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Some
bad and ugly things about
Project Server (EPM) - for more bad and ugly
things, click on Bad #2 - #6 above
The people who are using Microsoft Project have to be
"product experts" in order to provide the value
you are likely looking for in an EPM deployment.
We should qualify that
statement a bit, if you just want your project
managers to save their schedules to a database,
they do not have to be experts with Microsoft
Project. In fact, anyone should be able to sit
down and figure out how to get a schedule or
time line into MS Project and save it to
a database or MS Project Server. If they can't
figure that one out on their own your HR
department needs to beef up the hiring standards
a bit.
However, if you want your project managers to
manage resources, build project teams from the
enterprise, assign those resources to tasks,
publish those assignments to Project Server, and
then process updates from their teams - then
your PMs will have to be experts with Microsoft
Project.
No exceptions, no workarounds, no short-cuts,
no excuses.
 Experience:
This is what we believe from having worked with
thousands of project managers in North America,
Africa, Europe, and Asia. If you expect a
project manager to use Microsoft Project for
resource management and they haven't been using
the software, then it is going to take someone
with good software skills about 250 hours of
time to become an expert with this system. Maybe
more time if they have taken any Microsoft
Project training from low-end technical training
companies and picked up a lot of bad ideas. Now,
we have methods of shortening this learning
curve but the reality is you can't take a funnel
and stick it in someone's ear and pour in the
content and skill. They have to sit down and
learn, and, it takes all of us a while for some of
these concepts in the system to jell.
In addition, if you want to do capacity management
for the enterprise all of your Microsoft Project
users not only need to be experts but they must
be "committed" to building and staffing well
designed plans. The entire group of PMs - every
single one without exception. (Including Doug,
that pretty good PM down the hall that has dug
in his heels and refuses to use MS Project.) Otherwise your
enterprise project data will have no meaning or
at best have limited value.
This is the issue: for a project manager to
do resource management in any meaningful way
they have to know 80 to 90 percent of Microsoft
Project
otherwise they are not likely to do it well.
They do not need to know all of the "features" but they
do need to know the core project
management functionality of the tool, or what we
call the Eight Conceptual Areas of MS Project.
It has always been this way with project
management software and this not something
unique to Microsoft Project, although our
perspective is that Microsoft has not enforced a
moratorium on "switches." The software keeps
giving us more options but the interaction
effect of all of those switches has made it far
more complicated than it really needs to be.
This argument is a hard one for people to
understand because they might use all kinds of
products like Excel, Photoshop, and Visio and
get great results even though they would admit
they are not experts with the products. They
might wish they knew more, but the tools work
for what they need.
 Tag:
Project management software is really not like
most other types of software. Maybe it is close
to being like accounting software. Let's say you
use QuickBooks software for your finances and
you aren't a slouch by any strength of the
imagination. You have a considerable portfolio
you are managing plus a home based business that
your spouse operates. Even though it is run out
of your house, your spouse is pulling down more
than you annually from your management position
at your Fortune 1000 company. These days, you
would also be using financial software
throughout the year to handle all of your basic
transactions, automate the exchange of funds,
provide data for decision making, end each day
with financial scorecard, and make life easier
on a daily basis. Plus, there is no hassle at
the end of the year because everything is
real-time. Tax preparation is maybe a couple of
hours because you have been using an automated
system completely integrated with your
investments and business.
Now, even though you
work with this software almost daily, you are
still going to go to an accountant at the end of
the year and you are going to expect three
things from this accountant: 1) They know what
they are doing and have a firm grounding in
accountant, business, and investment theory, 2)
That they are in alignment with your business
and financial objectives, and 3) That they are
experts with the same software. If fact, you are
going to either provide them with your database
file or give them online access to your account.
With their software expertise all data is at
their finger tips. They will finalized their
analysis in short-order and sit down with you to
make decisions on how exactly to wrap-up the
year.
Project Managers also need to know the tracking
method selected in Project Server and
how to process updates from team members and
clearly understand the impact of those updates
on their plans.
Plus, they have to be motivated to take the
time to apply their knowledge during planning
and tracking or execution.
The entire success of your Project Server
deployment rests entirely on the shoulders of
the collective skill of your project managers
and we are not talking about the type of skill
gained from passing a performance-based
certification exam, or being handed a
professional certification or "belt" that is
more a function of paying for and sitting
through a course or series
of courses than obtaining actual knowledge,
experience, and skill.
Look, we offer courses. We think they provide
value if presented the right way, but we never
tell our customers that they will learn
Microsoft Project well enough to do resource
management in the enterprise by spending a few
days in class. That wouldn't be realistic or
honest.
People become experts
with Microsoft Project by applying a learning
method designed specifically for the tool and
then sitting down, rolling up their selves and
making it happen. With this system, there are
better methods than others to learn how to master
the tool but the "work" still has to be done.
So here is one of the real problem with this
EPM system, no one is telling the decision makers
what it really takes from a skill and
educational perspective to stand up EPM for
resource management and capacity planning. Organizations are well into
their first year of Project Server deployment
before they realize it isn't working as
intended.
A major part of one of the early phases in
Project Server deployment should be geared to
doing whatever it takes to get the PMs up to
speed, and putting in place an educational program
designed to maintain the necessary collective skill - if
you ever mange to get there in the first place.
Otherwise you are going to pour a lot of time
and money right down a hole and not get the
expect value of resource management.
How many service companies have you heard of
that are telling people what is really going to
be expected from project managers? One that we know
of and that company is in the UK. Everyone else
is afraid to, or don't have enough experience to
know better. The reason some firms are afraid is
because they know that message will drop more
sales than published service rates three times
market. One of the reasons some firms do not have the
experience is because Microsoft has an
aggressive partner program that encourages technical firms
put out an EPM shingle. You know, they implement
Windows SharePoint Services, how hard can EPM
be?
Tom Peters has said that the next revolution
in American business is going to be in part an
outcome of resource
management. We think Project Server is huge step
toward resource management, but it doesn't mean
the solution is
turn-key, easy, or intuitive.
Genuine skill is required from all of your
project managers all of the time. There is no
short-cut, no can do the obsessing about Project
Server so that you don't have to. It all yours
and you are going to have to figure it out.
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