EPM, Microsoft Project and You

By:  Collin Quiring

 

In trying to set up schedules, one of the best ways to find out how much time is needed for a specific task is to ask the person doing the task.  And, one of the worst ways to get an accurate amount of time is to ask the person doing the task.  More often than not, when asking the person that is assigned the work how much time they need to complete their task, they will give a padded number – sometimes significantly.

 

Why?  Is it that they don’t really know how long it takes?  Is it that they are born liars?  Is it because they want free time and hope that you will build it into the schedule?  The answer to all of these is a resounding “No!” 

 

It seems that Resources (what Project Managers like to call people) have a few concerns about answering the time question.  Usually, a Resource has multiple projects that they work on.  And, they have overlapping work from those projects.  And, they have non-scheduled time (from mandated training to watercooler discussions).  And, they are given conflicting priorities.  And, and, and, and….. 

 

So, what are they often doing when they give a time estimate?  Are they padding the time unrealistically?  They might be padding it a bit but I think that most people add up the “and’s” of their work life and they come up with a relatively accurate time estimate.  The disconnect seems to be between the Resource and the Project Manager (or Resource Manager).

 

The Project or Resource Manager wants to know how long it will take to do the task in THE schedule of the moment while the Resource is providing how long it will take due to ALL of their work.  There are lots of “solutions” to resolve this problem– some technical and some business or company cultural.  However, I submit that the core issues are not resolved and that we tend to address the symptoms. 

 

The root causes of the problem seem to me to be trust of each other and understanding.

 

Part of the reason that the Resource gives seemingly extreme time estimates is because they have learned that if they give a short time frame, the Project/Resource Manager will hold them to it regardless of other work or variables.  And, from the other perspective, the Project/Resource Manager has seen the Resource do this work “in less time than that” but doesn’t seem to understand that there were other tasks neglected to do so.  (And, Project Managers have learned that at the start of a schedule it is easier to have an unrealistically short deadline and then deal with missing it when the time comes than it is to tell the sponsor from the beginning they can’t meet the deadline – but, that is a different post.)

 

How can this tidbit of knowledge improve scheduling?  If we would just sit down and sing Kumbaya together the world of scheduling would be a better place.  Ok, maybe not.  But, the way to immediately improve scheduling is to try and understand the capacity and utilization of a Resource.  From the Resource’s perspective, they would need to give estimates that are “in a vacuum” – a time estimate for how long it takes to do the work, if that was all they did.  The Project/Resource Manager needs to understand and compensate for variables that affect the time estimates for THE schedule by accounting for ALL work.  With a real time estimates and a schedule that can move with the changing realities of work, a schedule can become a powerful and accurate tool.

Easy to say, difficult to do. 

 

However, we have found when working with customers that getting to this point has always paid off. 

 

I think about the phrase “We never have time to do it right the first time, but we always have time to do it again.”  Perhaps, if we trusted each other and extended an understanding of work realities we would have done it right the first time because we would have scheduled enough time.

BY:  Collin Quiring

Now that the “non-disclosure” agreement that I have with Microsoft about 2010 is basically over, I will be going into more details about some of these in future posts.  In the meantime, here are some of the highlights about Project Professional 2010 and Project Server 2010.  Note: since the product isn’t released into the wild yet, it is possible that some of these may change.

 

Microsoft worked on Project with some goals in mind that set the framework for 2010.  The framework that Microsoft worked under for Project 2010 was:

·         Unified Project and Portfolio Management

·         Enhanced Collaboration and Reporting

·         Simple and Intuitive User Experience

·         Scalable and Connected Platform

 

Even though I tried to separate Professional from Server for this list, many features and capabilities are now available on Server that we would traditionally think are Professional only.

 

Highlights of Project Professional 2010:

·         The Ribbon – currently used in Office 2007 and 2010

o   Known as “Fluent” user interface

o   Makes for a highly customizable interface

o   Organizes common tasks together

·         Runs on Windows 7, Vista and XP

·         Office Backstage

o   Puts printing options in one place – gives a WYSIWYG preview

o   Replaces the “file” view

·         Text Wrapping

·         Filter Improvements

·         Auto-Complete

·         Copy and Paste

o   Indentions stay in place when copying in or out of Project

o   Can copy and paste between many Office applications

·         User-Controlled Scheduling

o   Manually versus Automatic scheduling

o   You can now put notes in columns that used to be data (date/number) only

o   Adding placeholder tasks is easy

·         Inactive Tasks

·         Team Planner

o   Quickly view assignments across resources

o   Easily manage assignments

·         Task Inspector

o   An improvement over the Task Driver in 2007

·         Report Improvements

·         Timeline View

o   Report on selected tasks in timeline format

o   Format online

o   Shares easily

·         Synchronize with SharePoint lists

·         Two versions of the Product

o   Project Standard 2010

o   Project Professional 2010

·         Incremental Leveling

·         Versioning

·         Supports Total Work and Percent Complete tracking

·         Zoom slider

o   Zoom in and out rather than clicking “+” or “-“

·         Resource Selection

o   Select multiple resources from the drop down at one time

·         Add new columns easily

·         Office Suite integration

o   Able to use items like WordArt

 

 

 

Highlights of Project Server 2010:

·         The name – it is no longer “Office” Project Server

·         Web based Project editing

o   Ability to do a lot of work on the server that used to be client only

·         Portfolio Server is now part of Project Server

o   No longer a separate product makes integration and use easier

·         Requires SharePoint Server to work

o   Project Server now is “SharePoint centric”

·         NO ACTIVE X CONTROLS

o   Grids are now Ajax or JavaScript

·         No Office Web Components (OWC)

·         Resource Updating

o   Multiple places for resources to update their tasks now

·         SharePoint synchronization

·         Exchange Server integration

o   No Outlook add-in

o   Easily update tasks from Outlook

o   Allows for mobile updates

·         Custom Fields enhancements

o   Can create fields by “Department”

·         Have I already mentioned NO ACTIVE X CONTROLS!?!?

·         Excel Services

o   Reporting engine allows for more functionality

·         Multiple level Undo

·         Delegation

o   Allows resources to “request” delegation

o   Lessens load on the Admins

·          The PSI (Project Server Interface) is enhanced

o   It doesn’t replace the old version, so custom PSI should still work

·         Improved Programmability

·         Timesheet Enhancements

·         Workflow Capabilities

o   Enterprise Project Types (EPT) that help define types of workflow

·         Improved Reporting

·         Increased collaboration

·         Did I mention NO ACTIVE X controls?!?!

BY:  Collin Quiring

There are many new features, modifications and changes to Microsoft Project in the 2010 version.  This entry is about only one of those modifications – Portfolio Server.

 

With Project Server 2007, there is a separate tool to purchase called Portfolio Server 2007.  The Portfolio Server is designed to allow an organization to identify, select, manage and deliver portfolios that align with strategic priorities.  PMP Specialists has done installations of both Project and Portfolio Server and customers have received value from Portfolio Server.  However, there is some installation and configuration that must be done to tie Portfolio and Project together in a useable fashion. 

 

Well, in 2010 there is no more Portfolio Server.  That is because it is now part of Project Server 2010!  This is a great combination!  From the technology standpoint, this makes the installation just that much better – and, of course, makes the integration seamless (since, it isn’t really something else to integrate but is just part of the tool).  By combining the two tools into one there will no longer be the issues related to having to pull the data together between the two programs.  From a reporting standpoint this makes life just that much easier and it means that information flows more easily from the “top” (selection) to “bottom” (Resource hours or task information or other specific details).

 

From the “business perspective” I really like that Portfolio Server is combined with Project Server.  This means that an Executive will be able to “one stop shop” for information (yes, they could do that before, but the setup was critical for it to flow, and, there were potentially two or more security locations).  They can drill down easily and, they won’t have to know when they are looking at “Portfolio Server” or when they are looking at information from “Project Server” as they do today.  The information will be in one place!  This should also make it easier for the stakeholders to understand the goals of the Executives as the information will be more readily available for them as well.

 

The term “Portfolio Server” will no doubt fade away and a term like “Portfolio Management” will become more common when talking about this aspect of Project Server.

 

I have given my opinions above but here are some of the official Microsoft bullet points:

·         Project and Portfolio Management capabilities in a single server

o   This provides a consistent user experience

·         Common data store

·         Centralized administration

·         Portfolio Prioritization and Selection Analytics

·         Project Capture and Initiation

·         Resource Capacity Planning

·         Enhanced Reporting and Business Intelligence

 

 

Sources:  http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/project-portfolio-server.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/project/2010/en/us/default.aspx

BY: Collin Quiring

 

Day Three of the Microsoft Project Conference had a keynote by Gary Hamel.  This was a great talk about management and how companies continue to use outdated management styles.  I can’t and won’t try to summarize his speech but I do recommend that you look up some of the material that he has created as his thoughts and discussion were enlightening.

 

The big question to me that came up for me was whether or not Project and Project Server 2010 should be called “Twenty-Ten” or “Two-Thousand-Ten”.  I know, this is a minor thing but it was intriguing since there seemed to be no standard way to say it.  I am sure that the other Office 2010 products have the same issue and that a standard way of saying it will eventually emerge.

 

At the end of the day, the Microsoft Power User Group (MPUG) held their First Annual Community  Leader Awards.

BY: Collin Quiring

 

Day Two of the Microsoft Project Conference was the great unveiling of Project and Project Server 2010.  It was amazing to look around the audience and see how we were so excited to get an overview of some software.  However, as Microsoft pointed out repeatedly, this is the most significant upgrade to Project in a decade.  I will have a separate blog that lists some of the new features and my thoughts.

 

During the sessions during day two, the emphasis was on the 2010 version of Project and Project Server.  The hands-on-labs included Project 2010 and were well attended. 

 

I was amused at how much applause was given during the keynote and the presentations.  While the tool is great and there are lots of wonderful new features and abilities it was just fun to see how many times a feature (or lack thereof – or software modification) elicited applause.

 

BY:  Collin Quiring

This blog entry is about the conference itself and not really about Microsoft Project as I have decided to talk about them separately – even though the conference is all about the tool.

 

On the first day of the Conference the keynote was given by Ludo Hauduc, General Manager of the Project Business Unit.  This was an interesting keynote and he gave a quick history of Project Management and then of Microsoft Project.  Some of the facts that were interesting to me were:

 

·         Project has 20 million users

·         There are 10,000 Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Customer Organizations

·         There are 6,400 Microsoft Certified Project 2007 Professionals

·         There are 35,000 members of MPUG (Microsoft Project User Group)

·         There are over 1,000 partners helping Microsoft with Project

 

Also as part of the keynote session were some “guest speakers” from a couple customers and partners about their usage of Project and Project Server. 

 

Also, some customer and partner awards were distributed.  I bet that over time, the customer and partner awards segment becomes more and more popular and that the competition starts heating up.

 

For the rest of the day there were numerous sessions of varying intensity on business and tool topics.  I will talk more about what I attended and learned in upcoming Project blogs.  In addition to the educational sessions was a great new feature of the conference – Hands on Labs.  These were self-paced labs with a number of pre-selected topics.  I think that this was a great aspect of the conference this year!  This allowed for some “how to” and some education on how the tool worked.

 

In the evening, EPM Live hosted an event at Corona Ranch.  This was a great break after a day of sitting in classrooms.  There was a short rodeo event as well which ended up involving some Project Managers running around the arena chasing a calf.  One of them tackled the calf much to the crowd’s delight.

BY: Collin Quirinq

 

One of my personal goals from this year’s Project Conference was to tweet and blog about the event “as it was happening”.  A couple of my other goals were to enjoy the event and to learn.  I quickly realized that tweeting and blogging would be too time consuming and distracting.  While it was fun to send the periodic tweet about what was happening at the moment, I didn’t want the actual experience to be summed up by saying that I spent my whole time typing into my phone.  I also wanted a bit more time to think about some of the events before just writing about them.

 

That all said – here is my first blog about the Conference.  The Opening Welcoming Reception was well attended and started in the evening before the main Conference events.  There was a couple days of Project Server 2010 installation/migration training that was given prior to this event as well but that was an add-on to the official Conference schedule.

 

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of vendors at this year’s conference.  The last couple of conferences seemed to have only a handful of vendors but there were quite a few at this one.  Most of the vendors have a software add-on or other component(s) that work with Project.   

 

Since this is the only Project Conference planned this year or next (none overseas) it was well attended from the international community.  It was nice to see that Project is being used in so many different places and it was a good reminder that the United States isn’t the only market for Project. 

 

This was an event designed for us to interact with the vendors and other conference attendees and didn’t have a formal presentation planned.  It was a good time to see others and see what vendor products are available.

By: Collin Quiring

So, the Project Conference just completed and I will have some more substantive blogs about that event in coming days.  But, a new image for Project Server 2010 has been issued along with the information being given out about 2010.  This got me thinking about the older images and how it has changed over time.  I am sure that there are other images out there but these are the ones I could find.  If you have any other ones, please feel free to send them to me and I will gladly add them!  So, here is a bit of fun and a journey down history lane.

Project 2010 Server:

 

Project – 2007 Images:

 

 

Project 2003:

 

Project 2002:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project 2000:

 

 

 

 

Project 1998:

 

 

 

 

Project 1995:

 

 

 

 

Project 1994:

BY:  Collin Quiring

I will be blogging about the Project Conference and Project 2010 in more detail in the next few days.  However, at the moment, this is a great “first look” press release.  There are a number of videos with some great initial information!

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/projectserver/videoGallery.aspx