EPM, Microsoft Project and You

BY:  Tanya Foster

Two great products… each one has its own specialty, but so many people try to use them interchangeably.  I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people using Excel to schedule their projects.  Don’t get me wrong, Excel is a great tool, but not necessarily as a scheduling tool.  Project can do so much more for you regarding scheduling, resource management, cost, etc. than Excel can.  And I’ve also seen people using Project no different than an Excel spreadsheet.  Both of these products has their own special bells and whistles.  Project has so many bells and whistles it’s hard to even know where to start with a list! 

One of the things that Project can do that Excel can’t is reschedule your work for you.  You tell Project how long the task should take, who will do it, and the actual start date, and it will reschedule that task if it needs to be.   Now… could you do that in Excel? Sure… but it’s manual, whereas Project does this automatically.  You can create an entire work breakdown structure with dependencies in Project.  Can you do this in Excel?  You can create a work breakdown structure, but the dependencies would be more difficult.  Once you have your work breakdown structure in Project, all you do is determine which task is dependent on another one and click a button.  Maybe you really like the reports that Excel gives you.  You can do some of those same types of reports in Project.  Or if you have an Excel formatted report that you just can’t live without, you can even export your data from Project into Excel and then create the same reports that you’re used to.  That way you can let Project do the scheduling and use Excel to view and report on some of the data.

I’m all about keeping it simple!  If I try to use Excel for any type of scheduling I typically spend more time and energy doing manually what Project can do for me automatically.  Save yourself some time, energy and money!  If you currently schedule with Excel, take a trial run at Project and see what you think.  I think you’ll be glad that you did!

BY: Tanya Foster

I was able to attend the PMI Global Congress this year.  I always enjoy this conference.  You get to network with so many people and it’s nice to get to see some of the faces behind newsletters, blogs, etc. that I read.  One thing I did this year that I haven’t done at this conference in the past is to “tweet”.  Yes, you read it right… I said “tweet”.  For those of you who don’t know what tweeting is… it’s updating your status on the ever popular social media site Twitter.  You basically just type in what you’re doing, in 140 characters or less, and send your tweet to your followers.  They can read your tweet, send you direct messages, etc.  So Collin and I were playing dueling tweets this year.  We were only in the main sessions together, but whenever we were, it was a race to see who could tweet the fastest!  Usually he won, but that’s ok.  It’s the content that counts, not the speed! J

After the first night of the conference was over, I logged onto Twitter from my trusty laptop and searched for some others that were tweeting from the conference.  I found several, so I started following them (on Twitter, not at the conference! I’m not a stalker!).  During breaks in the conference, I would read everybody’s tweets from my phone.  I got to where I really looked forward to reading some of them and finding out what other people were doing at the conference.  Then it just so happened, that I attended one of the sessions and low and behold, there were several people whose names I knew, but had never met.  This session was on social media and there were several presenters, one was a fellow tweeter, one wrote a blog that I read all the time, the other does a podcast that I listen to.  It might sound kind of silly, but it was almost like they were famous!  I wanted to go up and meet them and tell them how much I enjoy their tweets, blog and podcast.  If I’d have been thinking clearly I would have had them sign my autograph hound!

I really enjoyed most of the sessions that I went to this year.  There were a couple that were just outstanding, but all in all, I think I was able to learn something in every one that I attended.  I like to go through the exhibit hall and see the different things that are set up.  I also take a free pen from all of the booths that have them so that I don’t have to buy any for next couple of years!  Hey… it might sound silly, but some of these pens are awesome! This was a very good conference and I’m really glad that I was able to attend.

BY:  Collin Quiring

Just because I have changed the oil on my car nobody would believe that I am a mechanic.  I understand debits and credits, but nobody would call me an Accountant.   And, just because I have worked on a Project, or part of a Project, I am not a Project Manager.  It seems to me that there is a disconnect that many people and organizations have when it comes to Project Management.

