Roger Francis AucoinManager, Process Quality & Compliance, ISO, ICO, RMO| New York State - Statewide Financial SystemWynantskill, Ny, United States
I received the following email from a student of mine. He is an MIS Director for his company and, in spite of what he says, he is having trouble keeping track of all of the work and tasks that need to get done. He is looking for a one-stop-fits-all solution, but I have no experience managing the number of projects he has in the pipeline. Could you read his email and if you have any suggestions, get back to me this week?
"Hi Roger
Let me apologize up front—this may be a wordy and long email and it is not directly related to this course.
When it comes to managing a single project, I am comfortable and personally feel that I am good at it. With multiple projects, the same—I feel good about it and do a good job. The problem is with everything else that is going on that are not projects but have the traits.
I currently have 26 approved projects in the pipeline and again, on an individual project level, I got it covered. What’s happening and where the challenges come from is handling many smaller projects that come to light and also, other tasks that get in the way.
For example, just today I was notified of a new HIPAA regulation that will be in effect at the end of the year. This involves billing and end-user workflows in regards to patient care documenting. None of the work to comply with this new regulation will be on me other than scheduling the installs of the patches and upgrades. The problem I face is that I have to communicate this new regulation to the exec’s and speak to the vendors about what they are doing to address this new regulation. After speaking to the vendors, I need to communicate their answers to the exec’s and determine what other department heads need to do to get their staff trained.
This quickly becomes a mini project (if you will). I need to keep track of these communications. This is easily accomplished with an Excel Spreadsheet.
The problem is, loosing site of that spreadsheet. I use MS-OneNote and that helps. I use Mind Manager and that helps as well. But they both don’t offer reminders and I have to read through many pages of maps/notes to identify this as an open item. I use Outlook task but categorizing them if a pain and reading through all the task listed (Active and completed) is also a burden.
On a given day, I have to review, OneNote, Mind-Manager (Mind Maps), Outlook, search for open items in spreadsheets, MS-Project and etcetera.
What I am looking for is a multitasking/Project management tools that would allow me to follow all my projects and task with a Dashboard that will illustrate open items and allow me to more easily keep track of open items, drill down into events, and attach documents like MS-Project and Spreadsheets.
Do you know of or are you using any tools like this? I did find a tool called “At-task” http://www.attask.com but they were cloud based and a little slow. I want to maintain the tool internally.
Are you looking for a tool just for your visibility across all the projects you are part of, or something for your entire organization? That may define the scope off whether your looking for an enterprise or prorfessional version of a solution. I read alot of "me's" in the mesage, but just wanted to check for clarity before commenting further. Saving Changes...
Ian NobleParents And Children TogetherReading, United Kingdom
Sounds to me like Roger needs a portfolio management tool (of which there are plenty in the market).
Most of these tools allow project information to be entered (which can be all the details or just the essential information needed), and can include deadlines.
Usually these tools then allow you to see dashboards of upcoming deadlines/milestones, as well as the overall status of the project.
Of course these tools are only as good as the information put into them, so they all require discipline to maintain the right project information (it's the old garbage in, garbage out principle).
I have experience of using one specific tool specifically for this purpose, however I will not recommend it without knowing more about Roger's organisation, budget and needs. There are plenty of tools out there and they range from quite simple and basic, to the all singing, all dancing solutions, and, of course the prices reflect that. Many of these companies offer their solution on a Software as a Service (or SaaS) basis via the internet, which can be a quick and cheaper way to start with this.
I would suggest Roger has a look round the portfolio management tool vendors to see if anything meets his needs, and budgets.
Hope this helps. Saving Changes...
Russell GeakeProject Management Consultant| Deciduous Partners LtdLostwithiel, Cornwall, United Kingdom
this does sound like a fun place to be ;-)
is there a functioning PMO? I would suggest that that might be one option - although it might take a little too long to implement successfully both in terms of getting it up and running and gaining acceptance elsewhere in the organisation.
A long time ago, when it was first launched we used MS Project Central. It may well be that with OneNote, Project, Outlook, MindMap and Excel you are spreading yourself too thin, and a lot of the confusion may be self-generated (albeit well intentioned) and what is needed is a thorough rationalisation to maybe one or two of these, or selecting one as the Master info point would be a good way to go. Be careful to keep track of resource useage, and interdependencies between projects (which is why the PMO can be more useful). I have also been happy using OneNote to group relevant documentation in each of the other programmes.
I think Ian is right - there are plenty of tools out htere, but which one is best depends on suitability and personal preference (not to mention acceptable to IT Support in your organisation). Saving Changes...
