The obvious benefit of project portfolio management is that it gives executives a bird’s-eye view of projects so they can spot redundancies, spread resources appropriately and closely monitor progress. PPM is a continuous loop of communication that allows an organization to collaboratively plan and evaluate its success or failure on projects.

Over the years as the importance of PPM has been noticed, several PPM tools have emerged in the market and they have attempted to enable organizations to manage the continuous flow of projects from concept to completion. Some commercial vendors of PPM software emphasize their products’ ability to treat projects as part of an overall investment portfolio. A 2006 Forrester Research paper documented and interviewed over 41 vendors and ranked the following vendors as “Best-of-breed” – Primavera, Artemis, Plan View, Business Engine, ITM Software & Pacific Edge. They also ranked ERP vendors which, along with integration options to 3rd party products, provided a full PPM solution – the leaders were Oracle & SAP which allowed integration from 3rd party into their PPM Modules.

Not many people know that Primavera now provides a Microsoft Project Applet called “ProjectLink” that allows users to use Microsoft Project as a front-end while being connected to Primavera Enterprise DB. Users can now create a project in Microsoft Project and save it in the Primavera DB within a specified Enterprise Breakdown Structure. In addition Microsoft Project users have the ability to invoke Primavera enterprise resource management functionality from within the Microsoft Project Client. This feature is very powerful as it allows all users to use a single resource pool which enables excellent resource planning capabilities.

This type of integration allows organization to use Primavera Enterprise to manage complex projects while allowing others in the organization who are comfortable with Microsoft Project to continue the use of Microsoft Project. An enterprise view of all projects is obtained from the Primavera DB.

If your organization is project centric then you may be using one of the most common applications like Primavera, MS Project or Excel (the most-used PM tools) to manage your projects. In most instances the Project Schedules and Estimates are manually re-entered in a Financial ERP systems for cost collection and this is where Project Managers lose track of their projects as cost and schedule gets disjointed and out of sync. Project deliverables are missed; and resource utilization is not optimized.

This is where three products that I am going to mention will eliminate double entry of data and streamline data entry to save time and reduce errors.

1. OP3 – An out-of-the-box integration product that delivers tight, bi-directional integration between Primavera Enterprise P5 or P6 and Oracle E-Business Suite Projects applications. Consultants who are familiar with both Primavera and Oracle have spent years building this product. The overall solution allows organizations to build their Project Structure in Primavera, schedule and cost load the project and then transfer the structure into Oracle EBS Projects applications, eliminating dual entry of data. Data transfer of financial “actuals” takes the reverse direction. SPI, CPI and EV can then provide the Project Managers true insight into their project status.

2. Excel Integration – The most-used Project Management tool around the world is still Microsoft Excel. Allowing users to use Excel as a front end UI to create simple project schedules and allow resource loading is very powerful. The best feature is that you can check out projects from Oracle and work offline and then check the project back in once you are in your office. This eliminates the loading of data into cumbersome forms.

3. Microsoft Project Integration – This is a very slick addition to the MS Project tools Menu. Project Managers can use MS Project in creating their project structure, resource loading the project and then loading it to Oracle ERP. The beauty of this is that the resource dictionary is imported from Oracle and thereby centrally controlled. Financial “actuals” and other attributes can be downloaded from Oracle into MS Project to allow Project Managers to make sound decisions.

Any of these solutions will streamline data entry and an organization’s business processes.

Project Experts, India was formed in October 2007 as a subsidiary of Project Partners, LLC USA.

In recent years, this region has shown an increased interest in project centric work and in enterprise project management solutions. To address these needs, Project Experts, India was established.

Based out of Hyderabad, this office provides Oracle Projects implementation services across India, Middle East, West Asia, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Australia.  Delivery is based on the common hub and spoke model where expert resources are deployed to clients across this region. In addition to Oracle Projects services, the office also implements other popular project management tools and provides best practices training for Primavera applications, @task and Microsoft solutions. We also offer services for the integration of these tools with the Oracle Projects modules.

Our resources are functional experts in all Oracle Projects solutions and have either directly worked with Oracle Projects Development or possess vast techno-functional experience in the Projects domain. Additionally, they have expertise in project management best practices and can implement and integrate with the other leading project management tools mentioned above. Thus we are best suited to provide one end-to-end solution for any client.

