The term ‘Transparency’ is being thrown around a lot these days largely in part to a push by the federal government to require more visibility into the way taxpayer monies are being spent. This concept has been around for awhile and cuts across the political spectrum. The ‘Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006’ was passed under the Bush administration and there is a strong provision for transparency reporting outlined in the 'American Recovery and Reinvestment Act' (ARRA) of 2009 passed under the Obama administration. Since a significant portion of many organizational budgets are spent on project related initiatives, even incremental improvements in large project/portfolio performance and fiscal disciple can mean millions in annual savings for these entities. For public organizations this means better usage of taxpayer dollars; for private companies, it means more value creation for shareholders. The concept of transparency is simple: provide relevant and timely information to key decision makers and stakeholders. This affords the decision makers the opportunity to take corrective action on wayward initiatives sooner (i.e. before it's too late) and provides stakeholders the information necessary to hold them accountable if they do not. Though the concept is simple, solutions are often not. Differences in the way organizations manage information, people, and technology means that the problem is multi-faceted and requires an organizational (sometimes a multi-organizational) approach. In this case study based presentation, participants will learn:

* What Project Transparency is about and why it is important
* The challenges with developing solutions
* How SharePoint can be leveraged as the base platform for Project Transparency

The presentation will be followed by attendee Q&A