Does Operational Activity In Your Organization Drive Financial Transactions?

I wanted to create this blog so that there would be a forum to share lessons learned about Microsoft Dynamics SL and Project Server. There is so much an organization can take advantage of with the Dynamics SL and Project Server tools, but culturally the organization must be willing to change.

New Vision has been a part of so many successful implementations of project management and accounting systems and have also been able to experience some implementations that were very difficult and didn't always go as planned. I hope this site will be a place to share that information on why New Vision changed it's processes 4 years ago to better implement these solutions.

We learn something from every implementation. The one thing I am convinced about is that if a company strategically wants to change its organization Dynamics SL and Project Server is a great platform to do that. The Microsoft SharePoint infrastructure is a tool that can facilitate process change within an organization, however, the company must be willing to change it's culture.

The company must be willing to make what they do operationally, in running their project driven organization, drive financial activity of the business. In order to see that happen we must eliminate processes that aren't part of operationally managing the project. Too many companies create so much manual entry to ensure they can get reporting information. However, if they change their processes so that everything that is accomplished has to do with operationally managing the project, we can enable them to have real-time information without creating additional steps in the process. For instance, if an organization can take a Microsoft Project schedule and perform resource planning by assigning tasks, then that information should be used to do Project Accounting for labor costing, billing and payroll processing. This is one step and the step is for the employee or construction crew to status their work on a project schedule, so operationally the company can identify the status on the project. However, this status should be the record used to bill the labor, cost the labor and create any required payroll transaction in the Dynamics SL project accounting system.

You will know whether your company makes what you do operationally drive the financial reporting, by whether you feel like you always have too many balls in the air and are afraid that you might have forgot something that is going to cause a problem for someone somewhere.

 

www.nvprojectsolutions.com

What Keeps You Up At Night?

As a business owner of a project solutions delivery company, I have given many talks to other Project Executives, Project Managers and Business Owners. Often the topic ultimately comes back to What Keeps You Up At Night? As the father of four kids, all within four years of each other, I guess What Keeps You Up At Night depends on the time of life you are referring to. When we had four kids under the age of four, Kids crying in the middle of the night kept me up at night. As the demands of our growing project solutions business grew at the same pace as my wife and I's family, what kept me up at night kept changing. It became difficult to balance the needs of my family with the challenges of working with more and more project companies that didn't have a good way to manage their business other than Microsoft Excel. It amazes me how many large project driven companies I work with that would go out of business (not literally), but would really struggle if they couldn't use Microsoft Excel. It is not that I don't like or utilize Microsoft Excel, however, if you are using Microsoft Excel for project billing, scheduling, resource planning, reporting you are in trouble when it comes to avoiding the fears that keep you up at night.

Before my family and business grew, gut feel and energy were great tools to run my family and business. My kids were sick? OK just stay up all night with them, no big deal I don't need sleep. Project is behind schedule? No problem, just pull an all nighter and we can be back on track by the weekend. When you are small you immediately know how things are going. Kids get hurt? Spend a little one on one time with them and they will immediately light up and make you feel so amazing that you know they love you with everything inside of them. Client is upset? No problem, spend time with them, understand the issues and try to do the right thing to make it right. You know whether you are able to fix the issue right then with instant feedback. You can use that information to make changes in the business that will avoid future problems like this with other project customers.

Kids become teenagers and I have no idea who these kids are. What happened to the sweet little kids that used to wear footy pajamas and think you were the greatest person in the world? Now you feel like you are living on another planet and aren't even sure how to talk to your kids. You still love them, would do anything to make everything right for them and help them avoid any pain. Your business doesn't seem like the same business you ran earlier. You don't have the energy to pull all nighters like you used to. Worse yet, you're not sure even if you stayed up all night what you should work on. So as you sit there pondering at night, what is wrong, there are typically thoughts that keep you up at night. This is where many discussions with Project Executives, Project Managers and Business Owners ultimately come back to. What Keeps You Up At Night?

I have the answer. The answer for business owners of project organizations is that the things that keep you up at night are the information and reports you need to run your business but you don't have. This information can be backlog, pipeline, receivables, payables, cash flow, project issues, project risks, or countless other pieces of information. With web parts from Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Dynamics SL and Microsoft Project Server, I have the information I need to know where I need to spend my limited time, money and energy. Having these tools doesn't take all the challenge out of running a project organization, but it does allow me to know when to make changes to our delivery of project solutions.

At least by utilizing project dashboards and information to manage my business, I don't have to stay up at night worrying about New Vision.

I just wish they had teenager solutions that helped tired parents sleep at night.

 

 

Firefighter, Arsonist or Project Manager?

It's funny that as I have spent the past 15 years working with project organizations, I often wonder whether we are truly Firefighters, Arsonists or Project Managers. I have seen so many organizations and have been guilty in our own organization of praising those firefighters who are often the busiest, most talented, passionate and motivating people to work with on a project team. You know the ones I am referring to. We have a schedule for what is to be accomplished that day and everyone is heading out to accomplish their assigned tasks when the call comes in. It could be a call from the owner of the project or a call from a subcontractor or project employee and suddenly there is a blaze that has to be out immediately. We all know who to call; that one person or team that we can always count on to solve the problem and get the fire put out. After years of implementing project solutions from Microsoft, I always looked for those Firefighters when I was talking to companies about deploying Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Project Server or Microsoft SharePoint technologies. I wanted to know that the company had that person who could always be called on to put out a project fire when needed.

However, as I began to work more and more with project companies to show them how to better use project solutions, I began to see a pattern. There is always a superman, a firefighter, the PM who could leap tall buildings in a single bound, or could put out any fire no matter where or when it was started. This project resource was skilled in the ways of firefighting, due to years of experience living in fires, however not realizing that they might actually be a non-suspecting arsonist. I began to see how project solutions, when deployed properly, actually could prevent fires. Then I began to see how the person we all were looking for when projects went bad, was often the person or team responsible for starting the fire. It is not that they started the fire on purpose. However, when you are always in a firefighting mode, you are not able to look at potential project issues that may be beginning to simmer. The Microsoft tools that we see companies successfully utilize allow everyone in the organization to see what is happening on a project. This could be the Project Executive, wanting to know how the sum of all projects are leading to their company's success, or to be able to better see a portfolio of projects that provides information to see which projects might be next month's fire. Microsoft Project solutions can allow project employees to surface project issues or risks at the time they occur. This helps resolve the problem before the Fireman has to get involved because the flames are going to take the whole project down. It may be that these Project Solutions can be utilized by the Project Managers within an organization so that even though they may not have the Firefighter skills of some people within the project organization, they can utilize tools that would avoid the fire to begin with.

Finally, once the project organization learns to utilize project solutions to better manage their projects, the skills of the firefighter can be used to help prevent future fires by addressing particular questions rather than jumping in feet first to put out the fires. Because Project Executives are being alerted to project issues at a Project Portfolio level, project employees are surfacing issues prior to fires beginning and other project managers are getting better at managing projects. New Vision Project Solutions has learned that sometimes lessons learned after a fire can actually provide information as to what started the fire and how to prevent the fire to begin with. The key to successfully preventing fires is to stop future fires from starting by managing project issues and utilizing project solutions that are geared to issue and risk management of projects. This ensures that issues are addressed prior to becoming a full-fledged forest fire. Project Solutions can make for smoother projects, happier clients and less exhausted project employees and subcontractors as well as Project Managers who don't dread picking up the phone or checking e-mail. Who knows…with the proper project management strategies and solutions, we might even make Smokey The Bear happier as well.

 

Additional resources can be found at:

 

www.nvprojectsolutions.com