USCGAUX Project Management Office Division

DVC Pennant 
Vacant , DVC-IP
Division Chief, Project Management Office

Division Responsibilities

The Project Management Office (PMO) organizes and manages information and resources to meet project goals within the constraints of scope, time, and budget.

The PMO is a dynamic and proactive organization functioning as the interface between end-users and other team stakeholders.  It deploys an iterative short-cycle deliverable methodology based on Best Practices such as the Agile Methodology.  The PMO supports an open, adaptable, and disciplined management process using teamwork and accountability that results in high-quality software meeting both customer and Auxiliary requirements.

Branches frequently complete their missions by utilizing a team composed of end-users and other stakeholders.  Sub-teams may also be created.  “Pairing” is implemented through assignment of Primary and Secondary team members who are both responsible for team leadership and product timeliness and quality.

Team members will promote integrity and professionalism in an environment of mutual courtesy and respect.  A project is developed through the insight and collaboration of the whole team, supported by second-generation web tools that are secure and provide multi-user edit/view privileges, versioning, docs, spreadsheets, graphics, files, web pages, calendaring, and teleconferencing.

Division Projects:

  1. Establish Project Management Office (bootstrapping)
  2. Aviation Scheduling

Division Branches:

  1. Sharon Porven, BC-IPR, Branch Chief, Requirements
    1. This branch operates in the assessment and requirements phase of the development cycle. Activities can include:
      1. Project initiation
      2. Project planning
        1. scope
        2. work decomposition/tasks
        3. task paths
        4. task priority
        5. task dependencies
        6. schedules, including release roadmap
        7. team composition
        8. cost estimates
        9. risk assessment
        10. burn down charts (tasks and releases)
        11. resource utilization
      3. Requirements acquisition
        1. stakeholder identification
        2. stakeholder interviews
        3. task negotiation
        4. measurable goals
        5. measures of success
        6. use cases
      4. Concept of Operations
      5. Software Requirements
  2. Ricardo Birmele, BC-IPX, Branch Chief, User Experience
    1. The User Experience Branch applies tools from psychology, ergonomics, and human factors to evolve an application that is attractive, is easy to use, and makes the client’s work easier. This is often accomplished by a building persona or archetype of a user and letting this persona perform in scenarios containing a sequence of actions expected in the application.
    2. This branch works closely with the Requirements Branch during the assessment and requirements phase, but with a special emphasis on identifying requirements for the user interfaces and their interactions with other system components. The User Experience Branch will have many of the activities of the Requirements Branch and will contribute to their own sections of the Concept of Operations and Software Requirements documents.
  3. OPEN, BC-IPD, Branch Chief, Documentation and Training
    1. This branch operates in the deployment phase of the development cycle. Experience has shown that the best-built project can run aground if the end-users and not properly prepared and supported during deployment. This can be a particular issue in a rapid development cycle environment.
    2. This branch does smooth the cyclic deployments and at finalization helps train the trainers and the Help desk. The branch does not have a permanent role in user training or Help Desk for completed projects.
    3. Some activities of this branch include:
      1. Developing user documentation
      2. Supporting technical documentation
      3. Expectation management
      4. Providing user training
      5. Software “help” files
      6. Help Desk
      7. Developer and user negotiation
  4. OPEN, BC-IPA, Branch Chief, User Acceptance Testing
    1. The User Acceptance Testing Branch operates in the deployment and review phases of the development cycle. User involvement in this phase is important and users are sometimes the designers and owners of tests in the suit of tests being run. This branch specifically does not become involved in developer testing in areas such as unit tests or integration tests.
    2. The User Acceptance Testing Branch will have two distinct engagement points:
      1. Initial Evaluation: Product is evaluated when it is released by development but before it is presented to the end user clients. If it does not pass testing here it is returned to development without presentation to the end user clients.
      2. User Evaluation: If the product successfully passes Initial Evaluation it is presented along with documentation and training to the end user clients for their evaluation and recommendations.
    3. Some activities of this branch include:
      1. Test cases and suits (user story) design
        1. logic
        2. database
        3. interface
        4. security
        5. ease-of-use
        6. test severity
        7. test scripts
      2. Outcome documentation
        1. measures of success
        2. user responses
  5. OPEN, BC-IPC, Branch Chief, Change Control and Infrastructure Support
    1. This branch is responsible for the correctness and completeness of administrative and procedural activities within the PMO. It also maintains the overall project schedule and is responsible for project overview and continuity.
    2. Activities can include:
      1. Software control
        1. transfer from development to PMO testing, user testing, and final deployment environments
        2. software version control
      2. Documentation control
        1. establishing a documentation set at project initialization
        2. synchronizing software and documentation versions
        3. monitoring documentation for timeliness and completeness
        4. maintaining the overall project schedule
        5. overall project summary from individual branch summaries