Project Challenges...Microsoft Solutions

2010-01-19T10:32:00.001-08:00

It amazes me after being in the delivery of project solutions business for over 18 years how we complicate what we do by doing something "simpler". I guess I have to confess to you first of all I'm a recovering accountant. For those of you that know me know that although I understand accounting, have an accounting degree, I am often referred to as the worst accountant in the world. I don't think that is true, I'm pretty sure there are a couple of accountants that are worse than I am somewhere oversees, but otherwise I might have to admit all I care about is that the numbers are correct. If they got there through 1 huge summary entry with 47 thoughts going on, ultimately I only care about that it is correct.
Which leads me to simplicity and how it kills productivity. We all want to be productive and that is the key to project solutions, to make what you do operationally drive financial reporting and activity. However, we tend to kill productivity by using a "simpler" solution. The efficiency killer I'm ranting about today is Microsoft Excel. Don't get me wrong, I love this application and actually know many Excel users that love it so much it becomes their reporting system, data entry system, word processor and picking up their dry cleaning. How did we get so far away from application efficiency?
It is not just accountants, but everyone involved in project management helps perpetuate this problem. Here are some examples of how project employees utilize Excel:

Report Writer (of course with manual re-key of data)
Financial Statement creation (of course with manual re-key of data)
Scheduling System (this is a crazy use of Excel that involves so much re-keying of data it is unbelievable)
Resource Planning
Task Assignments
Project Status Reports
Dashboards for Project Employees, Project Managers and Executives

Microsoft Dynamics SL, Project Server and SharePoint are great solutions for these Excel applications, so why don't we use them?
I'm convinced that simplicity of someone not having to think about process, discuss cultural challenges with other project resources and laziness are a big part of the Excel phenomenon. Amazingly it is an easy problem to fix. We have to think about how to make what we do operationally drive activity. Example, how is time captured on projects? Make sure that time updates costs, updates project schedules, updates projects for billing purposes and use SharePoint to provide role based reporting.
Sounds difficult? Amazingly, there are pre-configured solutions that allow us to do exactly this. I know because we deliver these solutions to Excel addicts every day. I don't want to beat any of you Microsoft Excel users up because I'm a recovering Excelaholic. I just want to offer you an easier way to see productivity gains within your organizations.
So next time you run into a problem with your system, take a step back, think about your processes and don't click the Excel button. I hope this helps you out.
By the way, sorry for some of the spelling and grammer in this blog, I struggled because evidently Excel doesn't have speeling and grammer checker :)

Kreg Decker
www.nvprojectsolutions.com

2010-01-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

2010 the year of Project Management

As I get excited about 2010 and what it holds for our clients and prospects, I see this as the year of Project Management. We have barely started the 2010 calendar year and the number of calls we are receiving about the need for better project management is amazing. The calls typically reside around software with questions like, "Does your software do scheduling" or "What kind of Resource Planning capabilities do you have" or the biggest lately "Does your software do Earned Value Management". I believe there are many reasons for these inquiries suddenly popping up in 2010. I would love to believe that New Vision's commitment to preaching the value of Scheduling, Resource Planning, EVM and Issue and Risk Management is the reason, but I'm smart to realize that isn't it. There are a few reasons that this explosion in search/demand for project solutions has occurred. Here are the reasons that I see as why companies are finally needing to utilize these tools:

• The end of the T&M projects (now I know what you are saying "We still do a lot of Cost Plus and T&M projects"). I understand that, but I also understand that with these difficult times that when Business Development provides proposals or Statements of Work, the client is holding project organizations to those budgets. Yes, there are change orders, but the scoping of projects is becoming much more critical. More and more prospects and clients are telling us that they are not seeing T&M projects like they have in the past.

• Government Contracting has picked up dramatically with the Stimulus projects and many firms that had never needed to do Earned Value Management (much less even knew what it was), is now being called on to provide EVM on their projects. The misinformation and fear is amazing to clients that need to be able to report on Earned Value.

• Layoffs and cuts have driven many project organizations to need to manage resources more skillfully than ever before. There is not any fat left to cut since so many project organizations are running lean. Scheduling must be done to ensure goals are met and deadlines kept. The days of managing organizations without true resource planning are over.

• Fixed price overruns. Since T&M projects are being run as fixed price and clients are demanding justification for change orders, project plans are growing in popularity like never before. With the ability to tie schedules into Project Budgets and ERP solutions, the ability for organizations to track schedules while tracking costs gives great comparisons to budget versus work performance on projects.

• Competition has never been tighter in many project organizations industries. The need to estimate correctly is a key component to selling jobs. If you are still using gut-feel or old projects as estimates, you are probably not winning the number of projects that you have in the past. Owners/Clients know times are tough and they are squeezing everything they can out of projects. It is up to your organization to know exactly what it costs you to complete a project so you can adjust to market pressures accordingly.

