stojr
The personal and professional blog of Stephen O'Connor Jr.
Friday, May 02, 2014
Project Lite now available
It is here! Project lite has been released, the SAAS solution from Microsoft is now improved with a lower cost for Team members to access.
At only $7 per user per month team members can update tasks, highlight risks and issues and access the collaboration sites. Go check out more details on the Microsoft Office Blog
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Book Review: Business Driven PMO Setup: Practical Insights, Techniques and Case Examples for Ensuring Success
By: Mark Price Perry
Note: I have also posted this review on Amazon where you can purchase the book.
Business Driven PMO Setup is a comprehensive guide to establishing or improving your PMO broken out into digestible chapters. The author "gets it" and understands that it is about process not methodology, PMOs need to be adaptable not static, and ultimately you need to demonstrate the PMO's value to the business to be successful.The book is layered with figures, examples and real life case studies. A few that were of particular interest were the Project Selection Scorecard (Chapter Four) and the PMO Setup Phases (Chapter Ten). The project selection scorecard walks you through a series of example questions and scoring mechanisms to objectively determine if a project should be approved. The example empowers the end user to apply the information and adapt it to their circumstances. In Chapter Ten, the PMO setup Phases clearly lays out something we all know, a PMO's perceived value is not achieved until late in the process after much of the work and change has already occurred.
A PMO is ultimately a communications vehicle ensuring that the strategic vision of the organization is applied to the work that is done by the resources. This is often overlooked by PMO leaders as the focus falls to tools, methodology and systems. This book guides you to focus your attention on the areas that matter in a dynamic environment.
Mark provides a list of the Top 200 Tips, broken out into "Top Ten Lists", as a supplement to the book. These are great take a ways to quickly review a particular knowledge area. Mark's book is an excellent reference guide and demonstrates practical hands on experience.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Microsoft Project Conference 2014 Recap: PC276 Monitoring & Automation of PMO Governance
Session Conducted by: Michael Wharton, MVP, MBA, PMP, MCT,
MCST, MCDBA, MCSD, MCSE+I, MCC2011 and 2012
MyProjectExpert.com
The Microsoft Project Conference wrapped up a few weeks ago
and over that time I have started to digest the sessions I was unable to attend
in person. I plan on blogging about a few of the standout sessions that may
peak your interest.
Michael Wharton from www.myprojectexpert.com
provided an in depth session demonstrating various ways to implement governance
within a PMO using Project Server. These methods were laid out in simple and
straightforward ways that ranged from creating standard views within Microsoft
Project Server to automating the monitoring using SSRS & SSIS.
The focus on the session was to inspire attendees to start
monitoring their PMOs right away. There is no wrong time to start this process.
PMO monitoring needs to be agile and flexible moving from identification of
issues to the automation of compliance. Once complete you repeat the process.
This process is very familiar to me. As a PMO lead for a few
large programs in years past we have rolled out “exception reporting” with
various levels of success. These reports aligned with the monitoring that
Michael showed in his examples. These reports usually cover areas from the simple
(e.g., Tasks with actuals in the future, Tasks planned to start earlier than
the status date) to the more company specific (e.g., Task names too short, too
many resources on a task).
Taking things a step further Michael works in a Project
Schedule Conformance Index as well as his proprietary Resource Conformance
Index. These measures look for specific deficiencies in the project schedule
and resource pool and weights them to determine an overall percentage score.
The projects or resource pool is then rated each month. Thresholds are set to
determine their relationships to the standards set by the organization. The
goal is to have the high performers raise those who do not meet the standards.
Ultimately with these reports it has been my experience that
the most difficult part is to ensure you are balancing the carrot and stick as
these are rolled out. Michael points out various ways the email notifications
are sent out and to whom (i.e., Resource only, All Resources, Manager, PMO).
This is important but it is equally important to ensure that the repercussions
of being on these reports is established and measured. Historically I have seen
organizations use the stick too frequently removing Project Managers from large
programs. This generated fear within the organization where the PM’s would
start to game the system and do whatever they needed to do to ensure they
stayed off the reports. Alternatively the organization could have invested more
in training to ensure that the PM’s understood the importance of the reports
and proper scheduling techniques.
Michael’s presentation is definitely one to listen to when
establishing your PMO or when looking to optimize your PMO. Microsoft has now released the presentations for viewing to the public via Channel 9. I have embedded the presentation below.
