The Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) Information Technology Department manages infrastructure and development projects at one of the country’s most respected medical schools. The team of 150 IT employees handles support for 35 departments and more than 12,000 users. Due to the broad spectrum of customers and requests, the team is tasked with managing many competing priorities which demand the same limited resources.

BCM IT formed a Project Management Office (PMO) to manage resource allocation, project schedules and budgets while fulfilling the College’s multiple missions. The PMO identified two primary issues that could be improved with technology. First, it had to establish a way to consolidate all IT projects into a single system so that schedule and cost status could be viewed in a single location. They also needed to implement a means to manage their human resources and forecast resource availability.

The decision was made to replace a set of custom applications with something more robust and easier to maintain. After reviewing many options for creating an information and collaboration infrastructure that would be flexible, easy to use and easily accessible, they chose to implement Microsoft’s Enterprise Project Management (EPM) and SharePoint solutions.

BCM selected Catapult Systems to design and implement a pilot system for the College because Catapult’s approach and methodology best fit their environment. Catapult used its proven project methodology to help BCM clarify technology needs to enable project management tracking and improved collaboration. Then, through workshops with IT executives, Catapult defined requirements and designed a prototype of the product, refining it before configuring the application for the pilot program.