Project Server Implementations
Project Server implementations are about People, Process and Tools. Installing and running Project server in isolation from people and processes leads to poor or zero results. Implementing Project Server in a way that supports what your people need and in tune with your project management processes always leads to the maximum productivity gains and best results. If your processes are lacking or very manual, we can help develop and automate them. We pride ourselves on aiming to reduce project admin time for project managers, team members and resource managers. Typically we would aim to automate at least 80% of weekly and monthly reporting for project managers.
Getting ready for Project Server
A successful implementation is all about people, processes and tools. Implementing Project Server on its own without streamlining processes and training users will add little benefit and increase overheads. We can help you work on your processes and train your people (project sponsors and project managers are most important to begin with) and customise Microsoft Project until Project on its own isn't good enough. That is then the ideal time to implement Project Server.
Typical processes are: determining and allocating resource workloads, project and governance reporting, tracking projects (including timesheets) and of course project methodologies.
People needs are consistent scheduling practices, realistic resource scheduling, accurate schedule predictions (to within acceptable % accuracy), risk and issue management and more.
Tools are Microsoft Project, Excel Access or SQL Server and whatever else will support the people and processes.
Project management maturity assessments
The first part of implementing Project Server is to assess the project management maturity of the teams that will use project server. For example if project managers don't use Microsoft Project already, then implementing Project Server isn't going to help. A period of learning and using Project is required first. We can help you with this.
Project schedules are a key input to Project Server. We can audit your schedules and provide clear guidance of the training needs for your project managers and schedulers. We offer a master class in scheduling using Microsoft project as the best way to up-skill project managers who have already had basic Project training. See ACE Training's site for details.
Project management methods
For any given management needs for your project management processes we can advise on the most effective ways to improve your processes to firstly deliver what you need and secondly match the types of projects and customers you have.
Project Server design
The next step is to design a solution for your Project Server implementation and this usually involves a pilot server for experimentation and risk assessment. This is a very important step and should never be bypassed.
A key goal is to automate 80% of all reporting. Nothing motivates project managers (to update their schedules weekly) more then being able to click a button to complete 80%+ of their weekly report!
Project Server Implementation
This is the biggest part of the job and involves:
- Finalizing the design
- Supervising the build (you need a very competent Windows, SharePoint and SQL Server Engineer to do the install)
- Building the Enterprise Resource Pool
- Building and populating custom fields
- Creating Reports
- Customizing Project Professional
- Auditing, upgrading and migrating all schedules across
- Training
- Automation if required
Larger Project Server implementations require a variety
of resources for success. ACE Project Systems partners with
various Microsoft Partners to provide you with the best
possible chance of success.
Call
Rod Gill on 021 623 878 to discuss your needs.
Best use advice
This includes best practices for using Microsoft Project Professional (it's about showing you how to use Project Professional to solve most of your scheduling problems) and the best ways to use Project Server to meet your business needs (including automating 80% of weekly and monthly reporting needs).
Customisation
Sometimes there are one or more reports that are important for you to have to manage your particular business. ACE Project Systems can automate Project, Excel and other tools to provide automated reporting and processes to more effectively meet your business needs. A basic goal for all project management information systems is to automate at least 80% of all your reports.
If you need to share information with other systems we can help automate that sharing as well.
If you want a look ahead to the new Project Server 2010 then for Rod Gill and ACE Project Systems contact details click here.
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