What are the “need to knows” before implementing Project Server in a company?

[Community]

I work for a large company and we are evaluating Project Server 2010 for use in the company. We have expertise in SharePoint and Project stand alone but have never used Project Server in the company. We already use resource loading on stand alone but it is maintained by each PM and we capture actuals using an Excel Spreadsheet and the PM then keys the actuals into MSP.

Is there anything that we really need to know before we implement?

Thanks.

Daniel Sheppard

[Community]

There are several things that you will need to consider, are you planning on using the same process?   If so, you will need to disable some features within Project Server related to reporting process and enable others for use with the resource pool that comes with Project Server.  You will also need to setup the resources in each project file so that match with the resources in the Project Server resource pool.

If not, then you should understand what the new process that is part of Project Server and how that will impact the current things that you do.  Project Server comes with timesheet reporting for task reporting progress by team members.  This moves the function from the Project Manager to the resource by default.   This is just a few of the things to consider.

John Riopel

[Community]

Yes you do have lots of room to improve.  That said, you probably will be overwhelmed if you try Project Server out of the gate.  I recommend that you use Project 2010 with Manually Scheduled tasks and for the enterprise side start with either SharePoint Project Tasks (provides very simple cataloging of projects) or look at a SharePoint add-in like WorkEngine (emplive.com) for a elegant sync to SharePoint and a template driven way to manage projects with easy data rollup management.  If you should need help with a demo you can contact me at davidd@adaquest.com

 

David Ducolon

[Community]

Hi Daniel, you need to know quite abit about the current maturity of the project management process within an organization before attempting a Project Server implementation.  Then you need to consider the sensitivity of the project data since it will become easy to access for anybody in the project team if proper configuration steps are not taken.  After that I would consider your enterprise reporting needs.  Followed closely by an understanding of how your users will manage the data entry.  Project Server can be overwhelming but it can also be extremely beneficial.  Hope this helps, contact me if you need more info on this topic.

David Ducolon

[Community]

Dan,

PS2010 is a very powerful enterprise tool. Just remember that for every feature you release a substantial change process may be required in the business, depending on the maturity of your companies Project and workforce management.

Make sure you spend the time to gauge this gap and understand the ramifications to the change process. You can stage your PS2010 rollout to allow time for the people and process to adopt and adapt.

Best

Simon Newton

[Community]

In all agreement. I think implementing Project Server should be treated itself as a project. There are certain aspect of the Project Server ( Timesheet, Resource Pool, Calendars etc.) that may not be the right choice for the first phase of adoption. If the idea is to have a common repository for all the project, then you don’t need Project Server. If the idea is to slowly mature the company in Portfolio Management and Enterprise Resource Pooling, Project Server is the option to be rolled out in phases.

Sunny Jahangir

[Community]

I just spent an hour documenting notes that I had taken when my current company implemented Project Server a couple of years ago and when I clicked OK to submit it, I was taken back to a log in screen and when I logged back in I was brought back here WITHOUT my reply…. URGHHHHH.

In summary – consider the needs of your PMs. I recommend implementing this in an Agile approach. If your PMs have not used Project Server they won’t know what they need until they experience it.

Get PM’s involved in creating standard Project Views, page layouts, and processes.

Consider PM processes and their alternatives (Use cases help with this). For instance, the process of accepting actual hours. What will happen when a PM is on vacation? Will it be necessary to change the status manager so an alternative PM can accept the hours – or maybe it is OK for the PM to accept hours when they return from vacation.

When using an Enterprise Resource pool – be sure to update the standard calendar with your companies holidays so projects don’t schedule work on these days.

Show Project Owner on the Project Center page

MS Project has an option to prompt the user if a new resource is added – this is useful in stand alone too, it is good to have this turned on so if a PM inadvertly enters a resource the prompt will help remind them that they shoudl be using the Enterprise resource pool – and it helps catch when a PM mistypes a resource name.

Sandra Mason

[Community]

Wow everyone! Thank you for the feedback. We are definitely planning to take it slow and plan on taking this on as a project in and of it’s self. We have decided, based on everyone’s views, to engage a vendor who specializes in implementing Project Server and we will be doing a formal requirements gathering and impact analysis.

The resource pools and time sheets are something we are highly interested in.

As we progress through this project this year, I will try to keep documentation of what we are doing and the processes we use. Perhaps I can have something for the knowledge library when we finish.

Thanks everyone! I am way more confident now that we have vendor support!

Daniel

[Community]

We have an opportunity to implement our first centralized Project and Portfolio Management System in my organization.

Today we use a simple workflow in Lotus Notes to capture demand (new project requests), our 2 official PM’s (I am one of them) track projects in MS Project Professional 2007 local installs, our project leads and tech leads (impromptu PM’s) track their projects in e-mails, excel, the air, and our yearly project portfolio review is done manually, each year in excel – much room to improve, don’t you think?

That said, we have Sharepoint 2007 presence, and are working on getting a SharePoint 2010 instance set up as a pilot….

We are considering the onsite 2010 SharePoint route, but are open to other solutions (like hosted EPM).

With your help (MPUG members around the world), I would love to assemble a list products / options / tools which I could explore in this new year for my organization.  Can you help?

Thanks! – Matteo, PMP, CSM

[Author]

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