• Microsoft Project 2010 - in all the years of working with Project Organizations, I have never seen so much anticipation and excitement over a product release. After reviewing and utilizing Project 2010 and Project Server I realize that this product is coming out at the perfect time. Users that have never dove into Project because it is too "complicated" will find that Microsoft has simplified the ability to create/modify plans so that many beginners scan begin to manage projects effectively.

As is always the case the new year brings many hopes, plans and challenges to most organizations. I'm looking forward to 2010 to see if it truly becomes the year of Project Management.

2009-10-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

"Microsoft Project doesn't work for my business"

It never ceases to amaze me that every time I speak to large audiences about Project Scheduling, Resource/Capacity Planning, Project Collaboration or integration with Microsoft Dynamics SL, I always ask two questions:
1)How many of the people in the audience have used Microsoft Project (every time nearly everyone in the audience raises their hand).
2)How many people that raised their hand to question number 1, still use Microsoft Project (every time I lose almost half of the hands).

After the usual laughs that incur and the usual quotes about MS Project like:
· "We use it for the initial schedule that the Client requires, then we don't use it anymore"
· "We bought it thinking it would solve our Scheduling conflicts, but it only made it worse"
· "All of our Project Managers keep their individual schedules on Project, but spend all their time e-mailing project plans to each other, which actually takes more time than not using Project."
· "We bought xx number of copies of Project, but now only 1 or 2 people still use Project".

I usually take this opportunity to ask the following questions:
· "Have you ever heard of Microsoft Project"
· "Are you using Project Server with Microsoft Project"?
· "What if I told you that Project Server is the key to making Microsoft Project work for your business"?

We then go through the usual comments about they don't understand hardware or IT items and they typically think Project Server is a big computer that IT needs to deal with related to Microsoft Project. What amazes me is that Project Server is the key to making Microsoft Project work properly for project organizations. It is funny because it is an easier tool to use than Microsoft Project, and it is the key to unlocking the potential that makes companies buy Microsoft Project to begin with. I guess you can say I am on a personal mission to help companies understand the value of Microsoft Project Server. I talk to companies about the fact that running Microsoft Project without Project Server is like running Microsoft Outlook without Exchange. So if Project Server makes Microsoft Project work for project organizations, what does it do?

Here is a list of some of the basic features that you can immediately take advantage of:

· Project Server immediately takes all Microsoft Project plans, that in the past, were on individual project managers computers and publishes them to everyone in the organization to provide visibility to all projects.
· Project Server takes the tasks of all projects and publishes them to all project resources.
· Project Server takes control of provisioning a Project SharePoint site so that everyone can collaborate about the project. This includes Project Resources, Subcontractors, Owners/Clients, and Project Executives. This SharePoint site then becomes the common location to surface issues/risks, document management, and review project plans.
· Project Portfolio management allows the organization to view all the projects that your organization is either working on or considering working on. This provides breakdowns by divisions, project managers, type of work and location.
· Resource Planning to view either individual resource capacity or global resource capacity.

This is just a basic list of the immediate advantage of turning on Project Server for your organization. I guess I hope that between now and the release of Project 2010, New Vision can start doing a better job of evangelizing the value of Project Server to the non-Microsoft Project Server community. It is easier to use than Project, provides value to the whole project organization and gets information to project stakeholders when they need it and where they need it. If you haven't looked into Microsoft Project Server I encourage you to look into the value of turning on Microsoft Project Server to connect project plans, communicate project data to your whole organization and to most importantly resolve the question where I don't have to hear anymore at these meetings "Microsoft Project doesn't work for my business".

www.nvprojectsolutions.com

Microsoft Project Conference 2010

2009-10-04T07:55:00.001-07:00

As I am gathering my thoughts from the Microsoft Project Conference 2010, I have to admit, it is two weeks later and I am still blown away by the conference and more importantly the release of 2010. First you have to know that as a solution provider and someone who presents software to people as a living, I don't often get very excited about demos, presentations or other "hype" around new releases (unless of course I am the one presenting). I guess what excites me the most about Project 2010, isn't the improvements to SharePoint 2010, which make the product so much easier to use as well as providing so much more workflow. It isn't the Project Server improvements, which make using Project Server very difficult to distinguish between what can't be done in Project Server versus Project Professional (this is amazing). It isn't even Portfolio Server being included with Project 2010 (although this will absolutely assist larger organizations in doing Project Portfolio Management and Planning). I guess what excites me the most is that I believe Microsoft Project 2010, will bring Project Management to the smaller organization in a way no other release of Project or any other Microsoft application has done. I look at how they have made functionality for smaller project organizations, that don't have a history of Project Management Methodologies, or PMs that have extensive history with Project Management, to begin to take advantage of Project Management solutions that are easy to use. All companies need project management. Microsoft Project 2010, now provides project management for the small, mid and large organization.

