EPM, Microsoft Project and You

By: Tanya Foster

Remember that old School House Rock song… Knowledge is Power? 

How important is training in your organization?  Is it one of those things that everyone needs, but no one really gets?  Unfortunately times are tough these days and companies have to tighten their belts and cut things out of the budget.  One of the first things to go is usually training.  It’s considered a luxury instead of a necessity.  I can’t stress how important training is to an organization.  You might be thinking, well, I can figure out this software myself.  Chances are, you’re right.  But how long will it take to figure out the features of the software, which ones best suit your organization, and how to successfully roll out the launch of the software?  The time that it has taken to figure out those questions, is valuable time that could be spent elsewhere in your company.  

I have seen both ends of the spectrum, companies that provided very little training for their employees and companies that have pulled out all the stops for training for their employees.   We need to begin to look at training as an investment, an investment in employees and an investment in the company.  There are many methods of training and a lot of them won’t break the company budget.  Two great methods are computer based training and webinars.  Both of these methods allow flexibility in the trainee’s schedule, allow several people to take the courses at the same time, and can be done in the comfort of your cubie or a conference room (or at home in your PJ’s!).  Computer based training is a great way to learn.  You can move at your own pace, re-visit areas that you need to, or review it again whenever you need.  Webinars are great in the fact that you have an instructor and can ask questions without actually being in a classroom setting.  Maybe it’s time to check into these options instead of putting training on the back burner.  You won’t be sorry that you did.  You’re employees will feel more confident because they have the background and training that they need to be successful in their role.  Give them the knowledge, and give them the power to be successful!

By: Tanya Foster

Lately I’ve been working in both Project 2003 and Project 2007 and it has really dawned on me that some of the new features in Project 2007 are really great, so I thought I would list them here. 

1.       Multilevel Undo

Okay… this might sound silly, but the multilevel undo feature is awesome!  I know that it took several years for them to get this programmed, but wow is it worth it for the end user!   In Project 2003 you only had one undo.  That is so limiting when you are working with lots of tasks and dates.  You make several changes and then realize that something isn’t right, but you can only undo the last change that you made and it’s not the one causing the problem.  So you have to close the project without saving changes, just so you can go back and start all over again!  Very frustrating sometimes, but with Project 2007, you no longer have that problem. 

2.       Change Highlighting

How many times have you made a change in Project 2003 and had to hit the undo button just to see if it changed any other tasks?  C’mon… you know what I’m talking about!  It’s happened to all of us at some point or another.  You just keep hitting the undo and redo buttons until you can finally see how it’s impacting your overall schedule.  Well, in Project 2007 you don’t have to keep hitting undo and redo, because there is a change highlighting feature!  Anytime you make a change to your schedule, the cells that are impacted are highlighted.  So if you make a change to task 4 and that change impacts tasks 5, 6 & 7 in any way, tasks 5,6, & 7 will be highlighted!  To me, this feature alone is worth upgrading to Project 2007!

3.       Task Drivers

Just one click of the task drivers button, and you will have at your fingertips a list of tasks that affect the start date of the specific task that you have selected.  This feature has saved me countless hours of staring at the Gantt chart trying to figure out what’s causing my task date to be wacky.  I love, love, love this feature!

4.       Programs (or Master Projects)

Project 2003 supported Master Projects, but the functionality was very limited compared to Project 2007.  You can create a Master Project, insert all of the sub projects and manage them all in this one Master Project.  Any changes that you make to a subproject will automatically take effect in the individual schedule.  You don’t have to make the changes in both places!  You can link tasks between projects, change task names, update durations, and it’s all visible within this one Master Project.  And now you can see Master Projects within a single Project Center view where before!  Very handy feature indeed.

5.       Team Resources

So you have a team of people who are going to be working on several particular tasks in your schedule.  Maybe these resources all have the same skill set and you don’t know who’s going to be doing which specific task.  You can assign these resources to a team, assign the team to the tasks, and they can go and assign themselves to the task.  I think this is a great feature that will get a lot of use in Project 2007.

