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

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.

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:

• http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42011

The KB Article has a full listing of issues that have been resolved in this service pack: 

•  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817434

Ensure you are familiar with the processes by which to install a Service Pack. These can be found on TechNet: 

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197280(v=office.15).aspx

Also don't forget this quick note from Brian Smith's Blog:

• http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectsupport/archive/2014/02/25/project-2013-and-project-server-2013-service-pack-1.aspx

*** 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! ***

The next big thing for Project Online costs less than your Starbucks fix

The Microsoft Project 2014 Conference wrapped up last week in sunny Anaheim California. While the East Coast was being pummeled by an ice and snow storm and my wife was dealing with power outages I was slightly chilly walking to the 7-Eleven for a bottle of water. 

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. 

The days of managing your portfolio via Excel spreadsheets due to cost constraints are over. In future posts I plan on reviewing some of the sessions that occurred at the project conference as those become publicly available. 

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.

1. Look for the constraint symbol in the first column of your task
2. Double click on the task to go into task information
3. Click on the advanced tab
4. Change the constraint type to read as soon as possible
5. 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