Suggestions for Microsoft Project Server (EPM) deployment
#2: Be aware of the
"Rhetoric of EPM." Customization
required, third-party products to provide what
might be missing in Project Server, continual
training, licenses for masses of people, rapid
and intense deployment strategies, and promises
of significant and immediate value are all part
of the "rhetoric of EPM." None of these
perspectives are inherently wrong or bad, they
just might not be perspectives that have your
best interests in mind.
For example, a common argument is that EPM
can be customized to fit tightly with your
internal processes, communication styles,
integration requirements, business needs, and
reporting standards. That the only barrier to
you getting exactly what you want is money.
Money for software/hardware, and money for
technical/business consulting. But once you have
invested the money you have a workable system
that all of your people will use - willingly,
efficiently, effectively, timely, and
responsibility.
 Experience:
We have had more that a few participants come to
our monthly public EPM boot camp and tell us
that they have become completely tied up in
knots as a function of too much EPM
customization. One utility in the northeast told
us they were dumping an EPM system and moving to
Microsoft's EPM system for one primary reason:
they had done so much customization of their
enterprise system that it had become an
inflexible, ridged, time consuming monster that
they just wanted to scrap it. They told us they
hated the system that had be created just for
them so much they just wanted cut their losses
and deploy a system, that they couldn't stomach
the idea of re-doing their current system.
We were in a series of
meetings for a large pharmaceutical company in
southern California. The company contracted us
to do a year's worth of training and a
competitor was doing the EPM deployment. We
observed during several meetings that when an
issue would come up about what EPM could not do
or maybe not do well, the customer would ask,
"Is this something that could be corrected by
customization or programming." The response, and
we heard this a dozen times, was always, "We can
do that!"
 Tag:
Keep in mind that if you have hired a firm
to have your interests in mind. "We can do that"
should not always be the answer you are paying
for. A better response might be "what is the
value you would actually get by this
customization?" Followed by a cost estimate and
discussion of the pros and cons. A responsible
consultant will clearly tell you the down-side.
Experience:
A Florida corporation deployed Project Server to
help meet some of the demands for the Six Sigma
initiatives. They hired a firm to help them and
they utilized Microsoft's Microsoft Accelerator
for Six Sigma which is a highly customized EPM
solution. After an expensive deployment
(consulting hours) they questioned the value of
deploying such a highly customized solution. For
example, one person told us, "Even though this
is Microsoft's solution, we have no clear
direction of the impact of applying SP2" "What
will happen? We have no idea." "We now think we
would have been better off without so much
pre-customization even though the bulk of the
custom solution from Microsoft was free."
Also keep in mind that vendors typically earn
additional $$ or other value through third-party
referrals. It is true that many things are
missing from this Enterprise Project Management
solution, but rushing to write code or purchase
third-party product solutions before deployment
is nuts!
How do you know if the new running shoes fits
your training regimen if don't try it out for
awhile? If you are a serious runner, you aren't
going to just read a couple of product marketing
ads, gets some advice from a shoe salesperson,
buy the shoes, and then make the shoes work even
if they hurt your feet. What you are going to do
is some serious research and testing. You'll
take the shoes home and see how they feel on a
long run. If they don't work out, you'll return
them.
These are our suggestions regarding buying
product and getting advice and help:
Buy only what you need. First, make sure you
are clear on what you really need and if you
have an enterprise license agreement check
to see if you already have paid for what you
need. We have been told that a high
percentage of companies with enterprise
agreements already own the license they
need. attorney
Purchase the software required for the pilot
with a small group of willing and
non-willing participants and then determine
how well the shoe fits. Then towards the end
of each deployment phase, make a decision to
purchase only what you need for the next
phase.
Don't try to fix your people problems and
force Project Server to align with all of
your business processes with customization
(programming) and third-party products.
Deal with your people issues with
training and performance management not
customization. In other words, don't try to
control everything your users do and don't
do by trying to figure out technical ways to
manage behavior, control actions, and over
doing automation in an effort to make the
system more palatable to users and
administrators.
Keep in mind the enterprise mantra:
"It is not about the software, it is about
the people."
Obviously you are going to customize
(configure) Project Server. But the
customization we are talking about is
programming that might include integration
with other business systems, custom
interfaces, movement of data, reporting and
automation in general. We think you will
need to customize Project Server but do it
for the right reasons and at the right time.
We all have been backed into a corner by
over customized systems that end up being
difficult and costly to adjust and manage.
Remember, Microsoft's stuff tends to get
better over time. You will likely want to
upgrade in the future. Often intense
customization will not allow you to be fluid
and flexible with change and the
availability of better or preferred
technology. We have see customers
immobilized with an old system because they
built their business processes on intensive
customization.
We believe that in many cases greater the
customization can lead to a less valuable
system.
Regarding customization, consider sitting
down with Project Server (not literally, but
you know what we mean) and negotiating. If
Project Server does it one way and you want
to do it another way, see if you can come up
with a solution that doesn't require
programming, integration or third-party
products. See if issues can be addressed
with training and performance rather than IT
and outside services.
Last, deploy Project Server yourself. You
need advice and help, but do the work
yourself. To get value from this system you
will need to own it and you will need to be
an expert at running it. Paying for a
service firm to come in and derive your
requirements, install the software, complete
the configuration and send you on your way
down the road to a successful deployment
isn't realistic. It doesn't work that way.
Project Server is just a different type of
system than the many mature systems we live
with. Comparatively speaking it is new to
the market. It is new to most of us and we
have a lot of people interacting with the
system in a lot of different ways. It is
immature; there are going to be continual
changes and improvements, and more than an
insignificant number of users just don't get
it yet. And the reality is, whether people
want to admit it or not, most of us don't
mind plugging in our laptop to an electrical
system but many people in any organization
are resistant to an enterprise project
management system, or any system that smells
anything like a timesheet. In our
experience, in some organizations the
resistance is highly organized and armed!
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