There are various business models that we use to help in reaching out to clients. We sometimes work directly with the client helping them with Projects issues or implementations; we also partner with other Systems Integrators who are implementing various other Oracle modules. We often send in Subject Matter Experts to review or help with ongoing implementations.

With the presence of offices across India and USA, we achieve a 24×7 global delivery model to ensure that we are always available whenever a client needs us.

In looking at various clients who are using or trying to use workplan functionality in Oracle Project Management (PJT), I find that the biggest issue people face (after they get all the right patches needed to get workplans to work correctly) is getting actuals to map into planned resources correctly. If this is not done correctly, based on the client needs, then what you get is a bunch of unplanned actual assignments that increase the cost of the project on the workplan as the planned amounts on the planned assignments do not get reduced correctly by the actuals.There are some basic points to remember when defining which planning resources you use in order to get actuals to map correctly to them.

1. All resources assigned to the workplan tasks have the following attributes on them:
   1. Resource Class
   2. Organization_ID (Expenditure Org)
   3. Default Expenditure Type
2. Now if the resource formats you use do not include the Organization or expenditure type on them, these values will be defaulted to each task assignment you make as follows:
   1. The Project/Task Organization defaults as the expenditure Organization unless it can derived from some other attribute of the resource such as the named persons assigned organization or the assigned organization from the Non-Labor Resource.
   2. The default expenditure type assigned to the resource class in the resource class setup is defaulted to the expenditure type on the assignment.
3. None of the other resource attributes are defaulted to the assignment unless they are a part of the resource definition (based on the resource format). Now this is done to allow Oracle to automatically compute the burden cost (from the raw cost calculated) and this needs expenditure type and org as these are the 2 main dimensions used in the setup of burden schedules.
4. The following issues can arise due to this defaulting:
   1. If the project/task organization is not setup as an expenditure organization, no actuals will ever map to the planning resources as actuals always have a different expenditure organization.
   2. If you have actuals coming in with different expenditure types for the same basic planned resource, only those actuals with the same expenditure type as the one defaulted to the task assignment will map to the planned resource. All others will show up as unplanned actuals.
5. Finally here are some rules to follow in order to get your actuals to always map to the planned resources as intended:
   1. If there is any possibility that the expenditure organization of actuals will be different from the that of the project/task, include organization into the your resource formats making people plan by the correct org and hence the actuals will map correctly
   2. Include Financial Category (Oracle speak for Expenditure type, Expenditure Category) into your resource formats. Now if you don’t care for burden cost on the workplan, then the suggestion will be to not setup a default Expenditure type on the resource class setup and then it will be not default to the task assignment and hence should not screw up your mapping.

That’s it for now and remember:
There is no better way to manage a business than to Manage by Project.

PS: I welcome all comments / trackbacks / pingbacks / queries to my nascent venture here. I will try and respond to your comments, etc in future entries.

I will be presenting on the following 2 topics at the NorCal OAUG Training Day on Thursday Jan 17th at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

Please plan on attending this mini-conference for these and over 1000 other topics.

1:00-2:00 pm Financials (E-Business Suite Managing Projects Using Oracle Project Management (PJT) and Spreadsheets Neeraj Garg Vice President, Client Services, Project Partners LLC

Enabling the use of Spreadsheets while leveraging the power of PJT allows PMs to work online or offline in tools that they use today for managing all aspects of projects such as budgets, forecasts, deliverables, issues, changes and status. This presentation describes how spreadsheets have been combined with PJT to provide a “best of all worlds” solution for project managers (PMs) - with descriptions of actual use in both Engineering & Construction and Professional Services companies.

4:00-5:00 pm Financials (E-Business Suite) Securing Your Projects in Oracle Projects Neeraj Garg, Vice President, Client Services, Project Partners LLC

The Oracle Projects Suite offers you a variety of options in order to secure your projects data such as Responsibility Based Security, Role Based Security, Function Security, HR Security Profiles, Organization Authority, Public/Private Projects and a Client Extension. With all these options, how do you decide which ones to use? This presentation will drill down into these options and provide you with guidelines on when and how to use them in the context of the different modules.

A constant need for Project based organizations is the need for their project systems to provide them with automated alerts for significant events in their projects execution. These events may have occurred during the normal course of business or may be upcoming.

