BANKING AND FINANCE

Management Control of The Euro Conversion Implementation

Real-Time Progress Update across 22,000 personnel during the Euro Conversion Weekend

Bankers Trust Company (now part of Deutsche Bank). A global investment bank with offices in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, Australia, Denmark, and Hong Kong.

The “Euro Conversion”. Classified as the greatest event in financial history. All banks operating in or with Europe had to make system changes to accommodate the new currency in a 72 hours continuous span (conversion weekend).

The client had a Project Management Office (PMO) set up for the purpose of developing and managing the weekend plans, with over 6000 major tasks with defined dependencies, and start and finish times across the organisation. Four complete (72 hours) dress rehearsals were performed to ensure successful completion of conversion weekend.

• To control over 6000 tasks being performed on three continents by 600 individuals that are interdependent and have to be completed in 72 hours continuous span.
• To develop a real-time “updates publication system” of the plan’s progress with various levels and sorting views, to be accessible by ALL involved personnel during the dress rehearsals and conversion weekend.

The conversion plans were produced using Primavera, a powerful project management tool and were hosted on a network database accessible by key personnel in the PMO. The update of each task during the conversion is logged into the database upon start and completion.

The bank has a global intranet network, reaching every member of the organisation world-wide

• Develop a customised application to target the Primavera database and develop HTML tabular task reports, sorted by the required criteria (Responsibility, Department, Location, etc).
• Develop various “high level” graphical reports that can be generated directly through Primavera and then converted into acrobat files for distribution.
• Develop and implement a web based publication system and procedure that can be carried out at a required frequency (Hourly).

Results

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The outcome was a web site accessible from any PC in the bank, all over the world, containing comprehensive reports (tabular & graphical) on the conversion procedure in various views and levels, down to the individual owner (responsibility) of every single task.

Owner specific tasks showed their target and “scheduled or completed” times. Task owners were able at any time to get a full view of their performance. They could identify any remaining work package and the priority of each, therefore prioritising tasks according to their impact on the overall plan.

Graphical reports allowed management to view the performance of the various departments and geographical locations, and to follow up accordingly.

The reports had a maximum of one hour lag from “real-time” at all times during the conversion weekend.

The end result of the planning and monitoring of the conversion weekend was a successful and early (12 hours ) completion.

• Working with the client on identifying need & requirements.
• Whenever possible, use local systems and resources in planning solution.
• Experienced staff are key to identifying and implementing custom solutions.