Well… There are my Top 5 Reasons.  Once I got started, I realized that maybe I should have done my top 10 because there are just so many great new features in Project 2007!  Maybe I’ll do another blog on this topic and list Another 5 Reasons Why I Like Microsoft Project 2007 over 2003… Stay tuned to find out!

By: Collin Quiring

Microsoft Project Server isn’t the most complex software or server that Microsoft produces.  However, it does require SQL 2000 or SQL 2005, Project Server 2003 or Project Server 2007.  Depending on how you set up the server(s) that manage your installation also require customizing the systems and your ability to reach Project Server over Internet Explorer (or other browser).  Then, there are backups that must be performed daily and the patches to the operating system that regularly come out.  This requires somebody to maintain the hardware and software and be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Plus, there are the costs to license the software.  And, in some cases, the department that wants the tool isn’t the IT department, so they have no inherent ability to implement this themselves.

So, what is the solution?  Software as a Service, or SaaS, is one great solution.  None of the technical requirements are reduced – but the risk to the company is transferred to the provider.  The provider of SaaS is the one that has to have somebody available at all times for Project Server.  They have to be able to maintain the server for you.

Microsoft has even jumped into this arena with their Software Plus Services idea.  This is really just SaaS with a different title.  While many companies are jumping into SaaS in many areas of their business, not very many are using it for Microsoft Project.  There was recently a cover story in ComputerWorld about companies that are successfully using SaaS.  (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=325805)

For many small companies the expenses and resource requirements are too much.  For other companies, the maintenance and effort for Microsoft Project Server and SQL Server aren’t high enough on the priority list to be given the attention that they deserve.  In both these cases, SaaS provides a great opportunity to allow the business operations of the company to continue working without the worries of Information Technology.

Microsoft Project Server works great in the SaaS model and we have implemented for organizations of all sizes.  If you are looking at Microsoft Project Server and aren’t sure about how/when/where to install it or maintain it, I would recommend looking at SaaS.

By: Collin Quiring

In tough economic times it seems that the first area that receives a budget cut is the training budget.  In some cases, it is cut to nothing at all.  While this is an easy area to save money today, I don’t think that it is wise to cut this budget to zero.  In fact, I think it is the exact opposite!  I think it is precisely the time to increase training.

During tough times, the instinct of some managers is to reduce expenditures – concentrating on the immediate cost.  More specifically, they are thinking about the cost in terms of accounting.  The cost is determined by the amount of money that would be spent on the training and any other estimated expenses.

However, I think that this only causes greater issues and problems later.  I think that while the immediate cost in dollars might be high for some training, the tangible future costs and the current and future intangible costs are often higher.

A lot of individuals, particularly in the area of Information Technology (IT), can have their skills outdated relatively quickly if they don’t have the appropriate training in their areas of expertise.  Let’s make up an example.  If a company has an IT employee that is a developer, and that developer is an expert in a certain type of program and a new version comes out but the individual can’t go to the training they will eventually no longer be an expert.  Depending on the type of version it might be only a slight update or it could be an entire re-write of the program.  Either way, if the developer now knows that there is a newer (and presumably better) way to do their work.

This can lead to intangible costs.  The developer might start looking for companies that offer the ability to be trained in the program that they use.  The developer might leave the company and thereby cause a significant increase in costs for the hiring, internal training and learning curve time for a new hire.  Or, the developer might just stay where they are and become disgruntled with their employer.  This could lead them to be less productive in their daily work, or perhaps even a toxic influence to the rest of the employees.  Of course, some individuals will not worry about it all and stay comfortable where they are today – knowing the program and version that they know.

These are costs not necessarily easy to quantify and won’t be simple to track back to the “no training” decision.  And, there are probably other areas that would affect somebody leaving the organization but not getting training could be the final straw or the first item that starts an employee looking for other work.