Quick Note: Microsoft Project Server 2013: SP1 is now available for Download
Microsoft Download Link for 2013 SP1:
The KB Article has a full listing of issues that have been resolved in this service pack:
Ensure you are familiar with the processes by which to install a Service Pack. These can be found on TechNet:
The KB Article has a full listing of issues that have been resolved in this service pack:
Ensure you are familiar with the processes by which to install a Service Pack. These can be found on TechNet:
Also don't forget this quick note from Brian Smith's Blog:
*** Update 2/26 I should also mention that unlike previous SharePoint and Project Server Service Packs - there is no roll-up - the Project doesn't include SharePoint and the SharePoint doesn't include Project - if you want both you need to install both. Thanks for the reminder Laksh! ***
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
The next big thing for Project Online costs less than your Starbucks fix
The big news was revealed in the keynote address. Microsoft is introducing a new sku for Project Online. This sku being released on May 1st 2014 is named Project Lite. Project Lite enables an organization to bring team members into the Project Online environment at a savings of $26 per month. This reduction in the barrier to entry will allow small and large PMO's further justify the benefits of Project Online
The following example shows a potential cost savings of 36% a year for this example organization.
Book Review: Sensei Project Solutions: Proactive PPM with Microsoft Project Server and Project Online
Note: I have also posted this review to Amazon

I purchased the Sensei Project Solutions book: Proactive PPM with Microsoft Project Server and Project Online during the Microsoft Project Conference in Anaheim (Feb 2014) directly from Sensei. The first thing that will jump out at you while reading this book is the excellent high quality COLOR graphics and screenshots in every chapter. This may not seem like a big deal but color graphics are very engaging and will keep your attention when reading through a "how to" book.
The author and collaborators have an excellent history with diverse experience with Microsoft, PMI and Scrum Master Certifications. The Author has even done scheduling for the Queen of Denmark. (Excellent Picture in full military garb btw). The book follows the project lifecycle as you would expect providing the reader with the right amount of information to accomplish the tasks. Other books on the subject such as MSProjectExperts publications are also excellent resources covering topics in a "soup to nuts" approach whereas this book hits on the points required for a Project Manager to function effectively within a PPM platform.
Best practices are layered throughout the book and the chapters are easy to understand and digest. The book functions as an excellent training guide for Project Managers. Sensei has layered in screenshots to the other solutions such as their report packs in the book while focusing mainly on the base functionality of PPM. Excellent marketing because once users see these reports they will want to use them within their own organization.
The book is full of nice touches such as the high resolution color pictures, Appendix detailing exactly how to recreate the views in MS project and reprinting all of the exercises in one concise listing in another appendix.
I purchased the Sensei Project Solutions book: Proactive PPM with Microsoft Project Server and Project Online during the Microsoft Project Conference in Anaheim (Feb 2014) directly from Sensei. The first thing that will jump out at you while reading this book is the excellent high quality COLOR graphics and screenshots in every chapter. This may not seem like a big deal but color graphics are very engaging and will keep your attention when reading through a "how to" book.
The author and collaborators have an excellent history with diverse experience with Microsoft, PMI and Scrum Master Certifications. The Author has even done scheduling for the Queen of Denmark. (Excellent Picture in full military garb btw). The book follows the project lifecycle as you would expect providing the reader with the right amount of information to accomplish the tasks. Other books on the subject such as MSProjectExperts publications are also excellent resources covering topics in a "soup to nuts" approach whereas this book hits on the points required for a Project Manager to function effectively within a PPM platform.
Best practices are layered throughout the book and the chapters are easy to understand and digest. The book functions as an excellent training guide for Project Managers. Sensei has layered in screenshots to the other solutions such as their report packs in the book while focusing mainly on the base functionality of PPM. Excellent marketing because once users see these reports they will want to use them within their own organization.
The book is full of nice touches such as the high resolution color pictures, Appendix detailing exactly how to recreate the views in MS project and reprinting all of the exercises in one concise listing in another appendix.
Three years can fly by in a flash
Over the past three years I have made many changes in my life. My son has grown up a lot and I have moved on to a new position as a Principal Consultant within a different company. I have taken an RV trip across the US and a cruise of Southern Alaska.
One unexpected change was not posting to this blog apparently. :-)
I would like to change that in 2014. This year I plan on writing posts on EPMO Best Practices, Microsoft Project Server and various publications that peek my interest.
I am not sure if anyone is listening to this blog yet but I will be putting my thoughts out there into the ether.
Thanks!
One unexpected change was not posting to this blog apparently. :-)
I would like to change that in 2014. This year I plan on writing posts on EPMO Best Practices, Microsoft Project Server and various publications that peek my interest.
I am not sure if anyone is listening to this blog yet but I will be putting my thoughts out there into the ether.
Thanks!