Currently all parties involved need to troll through reports to find this information and this can be a time consuming process especially in high volume businesses. Oracle Family Pack M and onwards has taken a first step in this direction with the Exceptions functions in Oracle Project Management, but these are fairly limited in scale to what is needed.

The following discussion provides a framework for project based organization to implement automatic event alerts.

The requirements for this function can be listed as follows:

1. Capture different type of events as follows

a. Date based events: Upcoming/Past Due Task/Deliverable/Milestone Dates, etc

b. Financial events: Actuals a % of budget, Revenue accrual % of funding, etc.

c. Administrative events: New Projects being activated, Projects being closed, Bids awarded, etc.

2. Allow for user specification of events that need to be captured – allowing entry of a benchmark (to be compared against – example 80% of budget, milestone upcoming within 30 days) and also an additional benchmark for escalation.

3. For each event specified – allow for defining a periodicity for the event that determines how often the system will check for the occurrence of the event.

4. For each event specify a list of people/roles that need to be notified and a separate list for escalations.

5. Email notifications to be sent out for events captured – to avoid email overload, group all event notifications by person, project, event type and send 1 email per person across projects.

In order to handle the execution of this function, it is envisioned that a batch process that runs daily will look for enabled events and check for their occurrence based on the periodicity defined. This is true for Date and Financial Events. Every occurrence of the event for all projects is captured in a holding object (table) along with a list of persons to be notified for the event. Once all the events are processed, the batch program groups events by person and additional grouping criteria as needed and sends 1 email to each person.

Administrative events cannot be handled by the batch process, especially if no history is maintained for the underlying data elements. In such cases, we can use functions like Oracle Alerts or DB Triggers to capture the events as they occur and store the information in the holding table. These records will then be processed for email notification along with other events by the daily batch process run.

Project Partners is in the process of designing such a solution for our clients. If you are interested in this function, please contact us.

That’s it for now and remember:

There is no better way to manage a business than to Manage by Project.

PS: I welcome all comments / trackbacks / pingbacks / queries to my nascent venture here. I will try and respond to your comments, etc in future entries.

One of the biggest challenges that Project Managers (PMs) face in managing a project is weeding out mischarges to their projects. This issue is particularly aggravated in the following industries:

1. Construction industry – Due to very thin margins on project work, any mischarges if not controlled and quickly reversed can wipe out the margins for the project
2. Any Cost Reimbursable type of contract particularly with the Government – because these charges don’t get caught and then when they show up on invoices, the client starts disputing the invoices based on these mischarges, causing delays in payments and cash flow issues for the project.

The advent of PIC-UI (Project Partners new product that allows you to provide excel based user interfaces for 1 or more related project functions), has provided the ability to provide this critical function for project managers via an easy to use Excel interface for clients of Oracle Projects. The following section provides an overview of this solution.

An Excel worksheet will be setup that will allow PMs to pick their projects and specify expenditure types and the period for which they would like to review detailed charges.

All charges of the type specified (or all types) and in the current period will then be displayed to the PM with appropriate information for each cost transaction charged. The PM then has the ability to specify “Approved” or “Questionable” for each of the charges. Mass functions for both of these states will be provided to make life easier for the PM.

The screen will also filter out any transactions that had been previously approved by the PM.

This new Status field will be stored as a DFF against the Expenditure Items in Oracle Projects. A perdiodic (nightly) alert will be sent to the HelpDesk/IT/Project Accountant group if “questionable” transactions are found on any project. This group will review the transactions in Oracle’s standard Expenditure Inquiry screen and take appropriate action to research and either clear or transfer out the questionable charges. If the Transactions are cleared as being correctly charged, they are updated in the status field with a “Cleared” status and the PM can subsequently review and approve them.

An additional benefit of this approach, is that when invoices are generated and presented for review to the PMs, they can have a quick report (or another PIC UI Worksheet) wherein they can pull up any “Questionables” charges on the invoice and ensure that they are eliminated or cleared before the invoice goes out to the client.

This is a an example of how PIC-UI combined with the expertise from Project Partners resources can help you make life simpler for your Project Managers.

That’s it for now and remember:

There is no better way to manage a business than to Manage by Project.

PS: I welcome all comments / trackbacks / pingbacks / queries to my nascent venture here. I will try and respond to your comments, etc in future entries.

