EPM, Microsoft Project and You

By:  Collin Quiring

Just a quick muse.

The saying “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery” has been around a long time and I have been thinking about it the last few days quite a bit.  I am getting ready to do a massive SharePoint Server 2010 installation and a Project Server 2010 installation.  In so doing, I have been doing quite a bit of research lately to make sure that I have an understanding of how these tools are installed and the steps for setting them up and then maintaining them for the users.

In my research, I do some generic Google and Bing searches for SharePoint and Project to see what has been done by others already.  And, I keep running into tools that claim to be “as good as” Microsoft Project or Project Server.  But when I look at these tools that claim they are “as good as” Project or Project Server I have found that they mean that their tool does one thing and one thing only – and they think it is the same as Project.  I have found this to be quite disappointing.

One tool that claimed to be great at Resource Management had a very efficient interface and did one or two things really well but as soon as I tried to do something that I normally can do in Project, I found that “as good as” didn’t mean “as comprehensive as” the Project tool.  There are also add-on tools that are available for Project - some of those are great and some are useless, but at least they claim to be “add-on” and NOT a replacement that works “as good as” like these other tools claim to be. 

Project might not be perfect, but it amuses me about how many tools want to be “as good as” Project and are doing their best to imitate it.  In fact, some tools even give the same look and feel of Microsoft Project.  It just makes me think that Project must be doing some things right if so many other companies want to imitate it!

By:  Collin Quiring

If you view our website, you know that we specialize in Microsoft Project Server.  You also can see that we are PMP (Project Management Professionals) certified.  As PMP certified individuals, we are demonstrating that we understand that there is a body of knowledge that exists to assist an individual with Project Management.  This is tool agnostic; but having the right tool that integrates well with the principles and body of knowledge of Project Management can make implementing and using those principles much easier.

There are other valid Project Management (PM) tools on the market today.  In fact, the number of PM tools numbers into the 100’s with some very specialized, some home grown that are now being sold and some are variants on more common products.   And, some companies use Excel or pen and paper for the PM needs.  So, why do we concentrate on Microsoft Project Server?

We understand that there are many tools and we have some experience in a number of them, but, we realized that we needed to be specialists in one tool, and able to use others; rather than trying to claim that we are experts in all tools.  This might be a good reason for us, but why would an organization want this tool?

Of course, if you go to Microsoft’s website, you can find all sorts of lists of why this is the best choice but I am going to give a few high level reasons here that seem to recur as I talk to clients.

 “One Source of Truth, Part One” – by this I mean that you can have one centralized location for all your project information and it is accessible by the browser.  All the schedule information is in one place.  This means that EVERYBODY (who has been given security permission) from a single task person to the CEO can see the same information, in real time.

“One Source of Truth, Part Two” – all the documentation, issues, risks and other pertinent data can be associated with a Proposal, Project or Portfolio in one place.  No more email chains with attachments that are being modified by different people at different times for various reasons – the most recent version of the document is in one place.

Resource Management – the ability to understand who is available (or not) and when they are available is becoming more and more important and this tool delivers.  Depending on the amount of setup detail that an organization wants to provide is directly related to the amount of benefit that they receive.  From a company’s perspective, the ability to understand their resources can be an invaluable area of information.

Integration – for a Microsoft dominated IT department, the ability to integrate Project Server with other tools is relatively easy.  And, if you use Portfolio Server as well then it is all designed together.  And, since Project Server uses SQL, there is often already a database server running that can be used for Project Server.  If you are using Microsoft Dynamics, there are connections between Project Server and the Dynamics products that allow for information to flow between systems.  And, there are connectors to non-Microsoft products that have been built as well.

There are numerous other reasons, but these are some of the ones that seem to keep popping up about why a company should use Microsoft Project Server.