Monday, June 06, 2011
Link Dump
Here are a few EPM related items that have peaked my interest over the past few weeks. I wanted to share:
- I love using color coded calendars in Outlook. Here is a way to do it in SharePoint 2010. http://azlav.umtblog.com/2011/04/27/creating-a-centralized-pmo-calendar/ via http://projectserverblogs.com/?p=4842
- Project Server 2010 Training - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2011/05/06/stunning-training-and-learning-resources-for-project-2010.aspx
- Utilize Project Professional 2010 to manage a meeting agenda (Timeline view) - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2011/03/29/using-project-to-create-meeting-agendas.aspx
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Don’t Fear the Pivot Table (Part One)
Pivot Tables are one of the most powerful features in Excel. It may be because of that power the feature is one of the most feared items to touch. Pivot tables allow you to take a table and "pivot" it to show the data in a variety of methods. The ability to slice and dice the data how you see fit to represent your message is what makes a Pivot table so powerful. I want to take some of the fear out of using this feature by explaining ways to setup your data and display data in a few easy steps. This post is based solely on my opinion and experience so if you pick up a book or talk to others on this subject they could have varying opinions. This is what makes using Pivot Tables and charts easy for me.
The first component of using a pivot table is making sure you have your data ready to go. Most people have data in a spreadsheet and display that data so it looks good for them. Individuals are familiar with splitter bars, highlighting, leaving blank rows, etc. They don't always set that spreadsheet up in a usable format; it is more "does it look good". Listed below are some of my best practices and data cleanup techniques for ensuring quick and easy Pivot table analysis. These tips can also be utilized for creating spreadsheets without Pivot tables as they also make the sheet look good.
Format your data as a Table.
Excel can take a range of data and make it a table very easily. Simply select the data and go into the Insert Menu and select Table.
When doing this it is best to ensure your first row has column headers in every column and you check the box indicating you have those headers. You also want to avoid blank columns or blank rows as they unnecessarily separate your data.
Once the table is inserted you can rename the table and change the formatting. None of those changes are absolutely necessary, it all depends on how detailed you want to be with your work. In large spreadsheets I do rename the tables so I can determine what I am referencing later on more easily.
The finished product will filters at the top and allow you to add a total row at the bottom to apply various functions to the bottom of your columns. (sum, average, min, max, etc.)
Column formatting
It is important to tell Excel what the data is you are looking at so that when you use your pivot table you can properly sum up the data or group the data. This is especially true for date columns. In my sample data set I need to change the formatting of the date column. I can do this by selecting the entire column and formatting the cells. Due to the fact that I work on a global account I feel that the best format is DD-MON-YY (07-MAR-11). This is clear to most of the world and prevents confusion between the US and ROW standards. If you want to be even more inclusive for other languages I suggest going to the ISO 8601 standard.
I also formatted the value column to currency for the following finished product.
It is also important that your columns contain the right data that you are trying to display. This means following a few rules:
- Date columns should only have dates in them
- Avoid blanks, notice I have schedule and complete for my status columns
- Have a standard for your data. Whether this is a site ID or a name, make sure rows that are supposed to reference the same "thing" is named the same.
- Ensure that your table includes all the data you want to report on. Don't create separate tables when you can simply add a qualifying columns.
- In my example I have the scheduled and completed sites in the same table, not in separate tables.
Insert the Pivot Table/Chart
Creating the pivot table itself is very easy. Click anywhere in your table, select insert and choose Pivot table or Pivot Chart. If you choose Pivot Chart it will also create a pivot table.
You will be prompted for a location to place this Pivot table and a new worksheet is the best spot.
Depending on the version of Excel and/or the version the XLS file is saved in you may or may not see the Pivot table outline shown below. It doesn't really matter if you do or don't, older versions of Excel have it.
Creating the Pivot Table
So here we are. This is the moment most people are unsure what to do. They stare at this blank screen and then start randomly creating something. The best way I can combat this is to show you an example of a Pivot Table and explain why it has to be that way. What I am going to do is create a table that shows me the quantity of sites per month, by region that have cutover dates within those months. In order to do this we will go through a few steps.
1. Setting up the "per month" – This is accomplished by simply dragging the date field into the row labels. Once complete XLS will populate all of the unique dates into your pivot table. The screenshot below looks ugly though and details too much data before we even get started. The way to make this cleaner is to group your dates.
2. Grouping the dates – right click on the date field and select group. I choose Months and Years but you can pick a grouping that works for you.
NOTE 1: This only works if you only have dates in your date column. Any other data will not allow Excel to group the field.
NOTE 2: If you do not group by year it should be noted that Excel doesn't understand months repeat each year. All of your values for January 2009 and January 2010 will be in the same January column.