I have been thinking about how this logic doesn’t seem to be resonating with many individuals and organizations.  It seems to happen most often in the Information Technology area but it happens in all areas of a company.  There is some work that is assigned to a person and whether they do some, most or none of the work, they are held responsible for the end result.  The outcome notwithstanding, the work comes to an end at some point and either the company or the person assigned suddenly believes that they are a Project Manager and that they do that thing called “Project Management”. 

I have seen where somebody does a significant amount of work in a key area of a project and because they had the majority of the deliverables and were central to the project, they start to think of themselves as a Project Manager.  With no “true” Project Manager, they are a key person and they do end up leading most meetings and giving status reports – formally or informally.  So, the person and the company start to believe that this is Project Management.

This both amuses me and saddens me because it hurts everybody involved AND it hurts the reputation of Project Management in general.  The person who is now viewed as a “Project Manager” is given projects and they don’t necessarily have the skill set (or desire) to be a full time Project Manager.  If they don’t succeed, then both they and the company can come to view Project Management as something that just doesn’t work.  If they do succeed, then they both start to believe that this whole Project Management concept is simple.

There are professions that some organizations and individuals don’t fully realize can be done so much better by trained, competent people (like Project Management, Business Analysis, Human Resources, Bookkeeping, and Purchasing).  We need to better educate management about what Project Management truly is and does and the value of it in general.  And, we need to encourage those individuals that are “Project Managers” to get the training and expertise to do that thing we call Project Management.

Most companies will not do their financial reports without an Accountant and they won’t take care of legal matters without a Lawyer.  We will know that we have arrived as a profession when a company wouldn’t work on a Project without a Project Manager.

BY: Collin Quiring

This is a quick primer on the difference between a summary task and a milestone task. 

In the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), version four, the term “Summary Activity” is defined as:  “A group of related schedule activities aggregated at some summary level, and displayed/reported as a single activity at that summary level.”  And, a “Milestone” is defined as “A significant point or event in the project.”

A milestone is usually used to indicate when a specific phase or group of tasks is to be completed.  It can be considered a deadline date.  It is possible to have numerous milestones in a schedule.  While a milestone can be assigned a resource that is responsible for its completion, it is more common to use the milestone without resources.  This is because the milestone is often a successor to a number of other tasks that all have to be completed prior to its completion.

In Project Professional, a milestone is what the system automatically creates when a task is given a zero duration.  To add a deadline date to the milestone task there is an option to add that date in the task information.

A summary task is just that – a task that summarizes another set of tasks.  Normally, the summary task is not assigned a resource.  This is because the summary task’s start and completion dates are derived from the earliest subtask’s start date and latest subtask’s finish date.  As each task is completed, the summary task’s overall completion is updated as well.  Normally, a summary task is not linked to other tasks.  Using summary tasks makes reading a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) easier when using a logical grouping.  Creating a WBS usually involves determining the summary tasks and then the subtasks to complete them but it is possible to put all the tasks into a WBS and then determine the summary  tasks later.

In Project Professional, the subtasks are indented and that makes the summary task bold and outdented.  Many levels of summary and subtasks can be created.

Just as a reference point, here are the definitions as defined by Microsoft.  For Microsoft Project, a milestone is defined as: “A milestone is a reference point that marks a major event in a project and is used to monitor the project’s progress. Any task with zero duration is automatically displayed as a milestone. You can also mark any other task of any duration as a milestone.”  And, a summary task is defined as: “When organizing the tasks for a project, you can group the tasks that share characteristics or that will be completed in the same time frame under a summary task….You can use the summary tasks to show the major phases and subphases in the project. Summary tasks summarize the data of their subtasks, which are the tasks that are grouped beneath them.”

BY: Tanya Foster

Last time we finished up creating our project.  Now let’s look at our Project from our My Scorecard view.  First, we need to expand our Human Resources section so that we can get to our Project.  To expand a section, simply click on the plus sign next to the name.

