Project Management Archives | Page 2 of 2

What are Project Management Phases?

Quick Take: The phases of the Project Management Process are: Initiation Planning Execution Monitoring Closing The Phases of the Project Management Process Effective project management relies on a series of processes. For waterfall project management, these processes are commonly organized into phases. These phases generally run linearly and sequentially with a Big Bang at the end when the project delivers its planned result. Agile project management also has phases, but they are more incremental and iterative and less step by step. This process values delivering pieces of the project during the span of the effort. We’ll discuss Agile project management in a future post. Today, the majority of projects use the Waterfall Project Management Process, which is illustrated below. This simple graphic shows the key phases in the Project Management Process and associated activities for each step. The information above is taken from the Project Management Institute (PMI). We include information for both Project Management 4 Phases and Project Management 5 Phases. The main difference between the two processes is that the 4-step process combines Steps 4 and 5 (Monitoring and Closing) and the activities that support those steps. Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software such as Projectric supports the activities for each project phase. Read our blog post Mind Your P’s and M’s: PPM for PM to find out how PPM supports robust Project Management Methodologies. We hope this overview helps as you refine your Project Management techniques. If you have questions, feel free to contact us and we’ll give you a hand.

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Mind Your P\’s and M\’s: PPM for PMs

Quick Take: Project Managers (PMs) must deliver projects on-time while providing transparency and governance. However, today, PMs often are working with a set of tools ill-suited for the changing landscape. IT budgets have only risen slightly, but much of the IT portfolio has shifted from maintaining the infrastructure status quo to supporting expensive, broad, complex initiatives such as digital transformation PMs not only need to ensure that the proper projects are being approved, they are tasked with improving project management as well as providing reporting transparency and governance To survive and thrive, PMs should use an end-to-end Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software solution even if their focus is only at the project level Project Portfolio Management software helps PMs see all projects and emerging issues across a portfolio and provides the tools not only for planning now, but to forecast future needs Project Portfolio Management (PPM) software tools can help advance careers and minimize stress for Project Managers (PM). Using PPM, a Project Manager can move from a facilitation role with limited organizational value to a management role with demonstrable impact towards achieving strategic goals. Project Management Challenges Project Managers must deliver IT projects on-time while providing transparency and governance to the organization. They must be able to answer requests from diverse lines of business such as: Which projects are approved and why? How will this program be staffed? Was this a successful project? Will we have the resources available for the project starting new quarter? Today, Project Managers face these challenges with a set of tools ill-suited for the changing landscape. Manual processes are not scalable; Excel is not dynamic and can’t forecast; and standalone solutions are not integrated. It’s always been this way. Project Managers are increasingly tasked to do more with less, and this is expectation is even greater today, given the ever rising velocity of business. Although IT budgets have only risen slightly, but the composition of the IT portfolio has shifted from fairly predictable programs designed to maintain the infrastructure status quo to programs supporting more-risky initiatives such as digital transformation. (See our post Is Your PPM Process Ready For The Digital Transformation? for more information.) Project Managers need help to ensure the proper projects are being approved and that they are continuously improving project management practices, all the while providing the reporting transparency and governance needed to advance the organization. The Solution: Project Portfolio Management (PPM) So what is PPM software? Project Portfolio Management software is typically a suite of tools designed to manage collections (portfolios) of projects, programs, or products, including current and future projects. A portfolio continuously optimizes the allocation, prioritization and scheduling of resources. PPM systems track the dependencies between projects and the enterprise to provide project managers and executives a global view. Even if their focus is only at the project level, Project Managers can leverage the benefits of an end-to-end Project Portfolio Management solution. By utilizing a PPM solution to see all projects across a portfolio as well as emerging issues, the PM can take early corrective action that benefits the overall portfolio and thus the organization. Additionally, a top-down view of resource utilization across projects allows the PM to proactively make adjustments and even solve multiple resource issues at once. Finally, PPM software can provide transparency on project performance. The intelligence capability PPM provides can be automated and distributed to the line of business via self-service reporting tools, allowing the PM more time to focus on managing the projects vs. delivering status reports. A full-featured intuitive PPM tool can make a PM more effective using the following enhanced capabilities: Project Approval PPM software gives Project Managers the powerful tools PMs need to ensure that the project proposals presented for funding are selected using methodologies that are rigorous, transparent, and align with corporate strategies and portfolio goals Timesheet Management Use your PPM to maintain cost and expense data within a centralized solution that enables easy input via web-based templates. Resource Allocation PPM provides top-down views of project status and milestone tracking enabling PMs to manage initiatives with the portfolio view in mind. There’s more about Resource Allocation in this blog post. Top-Down Reporting PPM software enables PM to quickly access all relevant data—from project selection criteria to actual vs budgeted results—accessible in a variety of charts and dashboards across the enterprise. Read more about best practices for reporting within PPM here. Benefits To Project Managers Easy PM access to project data has benefits from performance improvement that range from the quantitative (improved project success rate, financial return, and cost savings) to the qualitative (less time spent doing manual tasks, improved organizational success, and support to formalize and develop a Project Management Office (PMO).) These and many other valuable PPM features listed below combine to transform the PM role from being viewed simply as a facilitation role with limited organizational value to one with a demonstrable impact on achieving your organization’s strategic goals. The Benefits of Project Portfolio Management Improved: Risk Management Financial Management Forecasting Pipeline Management Resource Management Change Management Documentation Reporting and Analytics Business intelligence Dashboards for Critical Project Status Real-Time Monitoring Collaboration with Stakeholders We could go on, and on about the benefits of obtaining the right Project Portfolio Management solution but if you’re interested in learning more, contact us for a free demo.

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PM vs EPM vs PPM

Project Management, Project Portfolio Management / admin

Quick Take: What is Project Management Software?—Project management software helps project managers in day-to-day project planning, tracking, and monitoring with an emphasis on understanding and managing immediate priorities What is Enterprise Project Management Software?—EPM software is similar to Project Management Software but operates on a larger scale. Because enterprises have more than one project in progress simultaneously, an EPM solution helps to manage, monitor, and assess the activities, schedules, and work breakdown structures for many projects across all departments. What is Project Portfolio Management Software?—PPM software is designed to manage collections (portfolios) of projects, programs, or products, including current and future projects. PPM systems track the dependencies between projects and the enterprise, to provide project managers and executives a global view. A portfolio continuously optimizes the allocation, prioritization and scheduling of resources. PM, EPM, and PPM Explained If you already use project management software — or even a good project-driven ERP system — then it’s natural to question whether or not you actually need project and portfolio management software. To add to the confusion, some vendors sell each of these systems as separate applications, while others offer an all-in-one product. So can one platform really do the job of three — and save you software licensing costs? Yes, it can, if it’s the right software. Let’s examine the difference between these systems and sort out which software is best for your business. PM: Project Management Software Project management software involves functionality aimed at day-to-day project planning, tracking, and monitoring. Project Managers focus on the needs of their stakeholders. They obtain the resources necessary for success and apply technology, methodology, and resources to achieve project success. A Project Manager is primarily interested in immediate priorities — who is supposed to do what activity when, and what are the costs involved. Software tools help teams collaborate and increase transparency through features such as milestones, Gantt charts, budgeting, calendars, and timesheets. PM software also enhances the communication and collaboration between projects. Project management software is typically focused at helping individual project managers manage their projects. EPM: Enterprise Project Management Software Like project management software, enterprise project management software is also designed to facilitate day-to-day project delivery and management, but on a larger scale, generally company-wide. Since enterprises have more than one project in progress simultaneously, an EPM solution helps reach across the organization manage, monitor, streamline, and assess the activities, schedules, and work breakdown structures for the company’s existing set of projects. Enterprise project management focuses across the enterprise, to prioritize business goals by managing and grouping projects to meet broader enterprise-wide objectives. Getting a handle on success factors in enterprise project management can save companies significant money. The Project Management Institute (PMI) found in a study 14 percent of IT projects fail. IT gets worse. Of the projects that didn’t fail outright, 31 percent didn’t meet their goals, 43 percent exceeded their initial budgets, and 49 percent were late. PPM: Project Portfolio Management Software Project portfolio management software is designed to handle projects, programs, or products across the enterprise in part by assigning projects to portfolios. Questions answered by PPM software go beyond “Did the project end successfully” to help determine other success factors, such as: How did the project fit into the current mix? Do projects of this type meet organizational goals? What are the inter-dependencies between projects? Three months from now, will we have enough resources to start the project? Which projects are failing and should be terminated? PPM systems show performance and resource demands of current projects, as well as projects that are being bid, sold, or will start at a future date. PPM systems show how projects fit with the rest of the enterprise, giving project managers and executives a global view of where skills and resources are invested. PPM software generally aggregates project data from PM, EPM, or ERP systems to create portfolios of existing and future projects for evaluation organized by budget size, calendar year, budget year, business line, and so on. Since PPM products provide a comprehensive zoomed-out view of projects, some software vendors may be good at the big picture but lack the tools needed to manage the granular aspects of an individual project or sub-project. The most effective PPM software handles both the macro and micro view of an organization’s projects. Get the Real Thing As technology rapidly advances, many ERP vendors are claiming they are capable of delivering the functionality of PPM, EPM, or both — which can confuse the buying process. Also there are some EPM solutions that claim they are PPM solutions. Don’t necessarily judge a system by its acronym. Instead, focus on pinpointing the goals and needs of your business, then evaluate and choose a project portfolio management software vendor that meets your specific needs. If you need an enterprise-wide solution that aggregates project data to create portfolios of existing and future projects, that shows performance and resource demands of current and future projects, that delivers Project Prioritization, Project Management, Resource Management and Project Portfolio Reporting, contact us today at [email protected].