3. Next drag the region field into the column label since we want to show per region
4. The table is empty because we have nothing in the values field yet. The Pivot needs to count something to fill up the buckets we just created. Drag the site ID into the values section.
5. Since site ID is a number the pivot table summed them up by default. I want the table to count these. If we were using the values we may want it to sum up the values. Click on the sum of sites in the value section and select value field settings
6. Change the value to count.
7. The final product now shows the number of sites per region with cutover dates in those months.
8. The last thing we will do is graphically represent this data. Select Options from the ribbon and click pivot chart
9. In this instance a column chart will do
10. The graph now represents the pivot table data
In my next posting on this subject I will go into Pivot tables and Pivot Charts in greater detail discussing different types of charts, filtering, stacking, multiple criteria, etc.
Labels:
Excel,
Excel 2010,
Pivot Chart,
Pivot Table,
Tips
Monday, February 14, 2011
Pin Outlook Templates to the Taskbar for Quick Access
The following is a tip I sent into the How To Geek website in 2009.
"A time-saving Windows 7 tip: you can create Outlook templates for boilerplate emails and pin them to the Windows taskbar for easy access.
This technique is not limited to readers using Windows 7, since you can pin a folder to the taskbar in any version of Windows—but the new Jump lists in Windows 7 make it a lot simpler. To create your own set of Outlook templates, Stephen advises:
- Create an Outlook template by composing a new email message with the text you want, and then using File -> Save As to save the message as an Outlook Template into a folder of your choice.
- If you are using Windows 7, simply drag the template files onto the Outlook icon.
- For previous versions of Windows, right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars -> New Toolbar, and pick the folder that you saved the templates into.
- Now you can quickly access your templates from the Jumplist by right-clicking on the Outlook icon. For previous versions of Windows, you can use the pop-up folder menu."
Constraints in Project Professional
Restrictive constraints are to be avoided, most of the time, because they limit the ability of project to schedule your work. Constraints can cause confusion when trying to determine why dates do not align to expectations. In some cases constraints are necessary or even recommended, what is important is that you know you are using them.
If you don't think that you add constraints to your project plans you could be doing so and not even realize it. Whenever you alter a planned date manually by changing the date instead of adding lag or lead time, altering predecessors or changing durations you are adding a constraint.
“If you manually enter a start date or a finish date for a task, Project changes the constraint type for that task to Start No Earlier Than (SNET) or Finish No Earlier Than (FNET). These semi-flexible constraint types force the task to start or end on the specified date regardless of subsequent changes that would otherwise affect the task's place in the overall project plan.”
–Microsoft Office Online Article
There are many different types of constraints in Microsoft Project. The table below details these:
Understanding what the constraints do to the scheduling engine you can now infer some circumstances where a restrictive constraint may be necessary. Listed below are some instances where having a restrictive constraint may be a good idea:
· When you have no choice in the matter and a specific task needs to occur on that date
· Although deadlines can also be used here, it is understood that some tasks such as onsite work need to occur on a specific date once scheduled with the customer
· When you are trying to schedule tasks differently than the default method project utilizes.
· Project schedules tasks as soon as possible by default.
· There may be instances where you want to schedule tasks as late as possible or using any of the other constraint types in specific situations.
If you already have constraints in your project schedule you can remove them with a bit of work. Here are some steps to remove constraints from your plan and allow the scheduling engine to work for you.
- Look for the constraint symbol in the first column of your task
- Double click on the task to go into task information
- Click on the advanced tab
- Change the constraint type to read as soon as possible
- Now go into your plan and adjust the predecessors/lag/lead times to allow project to schedule your work how you expect it to be scheduled
Journalism Fail
OK Matthew Sin, you need to go back and write a new article, you did not do a good job on this one and your editors shouldn't be chasing headlines they should be approving your content. They fail at journalism also.
1- if you have to unplug from your xbox how is it a sexbox?
2- Kinect then gets plugged into your pc where you have to find drivers someone else made, you dont hack it yourself. The "hack" was done by those that wrote the drivers for PC since it was intended only for Xbox at this point in time
3 - This is just a camera and some motion tracking. PCs already have cameras and mice so the only real thing this adds to a "sex game" is omitting the mouse and keyboard
4 - at the end of the day this article should read "Porn industry is looking to utilize Xbox's Kinect for PC games/website interaction"
So if that is the story you are reporting on the internet having porn... groundbreaking stuff there. Glad we are not in a financial crisis and at war, glad there are no governments being overthrown or major legislation being debated in the us. Good thing you have time to write nonsense...
FAIL
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