Microsoft Project Conference Videos now available via Channel 9

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Project/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.

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. 

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.

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!

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

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.

Pin Outlook Templates to the Taskbar for Quick Access

The following is a tip I sent into the How To Geek website in 2009.

(Original Link - How To Geek Website)

"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:

1. 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.
2. If you are using Windows 7, simply drag the template files onto the Outlook icon.
3. For previous versions of Windows, right-click the taskbar, choose Toolbars -> New Toolbar, and pick the folder that you saved the templates into.
4. 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.

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

Journalism Fail

http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=173510&provider=top

Article Review:

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

Sad Evan

Evan is quite upset that there are 6 episodes left of Lost and they are still dicking us around. He is also not happy abou the giant V in the corner of the screen

Saw Drillbit Taylor

It was ok…

 

There were some funny parts, it wasn’t bad persay. This movie is nowhere near recent comedies such as Knocked Up, Superbad, Wedding Crashers, etc….but has a certain nitch that it falls into and is a good laugh. Wilson does a good job and you can hardly tell he is all suicidey recently. My main issues were the bullies being too evil, some of the ancillary hobos could have been fleshed out better and the parents were just idiots. I mean I understand some of that was on purpose for comedic effect and plot points but it wasn’t that funny when the parents were being dumb.

 

Go see it, don’t expect much, you’ll laugh and walk away happy. Overanalyze it and you will hate it.

..just my 2cents.

 

 

Samsung i760 Windows Mobile 6

I thought I would share some of my quick tips for anyone else who has one or is thinking of getting a Windows Mobile phone. Let me know if anyone has anything interesting to add, I have a Samsung i760 WM 6 phone. I may post a detailed review of the phone at some point.

Originally this was an email I sent to a colleague of mine who was getting my phone, some of the wording may seem direct or specific to our job. These were tips that work for me, thought I would share.

1. There is no need to install anything on your computer from the cd’s that come with the phone to get your email/calendar/contacts to sync. Unless the CD has a later version of active sync then what is on your computer. I would look on the web though to get the latest and greatest version of Microsoft Activesync. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/activesync/default.mspx

2. The Verizon sync software would be for your personal email accounts, I used this in WM5 and it was ok, I wasn’t crazy about it and don’t use it now.

3. You will be syncing email, calendar and contacts over the air (no need to sync these with your computer) you should only sync files, programs and pictures with your computer. (I hardly ever sync with my computer, only to do a picture dump or install something.)

4. Cab files can be installed directly from the phone, EXE usually requires installing on the PC then syncing with the phone.

5. Google Maps is a great program to have installed. You can find it here - http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html you can even map to contacts directly from your address book.

6. Palringo is a great program; it allows you to sign into all your instant messaging accounts (MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Google) from one account on your phone. Great if you need to chat and you are stuck somewhere. You’ll need to register on the site for an account, it’s free for now. http://www.palringo.com/

7. Communicator Mobile is also an option depending on whether your company supports it.

8. You’ll need to install the Windows update to run the Office 2007 files, the phone you are looking at doesn’t come with this update. It is quick and easy.

9. Adding pictures to your contacts on your phone or in Outlook will also display them when people call you, it is a really nice thing to add. It also displays the pictures in the top of your emails in Outlook.

10. Amazon.com usually has some good deals on MicroSD cards, I think you can usually find a 2GB card (the max your phone says it will take) for about 20 bucks.

11. Read the manual where it pertains to ActiveSync – there are a lot of options to get your email delivered in the best way that will work for you.

12. Using Internet Explorer on your phone can work out really well for most sites. I would recommend changing the homepage to either the Comcast mobile homepage (if you are a Comcast customer) or the Google mobile homepage. Both will give you weather, email, news all set up for the phone’s format.

13. Be careful turning on and off folder syncing. For instance if you sync your sent items and then decide to turn that folder off, it may move those emails to your deleted items folder. If you turn folders off, just double check them on your PC afterwards.

14. The only real “bug” I have encountered is the phone not resuming synchronization after it doesn’t have signal for an extended period of time. (Plane, dead spot in the house) simply rebooting the phone fixes this issue. This may be on purpose so that the phone doesn’t constantly try and sync when you are out of range and it kills the battery, I haven’t looked into this enough to know though. Just know if you are have a dead spot in the house or if you are on a plane, check the Activesync on the phone after you move to make sure it is up to date.

Possibly more items to follow. Let me know what I should add!