Project Management Resources, Templates, Books, Tools, News :: PMToolbox

Project 2010: Introducing Portfolio Analysis

Heather O'Cull — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:02:40 +0000

In Project Server 2010, a rich set of new Portfolio Strategy features are now available in the core Project Server product serving to more closely unify project and portfolio management. Those familiar with Portfolio Server 2007 will recognize many of these features, but will appreciate the enhancements made possible by rebuilding them on the Project Server platform. Highlights include:

· UI is now SharePoint-based, making these features easier to use and provides visual consistency with the rest of the app

· A gateway linking the Portfolio Server product is no longer required, everything resides with one product

· Full API support now available for these features via the Project Server Interface (PSI), and some integration with the Reporting Database (RDB).

This seamless unification of two products into one consolidated offering makes end-to-end project and portfolio management easier than ever. In addition to the core platform integration highlights, we’ve adding a brand new Resource Analysis feature that enables portfolio-level project scheduling and analysis based on organizational resource availability.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Portfolio Strategy feature set, it essentially allows organizations to methodically select projects that will yield the most value for their dollar. By adding intelligent structure to how project investment decisions are reached, executives can minimize the irrationality and fog that comes from making “gut feel” disposition decisions based on limited data and analysis, or based on unqualified or unclear business goals. At a high-level, the feature set works as follows:

· Organizations define and prioritize their strategic objectives, or business drivers.

Drivers can be prioritized using the pair-wise comparison method to reinforce objectivity.

· Costs and resource requirements are assigned to each project proposal, and a proposal’s impact on each business driver is rated, generating relative project value/priority score across a portfolio.

The Resource Plan feature can be used to specify high-level project resource requirements to be fed into the new Resource Analysis feature.

Portfolio analysts can review the project-to-driver impact ratings assessed by the project owners and make adjustments if necessary.

· Portfolios are constrained by cost categories, time-phased resources requirements, and project schedule. The Portfolio Cost Constraint Analysis engine selects projects that yield the most value with the lowest cost, while the Resource Constraint Analysis feature chooses higher priority projects based on resource availability within a planning period’s timeline.

Given a limited budget, the Cost Analysis algorithm will select a portfolio that maximizes strategic value while minimizing cost.

The new Resource Analysis feature helps you identify gaps in demand vs. availability, favoring higher priority projects for selection.

· Portfolio analysts can override the software’s decisions, and pull a variety of constraint levers to maximize value based on a given organizational reality. Projects can be forced in, cost reduced, dates moved, resources hired, etc., all in an effort to achieve a plan that maximizes strategic value based on dollars/resources consumed.

The tool suggests project selection, but ultimately you are in control and can force in projects for specific user-defined purposes.

One of the way the Resource Analysis feature allows you to resolve resource availability gaps is by moving project dates.

· Final project investment decisions are reached and communicated to stakeholders via reports or through the web interface.

New “Committed” fields help communicate the results of selection decisions to stakeholders.

Again, all of this is done on the shared extensible Project Server/SharePoint platform in the 2010 version, and integrates seamlessly with the rest of the Project features, including the Demand Management feature set and project scheduling/execution.

From strategy, to selection, to project planning and execution, Project Server 2010 unifies the end-to-end Project and Portfolio Management experience.

Office 2010 Workshop on Channel 9

Chris Boyd — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:54:00 +0000

The Office 2010 Workshop is one of the new developer training courses on Channel 9. The release of this course consists of 29 videos with presentations and demos on Office 2010 development. That’s around 4.5 hours of content! Shortly after Office 2010 Beta becomes publicly available the training course will be updated with the hands-on-lab and source code for each unit. The training course includes these units:

Office 2010 Developer Roadmap
Office UI Customization
Office Client Workflow
Security and Deployment
Business Connectivity Services
Developing BI Applications
Open XML
Office 2010 Services
InfoPath 2010 and Forms Services

Check it out!

Chris Boyd

Ask a Project PM: Timesheets and Task Status

sonialeigh — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:14:43 +0000

Thanks all for your insightful questions on timesheets and task status in Project Server 2007! Project PM Patrick Conlan has some answers for you in this video:

Ask a Project PM: Timesheets and Task Status

Many thanks to Patrick for a well-versed interview. Watch for another topic next week!

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Become Committed to the Triad – Technical Excellence, Service Excellence and Excellence in Care

Elyse — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:12:51 +0000

Careers change over time. 10 years ago I was a programmer. I was committed to learning the latest technology and how to apply it. I was fascinated with windows and visual basic 6.0. I also got introduced to project management... Related posts:

SharePoint 2010 Developer Training Course available on MSDN Channel 9

jkalis — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:05:43 +0000

http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/SharePoint2010Developer/

Enjoy!