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How To Implement An Effective Project Prioritization Methodology

Project Management, Project Portfolio Management, Project Prioritization / admin

Quick Take: Prioritization is rightly the first component of the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) process Your project prioritization framework should be data-driven Defining the value your organization seeks is critical to success Your prioritization process should take into account these steps: Intake, Scoring, Selection, and Strategic Alignment The data contained in your PPM software system is critical to project prioritization success While the four steps of the Project Prioritization process can be undertaken by several means, sufficient, accurate, real-world data and an application that can help you derive insights at each step is critical. Getting Project Prioritization Right is Critical to PPM Success Your organization probably does not lack for ideas for projects to improve efficiency, accountability, revenue, and other facets. But how can you determine which projects will deliver the biggest value? Deciding by the seat of your pants might work for very small organizations, but when there’s lots of work to be done, you need a way to rigorously evaluate project proposals and prioritize them. Project Prioritization is the first and one of the most impactful components of a Project Portfolio Management process. It enables your organization to focus on projects that deliver the most value. (The other PPM process components are Project Management, Resource Management, and Project Portfolio Reporting.) Start identifying the best projects by examining projects’ business goals, time, money, and resources required. Your project prioritization framework should be data-driven, objective, and scalable. It should support the concepts of Governance and Transparency. It’s likely that your organization has many different definitions of value. For some, value is determined by increasing revenue. For others, value means reducing cost. Or a measure of value could be a qualitative goal such as “going green.” And on, and on. To begin the project prioritization process, you must first define the value that a project or group of projects will bring to the organization. Once you have that sorted out, you can begin the project prioritization process. For most organizations, the project prioritization process consists of the following steps: Project Intake Project Scoring Project Selection Strategic Alignment A PPM software solution that features a project prioritization template and other tools to capture or create data for each of step of the process will be critical to delivering maximum value from your project portfolio. Project Intake In some organizations, there are many ways to get projects into production. Often these are ad hoc processes that generally are not the best way to select high-value projects. It’s best to create a framework to support this important process for project initiation. That framework should be able to track and contain the various decisions and ranking of projects required to fully vet new projects. Your process should include the following: Definition: The project intake process includes the steps for submitting an initiative for evaluation Data Gathered: Capture important details such as sponsor, project name, business goal, priority and requested due date How To Implement: Project Portfolio Management software tools include an intake form template that you can customize to gather the appropriate information Project Scoring You want an objective process to ensure rational Project Prioritization. To be a success, this process must be able to score each project competing for funding. Doing so weeds out the nice-to-have projects from the critical projects and can surface projects that deliver the best value. PPM software can help make the scoring process move smoothly. Definition: A scoring model is used to quantify a project’s various components along one or more axes that represent the quality and impact of the project Data Gathered: Risk, reward, complexity, cost, revenue, and strategic alignment measures will feed the scoring process How To Implement: Project Portfolio Management software usually enables a weighted scoring model to build a project scorecard to track results Strategic Alignment A project that is not strategically aligned with an organization’s goals can be distracting as well as a waste of resources. Your project may have scored well during the Project Scoring phase, but it may not be aligned for a variety of reasons. For example, management may have changed direction or failed to accurately communicate the strategic goals of the organization. Ensuring alignment is critical to effective Project Prioritization. Definition: How well a project aligns with organizational goals Data Gathered: Score vs. goal How To Implement: Aligning projects to business strategy should be crucial in your Project Portfolio Management software scoring model The bottom line is that your Project Portfolio Strategy must be aligned with the organization’s Business Strategy. It’s not enough for your project strategy to just align with the Project Management Project Selection So, your projects are aligned strategically. Finally it’s time to do what may be the most difficult step of the Project Prioritization process: selection followed by prioritization. Definition: Determining if/when a project proceeds to the next stage in the PPM process Data Gathered: Active projects, canceled projects, the project submitter, and the project score How To Implement: Your project selection criteria should include the elements described above As part of Project Selection, you can determine or incorporate your organizational risk/reward baseline and use that to select projects. A robust project prioritization process will allow you to answer, at a minimum: Who submitted this project and what is its purpose? How do I compare these projects? Which strategic goal does this project support? Why was my project not approved? If I have limited resources, do I cancel any of my projects? Which projects? Do I hire additional resources for my project backlog? With the help of the right Project Portfolio Management software, you can streamline the Project Prioritization process and ground it in reality. PPM software can also reveal risks, rewards, and insights that can improve prioritization accuracy. Project prioritization ensures that you are making the best use of your organization’s resources. To learn more about the additional benefits that PPM can deliver please see our “Definitive Guide to Project Portfolio Management.”

