Project Partners Blog

Project Partners has been delivering integration between Primavera and Oracle E-Business Suite Projects applications since 1998.  We’re excited that Oracle has released its own integration between these project management applications, and pleased to provide a high level, introductory overview in this article.  You will find more detail in future blogs on this topic. Read the rest of this entry »

Oracle Primavera P6 v7 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management – New Release

Oracle released a new version of the existing popular product P6 EPPM. Surprisingly, this new release is still called P6 but it has a revised release number v7. The new product is called “Oracle Primavera P6 v7 EPPM”. Many organizations would like to know what new features are added and bug fixes incorporated. I will try to discuss a few main enhancements and your IT/PMO teams can review and determine if your organization is ready upgrade to this release.

Improvements:

• Open Enterprise Architecture
  • Event-Driven Architecture: Developers can now utilize this new feature to write “event-driven” triggers and build integration to any product. Project Managers can get notification on their PDA, iPhones or Outlook; external workflow can be initiated or dashboards can be updated based on any event.
  • Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) – In the past, clients either used Primavera SDK or APIs to build integration to other ERP or legacy systems. With the new improved SOA model and Primavera Web Services there are additional options because of the open architecture for building integration between P6 v7 and other products.
  • Sharepoint Integration: MS SharePoint integration enables plug’n’play interoperability.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gartner’s February 2008 report “PMOs: One Size Does Not Fit All” found that there are very high rates of failure when setting up a PMO. Success or failure depends largely upon two aspects:

1. How closely the PMO’s mission and objectives are linked to the real needs of the organization, and
2. How well the role of the PMO is matched to the maturity of the organization.

As Project Partners has written in prior whitepapers and presentations (See Return on Investment – Building the Business Case for Project Portfolio Management and Return on Investment – Building the Business Case for Professional Services Automation), you should not attempt to become a Level 5 organization immediately – you need to evolve.

Benchmarking your organization’s maturity

As we have stated in the whitepapers referenced above, and as Gartner states in their 2008 report, the key to setting up a successful PMO is to first understand where your organization fits in the “Maturity Model” and then to organize a PMO structure that fits in your organization’s maturity model. The main goal should be to continuously maturing your organization’s PMO, moving up the scale from Level 0 to Level 5. The optimum level of maturity is recognized as being the level that delivers your organization’s strategic objectives most effectively and efficiently, and for many organizations that does not necessarily imply you must reach Level 5.

PMOs: One Size Does Not Fit All Feb 2008, Gartner Inc. http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/computerassociates/143645.html#1_0<!–%20entry%20label%203–>

How can you improve Organization/PMO maturity?

1. Establish a vision. In order to know whether or not your efforts are successful, you must be able to articulate what will be different about your organization after you’ve launched the PMO
   
2. Process. Adopt project management methodology, institutionalize its use within your organization, assign owners for every process, and use it and improve upon it continuously.
   
3. PPM software. Introduce PPM software which enables more efficient and effective project, program and portfolio management delivery and support processes
   
4. People Power. Expand project managers’ communications and interpersonal skills.
   
5. End Result Driven. Encourage project manager certification, but manage, appraise, and promote based upon the end results achieved by project managers.
   
6. Management Buy-In and Support. Strengthen involvement and support by executives and the leadership team by giving them what they need in order to be engaged, make effective decisions, and appreciate and support the project management maturity needs of the organization. Often this can be achieved via executive-level PPM software reports and/or dashboards.
   
7. Project Planning/Execution. Developing effective and detailed plans at the beginning of the project; execute the project according to plan established.
   
8. Reporting. What is not reported is not measured. Use scorecards and dashboards to keep everyone informed and involved.
   

    

Where does your organization fit in the maturity model?

In order to know what the focus of your PMO should be, you need to first conduct an honest assessment to determine where your organization presently fits in the maturity model.

OPM3® (Organization Project Management Maturity Model) is a Project Management Institute® (PMI) standard much like the PMBOK® Guide that was started in 1998 by PMI.

The OPM3 standard consist of three major elements: Knowledge, Assessment & Improvement and they are described below.

Knowledge: The user becomes proficient in OPM3, the body of Best Practices, the ideas of organizational project management maturity, and methodology of OPM3.

Assessment: The organization compares itself to OPM3 Best Practices to determine its current location on a continuum of organizational project management maturity.

Improvement: Change Initiatives leading to increased maturity can use the results of the assessment as a basis for planning, and move forward to implement the plan while conserving precious organizational resources.

OPM3 Benefits

Advance strategic goals

OPM3 provides a way to advance an organization’s strategic goals through the application of project management principles and practices, bridging the gap between strategy and individual projects

Understand and implement Best Practices

OPM3 provides a comprehensive body of knowledge regarding what constitutes Best Practices within organizational project management Identify maturity

OPM3 assists an organization with the identification of what their current organizational project management maturity is and, thus, forms a basis for deciding whether or not to pursue improvements by Stage and Domain

Plan improvement activities

OPM3 assists organizations with prioritizing and planning activities should improvement decisions be made

In summary

OPM3 is a powerful tool that organizations can use to improve their organization project management maturity, and hence the execution of their projects and achieve strategic objectives of the organization.

A Project Management Office (PMO) is a group within an organization that defines and maintains standards for project management.  A PMO generally bases its project management principles, practices and processes on some kind of industry standard methodology such as PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) or PRINCE2 (Project in Controlled Environments).

Over time, a PMO generally will become the source for guidance, documentation, and metrics related to the practices involved in managing and implementing projects within the organization.

There was a study conducted that provided the flowing statistics:

• Organizations with PMOs complete twice as many projects than those without PMOs.

• High-performing organizations outsource 135 percent more than low performing organizations.

• 76 percent of recently surveyed companies reported that they had created a PMO, and the longer the PMO had been in operation, the more project success rates improved.

• Those with a PMO operating for more than four years reported a 65 percent success rate increase.

• The top two reasons for establishing a PMO are improving project success rates and implementation of standard practices.

• 65.8 percent of high performing organizations have enterprise PMOs.

• PMOs can deliver a return in three to six months by providing the visibility needed to cancel, postpone, or scale back unnecessary or less strategic projects.

• As PMOs mature, they are significantly better at meeting critical success factors, including having effective sponsorship, accountability, competent staff, quality leadership and demonstrated value.

• The top two issues for PMOs are forecasting the need for resources and resolving resource conflicts.

To have a successful PMO Office the following dimensions need to be evaluated and followed.

1.        Benefits:  collective visibility for estimating and tracking financial and strategic project benefits

2.       Selection:  the scalability, clarity and quality of project funding practices

3.       Issues, Risks and Dependencies:  issue escalation and resolution, aggregate risk management, and “air traffic control” over project inter-dependencies

4.       Change Control:  a practical level of business value protection and visibility

5.       Project Planning:  a repeatable, scalable framework for organizing project effort that uses common metrics and deliverables

6.       Financial Visibility:  a financial information framework that incorporates control and accountability without excessive data manipulation

7.       Communication and Reporting:  a procedural and  technical platform to collaborate on deliverables, coordinate schedules and resources, and effectively collect and use standardized project health metrics

8.       Training:  a set of training materials and standards to promote fundamental project management skills, enabled by automated workflows to simplify procedural gate-keeping

9.       Quality:  the criteria for deliverables quality, and the process for monitoring this quality

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.

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.