The Project Conference in Phoenix had the usual benefits of connecting with users and partners and sharing of ideas, but the buzz around the new release was something I haven't seen before from this conference. The great thing is that Project 2010 builds on the foundation of what was built in Microsoft Project 2007, so our clients and our own company, need to continue to improve with 2007 and let Project 2010 enhance that internal improvement. I had the luxury of meeting with many from the Microsoft Project team and the fact that they have been using Project 2010 internally for so long has helped to fuel a passion that I have to admit is contagious. It makes me want to get to 2010 as soon as we can, and it allows our organization as well as our clients to continue to finish the initiatives started on Project 2007, so we can fully take advantage of the enhancements of Project 2010.

As a solution provider of Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Project and Microsoft SharePoint I have never been more excited about how these solutions are going to change the way our companies manage their businesses. It is not often that hype around a product, lives up to the actual product. I have to admit that they hype for Project 2010, really delivers solutions that I know will help New Vision and our clients be more successful in managing projects. Mid to large companies will benefit from the improvement workflow, portfolio management, resource planning and scheduling improvements. However, I have to admit the most excitement for me centers around the ease of use that will allow small organizations, who are so desperate to find a way to better manage projects, to finally have tools they can utilize to manage their business.

I have included some great links to more information about the conference and Project 2010.

http://www.microsoft.com/project/2010/en/us/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/projectserver/default.aspx

www.nvprojectsolutions.com

Does Operational Activity In Your Organization Drive Financial Transactions?

2009-09-17T11:04:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-09-14T19:53:00.003-07:00

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?

2009-09-14T19:53:00.001-07:00

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

The Cobblers Kid Has No Shoes

2009-08-11T11:33:00.001-07:00

The past few weeks this theme of the Cobblers Kid has no shoes has hit me so hard with some of the challenges we face at New Vision Project Solutions. New Vision is a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner that is vertically focused on working with project driven organizations. We strategically picked the project industry because we have found that as we improve our own internal systems that it gives us great solutions to offer to our clients, who face many of the same challenges. We have always been passionate to solve project challenges for project organizations. Project Organizations face some of the most challenging obstacles in running a successful business. Every project a company engages in, offers new opportunities for success or failure. Each project has different objectives, different risks, issues and budget challenges. Most companies we visit with struggle with having the right systems necessary to provide the right information, at the right time to the right project resources. Since we deliver project solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Project Server, Microsoft SharePoint and many industry specific solutions that we have created over the years, we often get the opportunity to help people address these project solutions.

My concerns about the cobblers kid having no shoes comes lately with comments I have heard from clients of New Vision. I have had the opportunity recently to talk to a few of our clients and received comments about us doing a good job, but it often seems we have to work so hard to implement our solutions successfully. As we grow as a company, many of the key employees have gotten older as well. We don't seem to have the energy that we have had in the past. Yet, we still seem to have to "put out fires" to successfully implement project solutions. We have seen a lot of improvement over the years in the way we manage project solution implementations for our clients. Whether it be implementing Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Project Server, we utilize Microsoft SharePoint as a back-end solution to help both project accounting and project management personnel to have information when they need it where they need it so they can make project decisions in a timely manner. A few years ago, we began utilizing a Project SharePoint site as a common project collaboration site for every New Vision project. This has provided a great tool for project collaboration, however, it seems like we have the site, but aren't using it effectively with our clients. Whether our clients don't understand SharePoint, are uncomfortable using new tools, or just trust New Vision to manage the projects, the SharePoint sites haven't been as effective as they could be. We are beginning to experiment with new ways to help our clients better use the SharePoint sites to provide Project Reporting back to their management teams. It seems like we spend a lot of time making sure our clients get everything they need to see how their projects are working, whereas we tend to neglect our own need to manage projects using project solutions that we deliver.

So being that we are the cobblers kid that has no shoes, we are embarking on a process to ensure that New Vision uses the same tools to make decisions as we teach our clients to do. If we don't have the information we need when we need it, it must mean that having these solutions alone is not the key to effectively managing projects. We use Microsoft Dynamics SL, Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft SharePoint for every implementation, however, we don't let what we do operationally drive financial transactions. There must be processes to go along with these software packages that make the total project solution work. We should be using Project Portfolios in Project Server to drive status of project, Resource Planning in Project Server to ensure we have the right resources at the right place to ensure our clients meet their deadlines. We should be using Microsoft Business Portal to display data dashboards for project resources to make the right decisions at the right time.

We have some deadlines over the next 60 days to make sure that we change our processes to match our solutions and begin using our own project solutions effectively. We have confidence that we can help our most difficult client of all, ourselves. As the founder and leader of New Vision, I can't wait for these improvements over the next 60 days, because without shoes my feet are really hurting.