Running checks…. it’s easier than you think

lindsayascott — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:00:45 +0000

This week I’ve been recruiting for a contract Project Support Officer role, as part of the requirements I’m checking people out not only for their ability to do the job advertised but also is their information on their CV correct. In other words, are there any porkies on there that I should know about. In a [...] Related posts:

Alignment Requires Proactive, Progressing CIO Leadership

gantthead.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Given IT has played a significant role in business since the 1960s, it seems almost inconceivable that CIOs are still alignment challenged. Perhaps the challenge isn't so much getting aligned but staying aligned given the pace and nature of change companies must cope with and adapt to in today's global economies. Related posts:

PM 2.0 and the Principles of Project Management

Glen B. Alleman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:26:07 +0000

Nov 9th, 2009 at 10:16 pm Josh at PMStudent asked a question if there is "One True Way" to manage projects? The answer of course is a resounding Yes, there is only one TRUE way to manage projects The project... Related posts:

Getting to Productive meetings

Craig Brown — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:00:00 +0000

This topic is perennial... Here are some opinions. Mr Google has 50 million others.

Meetings fulfil two purposes; solving problems and gaining consensus. When you hold a meeting pick and focus on one of these purposes only.

Stand up
Start on time
Book only the time you’ll need
Know how it’s going to end
Send an agenda and stick to it
Tell everyone what preparation is required
Write down what is agreed and share it out afterwards

Stand up
When you stand up you get multiple benefits. They include;

People standing up think better that people who are sitting still. Being active helps the brain function. Standing beats sitting. Move around if you can, also.
Standing also increases interaction. People get up and write on whiteboards, and are more likely to talk to each other rather than exclusively to a facilitator, thus building a better flow of communication.
Lastly, if you stand up in meetings, when you are done, you will walk out. How often have you been in meetings when the content is over but people sit there through to the end of the hour?

Start on time

I am almost always late for meetings. On the other hand I am almost always an optional attendee without a need to actually be there.
Respect the people who care enough to turn up on time and start on time. This will set up a feedback loop that causes people who want their stake to be considered at a meeting to be there.
This isn’t a black and white issue as culture plays a part in time orientation. For example in some companies you stay with the person you are with until they are happy with the outcome of the meeting. But it pretty much looks like a time boxed approach to problems (and meetings) is the best way to go, so maybe give up your bad habits in favour of being on time.

Book only the time you’ll need

If you have one question and need to bring five people together to get consensus, how long do you think you’ll need? If it can be done in 15 minutes, book 15 minutes. If t will take 3 hours, book 3 hours.
Don’t book an hour by default. This way lies the path of waste and days of back to back meetings.

Know how it’s going to end

I constantly come back to the refrain “Start with the end in mind.” In this context there are many different ends that a meeting can come to.

If this is a “decision meeting” you can forecast what the end will be by briefing or polling people prior to the meeting.
If it is a “problem solving meeting” you should have an idea of what the likely outcomes will be via investigation and pre-meeting discussions.

I tend to publish a statement of the “Expected outcomes” when I book a meeting. That way everyone knows what I am thinking in advance and has the opportunity to explore my suggestion or other ideas.

Send an agenda and stick to it - mostly

Agendas do change and that’s okay, but know the purpose of the meeting and control its scope.
You work on projects, right? So you know about the scope control problem. As we have discussed earlier, one of the best ways to manage the scope is by time-boxing the meeting.

A military officer who was about to retire once said: ‘The most important thing I did in my career was to teach young leaders that whenever they saw a threat, their first job was to determine the timebox for their response. Their second job was to hold off making a decision until the end of the timebox, so that they could make it based on the best possible data.’ – Mary Poppendick

Use a parking lot for off topic conversations and address them at the end of the meeting if there is time, or let people take their issues with them to follow up in their own time.

Tell everyone what preparation is required and let everyone know the agenda

Explaining to people what preparation is required helps get people ready for the meeting,
But you’ll have to remember that several people won’t have time to do their homework. Be ready to give them a 2 minute précis of any background issues at the meeting.

And for the millionth time, the agenda should be prioritised by importance. Let the unimportant things fall of the back of the meeting. Try to timebox the agenda items also.

Write down what is agreed and share it out afterwards, on the same day.

I remembered something different to you and we need to identify this problem as soon as possible. That means you need to send out notes on the meeting the same day.
Same day = same day. While people’s minds are still close to the topic.
Be specific about what was agreed, including deadlines for actions. If deadlines were not defined in the meeting give people 3 days. If these things are important to you, follow them up with a call or personal message.

And do me a favour. PLEASE don’t attach a word doc to an email. Include your notes in the email body or hyperlink to it.

There are a billion web articles on how to run an effective meeting. This has been once of them.

Picture by ►Voj► CC via Flickr Related posts:

New power for Pakistan

Project, Program and Portfolio Management — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:00:00 +0000

Pakistan inaugurated a 200 MW power station in Punjab province that utilizes a flexible fuel source to overcome regional shortfalls, executives said. Related posts: