Project Management Beyond the Project Manager: The Case ...



Project Management Beyond the Project Manager:

The Case for Project Central

By Sheri Young, Microsoft Project MVP, Claridian Technology Consulting, LLC (member, Washington D.C. Chapter)

My colleague Joe is a busy project manager, with several projects to manage. His favorite expression is "you cannot manage a project behind closed doors." Joe has his bosses knocking on his door demanding to know how much each project is costing them. He has clients knocking on his door asking to know if their projects will be finished on time. Joe has a team of people who need to know what they are supposed to do and when. Joe has functional managers in his company knocking on his door asking when their people will be freed up to work on other important things. And Joe needs the help of all of these people in return, too. Joe goes knocking on the doors of the managers who own the resources he needs to accomplish his projects. He also knocks on the doors of his team members, who must supply progress information so he can keep things on track. All of this adds up to a lot of communicating (and knocking) for poor Joe.

Communicating the old way

Joe is in pretty good shape for managing his projects because he knows how to use Microsoft Project 2000. He can create his plan in Project 2000, assign resources, type in status information as he collects it, and print reports. What he does not have is time for all the communication required to get information from and to everyone else. He does not have time for repeated meetings to work out the details of the plan. He does not have time for weekly status meetings to collect the information about his team's progress and time charged to date. He certainly does not have time to respond to requests for many different reports in many different formats, on demand, to suit the needs and timeframes of his managers and customers.

Joe has been mostly communicating by email, but email has its limitations. He can send out a project file for reporting to people, but the recipient has to have, and has to be able to use Project 2000 to look at the project information. And he is concerned that once a project file in someone else's hands, it is out of his hands. Not only is it old one minute after it leaves Joe's desktop, but anyone with a copy of the file can make changes to it. Joe has tried putting HTML and GIF snapshots of his project on the web, but it's hard to keep them up to date too. Joe asks his team members for status via email, but he's got to keep a checklist of who has responded, he has to interpret what they send him, and then he has to do data entry, which he hates. And on top of everything else, he has yet to work out a practical process for working with the functional managers at his organization to get the people he desperately needs to get this project done!

A new idea

Luckily for Joe, his sharp technical assistant Jane has spotted Project Central, and has worked with the IT department to get it installed for him. Jane has explained to Joe that Project Central will improve Joe's project-related communication, both incoming and outgoing.

Team Members use Project Central

Joe's team members are happy now because they can review - at any time - the list of tasks assigned to them. And all they need to make that happen is a web browser!

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They can actually plan ahead because they know what is expected of them and when. And better yet - the painful, mind-numbingly long status meetings, and Inboxes filled with emails from Joe, are a thing of the past. With Project Central they can enter the status of their tasks at their own convenience, instead of at Joe's convenience. And, instead of sitting in planning meetings, they can help with planning at any time by using Project Central to submit tasks to Joe for automatic inclusion in the project plan.

Managers & Customers use Project Central

Joe's bosses and customers are happy because they can now see the very latest plans and status information using their web browsers. Now, instead of having to print ten different reports on demand to satisfy the personal desires of ten different executives, Joe has configured Project Central to provide each of these executives a custom view. When Joe saves his project files, the views from the Project Central web server are immediately updated as well. One executive likes high level information, prefers that it be very visual, and is focused on cost, so he's got a view that includes a red/yellow/green stoplight indicator of project cost health.

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Another executive does not trust anything he sees unless he can see the details that support it, so Joe gave him the capability in Project Central to look at the summary level and to drill down to the detailed data. Joe's customers are happy because they can check the status of their projects (and only their projects) at any time, via the web, without having to call Joe. And now that Joe's company is going to use Project Central across the board, the executives are going to have a live window into the set of all ongoing projects, in whatever view works for them, in real time.

Functional Managers use Project Central

Best of all, though, is the new and improved relationship between Joe and the resource, or functional, managers. Joe's company is a matrix-type organization, where all of the skilled people work for skill managers, and project managers have to negotiate to borrow people for work on their projects. With Project Central, Joe no longer has to have a meeting or complete complex forms in triplicate to work out resource assignments with the functional managers. Now Project Central is the bridge between the project manager and the resource managers. Now when Joe needs IT staff for his projects, he simply assigns all his IT tasks to Jim, the IT manager. Jim uses his web browser and Project Central to view the assignments from Joe, and then with the Project Central delegation feature, he can decide who on his staff will perform the tasks.

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His assignments get passed back to Joe, who can push a button to post them to the project file. Jim is happy that he now "controls" the assignments. He is even more happy about the fact that he can choose to continue to monitor his staff members' tasks as they submit progress information to Joe via Project Central. Jim can even insert himself as an approver for all timesheet actual hours submitted to the project manager (for those people he really wants to watch). And even better yet, he can see a view in Project Central that shows him every project/task assigned to each person in his group.

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For the first time, Jim is happily engaged in the project management process, enjoying the control he wants, without being burdened with complex tools or paperwork.

The Project Manager uses Project Central

Joe is much happier now that Project Central has taken a role in his project communications. Up to date information is available to his managers and customers, in the formats they require, without any extra effort required from Joe. His team is using Project Central to help him plan as the project progresses. Task status information is passed to him in a form he can automatically post to the project plan, without retyping.

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And his relationships with the functional/skill managers in his company are much improved, with clearer lines of authority, and a simpler process.

Investment Required

So there you have it. Project management communication made easy for Microsoft Project users and the world of people around them. Be aware, however, of the "no free lunch" rule. For your organization to effectively use Project Central, you will need to make some investments, including:

▪ Hardware to run the web server and database server

▪ Licenses for Project Central only users

▪ Competent technical MCSE/DBA/Web manager resources to install the software and make it work with a web server and database server

▪ Training needs include Project Central training for your Administrator, and your staff who will be using the timesheet. But most of all, you should invest in serious training for the Project Managers like Joe who MUST be able to use Project 2000 well to manage the effects of the project plan changes as the assignment status information flows in from Project Central

▪ Requirements definition time to define how your organization wants to use Project Central

▪ Configuration time to configure Project Central and build the Project 2000 template files that will help you maintain consistent project-type information across your organization

▪ Reporting needs design and development to get the information needed across all projects for your organization.

▪ Ongoing administrative support for Project Central

But if you are willing to make the investment like Joe and his company did, you may find that your project managers will sometimes be able to work behind that closed door in peace. The project stakeholders can do their virtual "knocking" on Project Central's door at any hour of the day or night, instead of doing that noisy knocking on yours!

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