Once we’ve expanded our section, we see the list of projects to choose from.  Once you find the project that you want to view, click on the name of the project to view it.  In our case, we’re going to click on the Employee Suggestion Database that we created.

Once the project opens, the default view will be the Project Info tab.  You will notice that there are several different tabs at the top of the page.  You can click on each of these tabs and view the information under that tab.  You can also click on the right triangle to scroll to the right for more tabs, or you can click on the diamond in the middle to access a list of tabs that you can click on the name to access.  Another important thing to note is that we are in the view (or read only) mode.  You can tell whether you’re in the view only or edit mode by looking in the left hand corner of the screen (noted with a red circle). 

There is another handy icon that you can use in this view mode.  I’ll give you another screenshot because this icon was hidden in the screenshot above.  It’s the icon located to the right of “Project Associations”.  I have circled it in red.  Clicking on this icon, a window pops up showing you a graphical representation of where this project is in the workflow process.  You’ll notice that “Request Project” is
the only box with bold writing in it.  This notes where we currently are in the process.

Another thing I like about this graphical representation is that you can hover over any of the boxes and a description box will pop up.  So you are never left to guess just exactly what “Request Review” means!  To close the workflow representation, simply click on the icon again and the box will disappear.

You will notice to the left of the “handy icon”, are some other links.  We won’t do screen shots of each option, but I do want to tell you about each one.  You can see that the Change Request option is grayed out.  Our project hasn’t even gotten past the Request stage yet, so even if we made changes it wouldn’t impact anything right now.  If we were farther along, then a change request would have to be submitted.

Change Request: Use this link to request additional resources and/or funds for projects that have already been approved.

Alert Subscription: Use this link to subscribe to automatic e-mail messages.

Workflow:  You can access workflow information from this link.  You do have to have the proper user rights set up by the Portfolio Administrator in order to access this.

Project Associations: Use this link to view/edit the different associations of the project to an organization, portfolio, program or application.

That’s all for this blog on Portfolio Server.  Tune in next time when we talk about Editing a Project in Portfolio Server 2007!

BY:  Collin Quiring

Project Professional 2010 and Project Server 2010 come with great modifications and an improved user experience.  Part of that is to allow all sorts of flexibility in many areas of the tool.  While this is a good thing for many reasons, there is one area that has concerned me since starting to review the first versions of the 2010 version.  My concern isn’t specific to Project (or any specific 2010 product either) as this has been around for years but it seems to be a bigger issue with each newer software release and the 2010 release really brought it to the forefront of my thoughts.

The question that keeps lingering in the back of my mind is:  What do you do when best practices and the capabilities of a tool collide?  “Best practices” being broadly defined as whatever the organization considers their best practices, whether derived from their internal processes, industry standards or bodies of knowledge.

One answer is just to turn off or otherwise disable the capabilities of the tool.  That isn’t always possible or easy to do though.  And, almost every time I have done that it doesn’t take long for somebody to wildly protest that they need either that capability or a corresponding one that no longer works correctly.  Constantly reviewing “best practices” is valid as well but that never results in every capability suddenly becoming acceptable usage.  Another solution is to train everybody in the way that you want them to do things – which seems to work better in theory than reality.  It isn’t easy to force people to use a tool the way you want them to use it.  .

Some might say that you shouldn’t force people to use a tool a certain way – but, of course, we do that every day.  How many companies use a note field as a valuable reporting field and require certain characters to be put into the field in a certain order?  Or, how much variability do employees have when reporting their time for weekly payroll?  How many variations are there in Outlook to book a conference room – and yet every company I have been to has only one way to do it “right” so that it is actually reserved.

It is almost counter-intuitive but the more capabilities a tool has, the more administrative work it requires.  The administrators have to understand all the various input possibilities and deal with how that information is stored and used.  Reporting and views have to be created that allow for all the variables (even if some variables aren’t “allowed”). 

I don’t have a definitive answer to the question but as I struggle with how tool capabilities affect best practices I would love to hear if somebody has a great solution.