CTP we created a certification kit. The goal of this document is to provide to all interested employees with the necessary steps to get certified based on Cambridge colleagues experience.

Project Management Professional (PMP) is a certification in project management. It is managed by the Project Management Institute (PMI) and is based on the PMP Examination Specification published by PMI in 2005. PMP is considered by many organizations the standard certification for Project Managers.

• Certification Eligibility: Applicants must have 35 hours of specific project management education. In addition, applicants with a bachelor's degree must have a minimum three years’ professional project management experience, during which 4,500 hours are spent leading and directing project tasks, up to eight years from the time of application.

PRINCE2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environments) is a process-based method for effective project management. PRINCE2 is a de facto standard used extensively by the UK Government and is widely recognized and used in the private sector, both in the UK and internationally. The method PRINCE2 is in the public domain, offering non-proprietary best practice guidance on project management.

• The PRINCE2 Foundation examination is aiming at measuring whether a candidate would be able to act as an informed member of a project management team using the PRINCE2 methodology.
• The PRINCE2 Practitioner examination is aimed at measuring whether a candidate would be able to apply PRINCE2 to manage a project.

The IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis) has created the Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP™), a designation awarded to candidates who have successfully demonstrated their expertise in this field. This is done by detailing hands-on work experience in business analysis through the CBAP application process, and passing the IIBA CBAP examination.

• The CBAP exam is 3.5 hours long and consists of 150 multiple choice questions with four possible answers to select from. It is based on the BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge)

Learning Tree sponsors a certification path for Business Analysts. To be eligible to take the certification one has to attend three mandatory courses and an elective one:

• Introduction to Business Analysis: Defining Successful Projects (3 days)
  
• Developing User Requirements: The Key to Project Success (4 days)
• Business Process Re-engineering for Competitive Advantage (4 days)

The detailed certification kit, including training providers & enrollment tips, is available at our CTP knowledge repository: Link (internal network); Link (vpn-portal)

Article: Managing projects in the onsite-offshore model - Tips to address the main challenges

Many IT organizations now follow the onsite-offshore model to gain the twin benefits of being closer to the customer and gaining cost advantages in the delivery process.
The benefits of working in this model are reduced total costs of ownership (TCO), access to expertise, reduced downtime and better failover mechanisms in operations apart from the advantage of leveraging improved quality processes.
However, organizations also have a challenge to meet the benefits- A challenge that did not exist in the pure onsite delivery model. This article throws light on some of the tips to address these challenges, when it comes to managing projects in an onsite-offshore model.

The article is available at our CTP internet website: Managing Offshore Projects (PDF)