Project Plan

Project Plan

A detailed, up-to-date project plan is vital to the success of the project. The project manager should use the project plan to monitor costs, manage project staff, follow progress against milestones and track key dependencies such as hardware, storage, training, licenses and certificates so that they can be addressed before they can become bottlenecks. The project plan should be regularly distributed between project team members to ensure that everybody is aware of progress as well as remaining tasks.

At the start of the project, only plan for the Assess phase. You won’t be able to plan for the Design or Deploy phases yet because you’ll need a better understanding of the FlexCast models, capabilities,

user groups and applications required. After the roadmap stage, update the project plan to include separate design and deploy activities for each user group identified, ordered by priority. This will

help to ensure that the business receives maximum value from their investment as soon as possible and allow infrastructure to be built out in manageable IT projects that minimize risk and maximize the chance for project success. 

A sample project plan, created in Microsoft Project 2010 format, accompanies this document. A high-level overview is shown below:

Note: Some of the tasks in the project plan template have been scheduled to occur in parallel because it is assumed that multiple project team members are available. All activities, resources and scheduling within the sample project plan should be reviewed prior to starting your project.

XenDesktop Methodology

Methodology

The Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook follows the Citrix Consulting methodology. A proven methodology that has been successfully employed across thousands of desktop virtualization

projects. Each phase includes guidance on the important questions to ask, what tools to use and tips to help you succeed. The Citrix Consulting methodology consists of five phases:

1. Define – Builds the business case for desktop virtualization by creating a high-level project roadmap, prioritizing activities and estimating storage and hardware requirements.

2. Assess – Key business drivers are rated so that work effort can be prioritized accordingly. In addition, the current environment is reviewed for potential problems and to identify use cases for the

project. This information will be used to set the direction of the Citrix deployment, upgrade, or expansion.

3. Design – Define architecture required to satisfy key business drivers and success criteria identified during the assess phase. Topics such as environment scalability, redundancy and high availability are addressed.

4. Deploy – During the deploy phase, FlexCast Infrastructure is installed and configured as described in the design phase. All components of the infrastructure should be thoroughly unit and regression

tested before users are provided with access to the environment.

5. Monitor – Define architectural and operational processes required to maintain the production environment.

The Citrix Consulting methodology follows an iterative Assess > Design > Deploy process for each major initiative of your project. In doing so, your organization is left with tangible improvements to

the environment at the end of each engagement. For example, high priority user groups can progress through the assess, design and deploy phases earlier than other user groups

Note: The Virtual Desktop Handbook provides content on the Assess and Design phases of the Citrix Consulting methodology. Additional phases will be released soon

XenDesktop Introduction

In traditional business environments, workers suffer from productivity loss in many ways, including downtime during PC refreshes, patches and updates, or simply when they are away from the office. Application and desktop virtualization centralizes apps and desktops in the datacenter, rather than on local devices. This allows IT to deliver apps and desktops to users on demand, to any device, anywhere.

Take the following response from a desktop virtualization user:

Experience from the field

Take the following response from a desktop virtualization user: As a remote employee for [company], I struggled every time I needed to access the company’s intranet, which forced me to VPN into

the network. I also kept data on my local device because trying to access it over my broadband connection was too slow. Some coworkers did the same and lost data due to a virus, thankfully I was

luckier.

Depending on my mood (and the weather), changing devices and locations was a challenge as I had to have my applications and data copied to many different endpoints. I know this was unsecured,

but I didn’t care because I was more concerned with flexibility.

Since moving to a virtual desktop, I’m able to use any device. I’m able to work from any location. And best of all, I don’t have to worry about copying my data and applications onto all of my personal

devices. I paid for these devices; I don’t want work to clutter up my personal space.

Unfortunately, organizations sometimes struggle to achieve this level of success. Why does one organization succeed while another organization struggles?

If we compare the factors between success and failure between desktop virtualization and other technology related projects, we see that there is little difference:

• Lack of justification – Without a solid business reason, desktop virtualization is simply a new way to deliver a desktop. A business justification gives the project team a goal to strive towards.

• Lack of a methodology – Many people who try and struggle to deploy a desktop virtualization solution do so because they jump right in without understanding or implementing the appropriate

prerequisites. A structured methodology provides the path for the project.

• Lack of experience – For many who embark on a desktop virtualization project, there is a lack of experience, which creates a lack of confidence in the design. Architects begin to secondguess themselves and the project stalls.

Our hope is that this handbook can alleviate the anxiety associated with desktop virtualization by showing how challenges can be resolved in a manner that is technically sound, but also feasible and

effective for organizations facing deadlines and other organizational challenges.

Citrix Consulting has successfully employed the methodology, experience and best practices shared within this handbook across thousands of desktop virtualization projects.

The Citrix Virtual Desktop 5.x and Virtual Desktop 7.x handbooks are not the only resource to guide you through the desktop virtualization journey. Citrix also provides Project Accelerator; an interactive online tool creating customized sizing and design recommendations based on the methodology, best practices and expert advice identified within this handbook.