There are tangible costs as well though.  When a company has stopped training its individuals, whether for one year or for a longer time, they will eventually suffer the consequences of not having better trained individuals.  In our earlier example of the developer, even if the developer stays content in their work, they will no longer be using the latest and greatest tools available to them.  And, the learning curve to learn those tools may be more expensive now than it would have been if they went to training earlier.  This might be because they may have to “learn on the fly” and use the new tool in a live environment.  Or, they may have to go to training on short notice.

The situation could become even more dire, if, in our IT example, a vendor requires an upgrade to their system that relies on a more updated tool as well.  If our IT developer’s program is upgraded and then a new version of different software comes out that uses the new version of the other program, the developer now has to learn two tools at once.  This also causes the costs to increase!

One other area that training allows a company to have is that of competitive advantage.  If other companies are cutting their training but you don’t cut yours then your staff is better prepared for the future.  And, you might be the company that can attract other people to be employed with you.

While I understand that companies become concerned and then try to find dollars wherever they can I am reminded of the third presidential debate – where each candidate said how they would use a scalpel to remove waste and the other would use a hatchet.  Cutting training entirely, whether for a department, the entire company or just certain people will come back to cost the company more than if the training had been done originally.

Using the scalpel approach is the way to do it if the company is going to cut the training budget.  This method makes it harder on management because they have to pick and choose who gets what training in some cases.  However, in other situations, there are multiple methods of training.  Instead of a three-day training class that includes travel, perhaps there is closer training opportunity.  Or, perhaps there are online training options. 

Keeping the training budget costs less in the long run!

By: Collin Quiring

During a class I was teaching on Project Management, I started thinking about how those of us in the Project Management field can help a company implement the standards of PM and make them a “standard” methodology.  There are numerous books, seminars and information with great details on how to implement standards of PM effectively.  So, I am adding my own 3 steps to the process (not that they are the only steps or in place of all those other books).

1.       Make the standards the standard way of work

Before any concept or process becomes a standard methodology of doing business, the business must make it part of the regular process of business.  I think that this is the main area where PM starts to falter.  Management allows “exceptions”, which tend to beget more “exceptions” and before long only certain projects have to follow the PM process.  And, even on those projects that do follow the process, there are parts of the project that get to be exceptions from the process.

If we make a “no exception” rule there is immediate gnashing of teeth and a host of seemingly valid reasons as to why that is a bad idea.  If a company were to implement the no exception rule I think that this would become part of the standard procedure.  And, with a no exception rule must come a “level of detail” rule.  For example, a small project gets only a one page Project Charter while a huge project gets a multi-page Project Charter.  The amount of documentation and rigidity can vary, but there should be documentation and a standard!

A great example of how other standards become standard within a company is found in how payroll is handled.  The employees of a company know that if they want to get paid, they must turn in their time.  For some employees, that might mean punching a time card and nothing else.  Every week, a new timecard shows up with their name on it and they just have to do their little piece – punch the card.  For other employees, they have to manually track their hours, whether on paper or in software and then they have to report those hours.  For employees whose hours may be billable, they have to track their total number of hours, and separate out the hours for each client and even each job that they work for each client.  And, still other employees don’t have to do anything – they get a paycheck on a regular schedule for a set amount, whether they worked 30, 40 or 80 hours that week.

2.       Time and New Hires

The second issue that helps to make PM standards an ingrained part of an organization is time.  As time goes on, the longer that a certain standard is “the way we do it” becomes the way it is done by everybody.  Along with time, comes personnel turnover – as people are hired into the company and standards are already in place, they are more willing to accept that “this is the way we do it” here.  Every company has different cultures, methods and processes that a new employee has to become a part of when they join an organization – and if they join one that has PM standards in place, then those just become part of the way that work is done.

3.       Commitment

To accomplish making PM a standard  of doing business, the PMO, Senior Management and others with authority must be committed to it!  That one may appear on both lists but it can never be understated.  If it takes time and a “no exception” rule then it takes commitment to see it through.  Senior Management can’t undermine the “no exception” rule – and they have to keep supporting that rule over a long time.