To accomplish a successful business transformation project, experience, drawn from numerous projects over the years, has shown a pattern that is worth incorporating into every project. Successful projects establish a program framework and implementation approach that addresses the following critical success factors:
*       Executive Sponsorship –The project should strive to develop a productive relationship with the Executive Sponsors that encourages active participation in the project rather than a group that receives monthly status updates. The Executive Sponsors can be the greatest asset to a team and the most effective change agents if given the opportunity. Utilizing an effective decision making framework that facilitates timely decisions is a key component to leveraging the Executive Sponsor participation.
*       Project Team Structure – The project needs resources that are perceived by their organizations as thought leaders. Many times staffing decisions are made based on availability and not necessarily on the candidates’ qualifications. Because of the importance of the project to the future of the business, there needs to be a priority given to staffing the project with the right resources. If this is done:
        The ability of the end solution to meet the business needs is enhanced
        The organization has ready acceptance and confidence in the solution
        The time to develop the solution will decrease, which reduces the risks and cost of the project
        Business process changes will be sustained after the implementation is completed
*       Rollout Strategy - A rapid and aggressive roll out strategy allows the project to develop wins and demonstrate benefits early. This will help facilitate a smooth rollout and cultivate a group of supportive users early.
*       Change Management Program - As program complexity and reach increases so does the risk of not realizing the expected business benefits. Most organizations are resistant to change.
*       Training Program - Firms often underestimate the amount of training required for successful transformation. How your firm certifies core system competencies and readiness will help reassure the users and their management that they are ready for “go-live.”
*       Quality Solution – Many times clients have hired us after a failed implementation. The major contributor is often incomplete design or severe technical issues that had been overlooked during the testing process. The most successful approach to any business transformation project is to take a process focus to solving the business need and to view the technology as the enabler of the process. Focus on implementing end-to-end processes that are complete and meet the stated business objectives.  Employ a rigorous iterative testing process to ensure that the solution will work effectively in a production environment prior to the implementation. Leverages these testing events to accomplish several key objectives: process validation, project team education, quality assurance and solution acceptance.
*       Technical Support - Many projects with fewer complexities have failed or missed deadlines because of technical issues either at the infrastructure or application layer. Use a methodology that is process oriented. Technical competency as part of the team is a core strength you must have. Partner with the different technology vendors to ensure that their solution works and when it doesn’t, work closely with them to resolve the issue.

As your organization prepares to spend significant money on new tools to help you better manage projects, how prepared are you to achieve a return on this investment?  Bradford K. Clark confirms a 15% to 21% improvement in project execution and delivery costs in a 1997 study done at the University of Southern California by moving the project management maturity level up one level.  William Ibbs, UC Berkley, confirms similar results in consulting and engineering firms.

Professional Services Automation empowers the Professional Services organization by providing a set of enhanced, automated and integrated capabilities to set-up, manage, control and report on client engagements.  The span of PSA includes the initial opportunity identification, through the proposal and planning processes, staffing and executing the work, collection of costs, recognition of revenue, invoicing the client, knowledge management and collaboration with both the internal team and the client representatives.  PSA provides a single end-to-end, scalable system to manage the professional services business. This allows for growth of the business, reduces response time during the sales cycle, allows the PMO to foster innovation and increases quality of projects, better management of consulting employees and subcontractor resources, and integrates intellectual capital management with the delivery of professional services.

There are four success measures for your PSA implementation: Revenue Production, Productivity Enhancement, Risk Reduction and Improved Cycle Times.  In all cases these should be valid measurement criteria to determine success and measure the ROI of your investment.  As you prepare to implement new tools for your organization, consider establishment of a baseline across your firm.  Assess where the organization is before you begin.  Leverage this knowledge to help focus change management and training efforts where the return will be greatest. Build a business case with specific targets and ROI measures.  Develop a plan to move your organization up the project management maturity level, implementing only functions and features needed for success. Plan training programs to increase the understanding and skills of your Project Management team, not just in the tools, but in application of the tools to better manage your projects.  Enable additional features and functions as your project management team matures.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) can assist in assessing the present state of the business and to prescribe a course of action.  Real-time monitoring of KPI’s allows maximization of performance over the shortest time period.  Oracle Project Management provides hundreds of KPI measurements for utilization by your team.  Remember to be SMART in your use of these important tools:

Specific  Measurable  Achievable  Realistic  Timely

Plan on updating the maturity measurement of your organization on a regular basis to determine where you have been successful in your improvement and identify areas of opportunity for future improvement.