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How Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Improves Project Management

Project Management / admin

Quick Take Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is essential to keeping a pulse on your organization’s projects In addition to high-level views of project progress, a good PPM solution enables you to dive deeply into the details of individual projects Robust, automated issue tracking is a must for effective oversight of the portfolio PPM solutions need to store granular data (such as Work Breakdown Structures and Time sheets) to ensure that the information presented is both accurate to the entire organization and relevant to Project Managers Project Portfolio Management is All About the Data Data is the lifeblood of every organization of any size. You wouldn’t run your account receivables without a ironclad accounting software solution. It’s the same for projects. If you can’t easily and immediately find out where your projects are at, your organization could be at risk, and you wouldn’t know it. Project Portfolio Management is essential to the proper functioning of your projects. Your organization needs PPM as the system of record for your projects to ensure the health of your project portfolios. Generally, organizations deploy PPM software solutions to create the framework that ensures the right projects are selected and project progress monitors are in place so management can feel sure that everything is running smoothly. Your PPM solution process must provide an aggregate portfolio view of all project plans for big picture analysis. But it also should offer visibility into data at the project level. Portfolio owners and Program Managers must be able to review and edit individual project plans as well as visualize the work breakdown structure for each initiative. Another required facet, the Project Portfolio Management issue tracking process, enables project level management to effectively handle problems and identify patterns to ensure the timeliness of portfolio goals. To achieve these goals, your Project Management Portfolio Management solution should enable the following capabilities: Project Lifecycle Project Plans Work Breakdown Structure Issue Tracking Timesheets We discuss each of these capabilities below. Project Lifecycle A Project Portfolio Management solution must have a process to organize all initiatives—on the launchpad or in-flight—and enable everyone to understand project status, from organization and portfolio management down to the project managers. Mapping out your project lifecycle process enables you to manage proposed initiatives, gather information, manage active projects, and review your completed projects. Your project management software can use the project lifecycle to answer questions such as: How many active projects do we have? When was this project placed on hold? Who proposed the most initiatives this year? Is my project done yet? This process also facilities project postmortems and lessons-learned evaluations. Project Plans Your PPM solution must be able to aggregate and track project management plans across the portfolio and allow individual project plans to be examined and updated. PPM project planning enables portfolio managers and project managers to create mock-up plans for initiatives that are still in the planning or inactive stage. This allows you to assign resources and timelines and perform “what-if” analysis against the entire portfolio. Work Breakdown Structure PPM solutions need to able to store data at a low level of granularity to ensure that the information presented is complete, accurate.,available to the entire organization, and relevant to Project Managers. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is usually a visual deliverable that breaks down the project plan into tasks, milestones, timelines, and resources necessary to complete the project. It may take the form of a Gantt chart created by your PPM software. The WBS provides the information needed to answer questions such as: Which tasks or milestones are due this week? Who is responsible for Task A? What is the on-time rate for milestones on projects with this PM? Is my project done yet? The WBS is also often used in lessons-learned sessions after the conclusion of a project. Issue Tracking All projects have issues—some are more disruptive than others in preventing projects from being completed on time, on budget, and delivering business value. It is critical for the success of your projects and your portfolios to have a robust issue tracking function in your PPM software. Portfolio and project managers need timely information about issues and project risks. The project issue tracking process: Identifies issues Quantifies the issue’s impact on the project Assigns the issue to an owner Provides updates on the issue Assigns timelines for resolution Notifies stakeholders Project Portfolio Management software supports the tracking process and manages issues across the entire project portfolio. The project issue log enables you to identify trends, know the resources that can be assigned to resolve issues, and understand the impact of an issue on the portfolio. Timesheets Tracking resources’ time and comparing it with planned time is essential to avoid projects going off the rails. Your PPM solution needs to track resource utilization at the project level as well as at the task level. This is done by the timesheet function of your PPM solution. Having timesheet data answers project level questions such as: Who worked on Project A last week? How many hours did we allocate for Task A vs. how many hours were actually spent? Did we exceed our project budget? Timesheet data answers questions across the entire portfolio as well: What is the average amount of time we spend performing repetitive Task A? How much money have we spent doing Task B? Should we outsource this? Who is our fastest coder? Timesheet data is also critical in forecasting project length and the resources needed for similar future projects. Project Portfolio Management is Critical to Your Success As you’ve seen, Project Portfolio Management is a complex process that requires software to implement properly. It is a critical function that keeps projects running on time and on target. Project management ensures that your initiatives deliver! And PPM software helps ensure that your projects are a success. To learn more about the additional benefits that PPM can deliver please read the “Definitive Guide to Project Portfolio Management.”

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