I have a task on hand to setup Enterprise Program Management Office for a 200 resource team functioning in multiple business lines ( Mainly Software Development and Services) , I am planning to do this by implementing Microsoft Office Project Server , Have requisite licenses and ready to Go , But i am clueless how to start ,
Can anybody here share a high level Plan and their real life experience in implementing Project Central ?
thanks in advance in anticipation Saving Changes...
First, you will have to go back in time about 10 years when it was called "Project Central"! It has been named "Project Server" since 2002.
One of the first things I would do is to set up your enterprise outline codes as shown in the following article I wrote back in 2007:
Recommended Enterprise Outline Codes
Enterprise outline codes are list-driven fields that can
be used to standardize projects, resources and tasks
on your Project Server application. These fields have
special attributes that give your Project Office the
ability to enforce data entry compliance and report
across projects with consistent results. The selection,
configuration, and use of the proper enterprise outline
codes can have a great affect on the value and
flexibility of your Project Server reporting at the
project, resource, and task levels of the application.
This article will give some examples of how enterprise
outline codes can be used to your organization’s
benefit.
Project Server contains many fields that are standard
to the product but, since every organization’s needs
are always somewhat unique, enterprise custom
fields are provided. Enterprise Outline Codes are one
type of custom field; one that is highly useful for
categorizing projects, resources, and tasks due to
hierarchical structure. If you use the Portfolio
Analyzer for reporting, enterprise outline codes
automatically become dimensions in the OLAP cube
that is generated for this function. They are also
useful for grouping and filtering data for reports.
Here are some examples of enterprise outline codes
that can be set up for your organization.
Resource-Level Outline Codes
Supervisor
This is a hierarchical org chart comprised of all of the
management personnel in the organization. An entry
from this field will be assigned to each resource in the
organization and used to filter or group reports for
specific managers.
Department
These are the groups that make up the org chart for
your organization. This may seem redundant with the
Supervisor outline code above, but it comes in handy
when managers are terminated or quit; the
department field allows the employee to maintain
their group identity while a new manager is being
recruited. Also, a supervisor can manage multiple
functional departments which they may wish to report
on separately.
Job Classification
Some resource-based reports may need to be filtered
or grouped by Job Title. For example, a report can
be created that only lists the project managers in the
organization.
Project-Level Outline Codes
Client List
This field defines which customer will benefit from the
project. This could be a flat list of clients or a
hierarchy which groups clients by specific attributes.
Healthcare example:
All Clients
All Hospitals
Hospital 1
Hospital n
All Clinics
Clinic 1
Clinic n
Management Oversight
This is a copy of the “Department” resource-level
enterprise outline code mentioned earlier. Having it
assigned to projects defines the oversight manager
for the project. This allows any project manager to
“matrix manage” a project for any oversight manager
within the organization (whether or not they report to
that manager).
Product Affected
This field may define products produced by the
organization or products provided by outside vendors
and used by the company. These products are
assigned to the various projects so that reports can
be produced showing product-based metrics. An
example of a hierarchical list for software application
products provided by vendors follows:
Vendor
Vendor software platform
Application
Software module
Project Status
It is important to standardize how the organization will
report the status of a project over its lifecycle. If you
have a governance/approval process in place, this
should be taken into consideration. A project status
outline code may look as follows:
Approval Statuses
Initiated/Proposed
Conceptually Approved
Feasibility Approved
Execution Statuses
Active
Held
Completed
Withdrawn Saving Changes...
