Matthew PateePMO Director| ABM IndustriesBenicia, Ca, United States
I have hardware and licensing for both MS Project Server and MS Portfolio Server, but no budget for professional services. What advice do you have for implementing? Can you point me in the direction of any materials that will help? Has anyone out there been through a similar implementation?
BACKGROUND:
The IT department I work for is managing the bulk of their processes via a plethora of Excel spreadsheets. No integrated tools for project request, evaluation, estimating, budgeting, planning, etc.
I have begged, borrowed and come just short of stealing to get the hardware and licensing for the MS EPM suite. Unfortunatly, there is no way for me to get the $ for professional services to assist with the installation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Saving Changes...
Mike SmithDirector| Enterprise Intellect Pty LtdBonnet Bay, Australia
Hi Matthew,
You face a challenge.
I attempted to implement Project Server a few years ago. At the time I was running a software dev business with about 20 developers.
If I was doing it again, I'd invest a lot of time in trying to prototype ALL the types of projects that I have. I found it took some trial and error to understand how best to apply the various features and behaviours of the product.
Once the technology is understood - which is not a trivial excercise - the real hard bit is managing the organisational change required to get the payoff. Don't underestimate how challenging this will be.
Often it's simply resistance to doing the admin work at the required frequency/depth to allow meaningful data to make it's way into Project Server. The more work you've done prototyping - i.e. the easier you make it for your PM's - the easier this will be to overcome.
The mistake I made was to roll out too much too soon. PM's got frustrated, I ended up with incomplete data and therefore reduced benefit.
Try to avoid making guinea pigs of people who are trying to get their job done. Try to present them with a system that they appreciate the benefit of.
