Broward County Public Schools desperately needed a system to manage their IT projects. But IT veteran Becky Schmaus knew that any vendor she contacted to help create such a system would first ask, "What is the current process?"

Unfortunately, she says, "we didn't have a process."

For a school district the size of Broward County, with an annual budget of $100 million for technology projects, the technology infrastructure is one that rivals that of many Fortune 1000 companies. Yet, because different processes had evolved organically over time, as new technologies were adapted, initiatives were managed on a per-project basis rather than enterprise-wide. This meant that inefficiencies abounded, and costs ballooned.

Vijay Sonty, CIO of Broward County schools, wanted a project-management solution that would allow the Education Technology Services team to realistically forecast project schedules and budgets, coordinate the projects, and track outcomes, while helping the team align these projects with the district's long-term strategic goals.

Moreover, Sonty wanted a proof-of-concept completed in just 90 days. He tapped Schmaus to make that happen.

Schmaus asked Microsoft for help, saying she wanted an out-of-the-box solution that Broward could customize heavily. Microsoft worked with Pcubed to come up with an enterprise project management system; Dell managed the hardware component of the project and also provided support in optimizing a SQL clustering solution.

Then, Schmaus met with people from Pcubed to talk about what Broward needed in a project management system. "We spent a lot of time, 12- to 15-hour days in a closed room," says Schmaus. As a department of one, Schmaus knew she didn't want to have to hire additional people to run the program, and she didn't want it to be "a weight around anyone's ankle," she says.

After three months spent customizing and learning the system, Schmaus and Pcubed wrote the training manual. "In one week, I trained 60 project managers and about 100 executives," she says. "Every so often I do another executive training."

The entire process cost about $300,000, including consultants. Specific software deployed included:

•Microsoft Office Project Server 2003--This enterprise project management software provides centralization and standardization of project and resource information to enable web-based reporting, web-based views of project performance and data, portfolio analysis and modeling, and integration with other line-of-business systems.

•Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003--This, too, is enterprise project-management software. It provides planning and scheduling capabilities, enterprise templates, skills-based resource assignment, and resource availability views.

•Microsoft Windows SharePoints Services--This is a component of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system that provides web sites for information sharing and document collaboration, including check-in/check-out capabilities and version control features.