Posts Tagged project management software
Ten Predictions for Project Management Trends in 2009 Part 2
Posted by Tenrox Project Management Software Blog in project management on January 15th, 2009
In Part 1 of this blog we looked at following three trends for 2009:
- #10 The increasing correlation between project management and operational excellence
- #9 The CFO and the project manager friendship
- #8 The rise of the Project Workforce
Now let’s look at the next three trends.
- #7 Dispersed customers, projects and teams kill politics
The flat world and access to a global talent pool has significantly changed the inner workings and team dynamics of virtually all organizations. There are many disadvantages to working with remote dispersed team members, which most of us are doing today. We tend to be happier, more loyal to the team, learn faster, and accomplish more as a team when we work physically close to each other. On the other hand, there are less emotions and politics with a dispersed team; people tend to pay more attention to getting the work done, than playing office politics; and their performance ultimately dictates how they are evaluated. In today’s increasingly dispersed teams office politics is certainly on the decline.
- #6 Finding the right talent gets a lot easier
It is much harder to find the matching resources you need when you limit yourself only to looking for talent in a local market. The flat world, Internet collaboration technologies have made it possible for organizations to tap large remote pools of talent at very competitive rates. For example, at Tenrox, we are increasingly leveraging specialized programmers working (probably) from their homes in Russia, Eastern Europe and at outsourcing shops in India. These resources are not replacing our full time staff; they complement our team by working on projects on a need basis. It allows Tenrox to remain flexible, not to over-hire, and yet quickly staff projects when required. With better collaboration technologies, improving quality of global resources, and our own improved knowledge of how to manage such projects, this process is becoming a lot easier and rewarding to execute.
- #5 Emphasis shifts from project management to workforce management
The project management discipline has traditionally emphasized the science of project management. Project managers and contributors are encouraged to follow strict templates, guidelines and steps to ensure a project is executed successfully. However, in spite of the increasing number of certified project managers and great project management tools, projects continue to show high failure rates, or high rates of disappointment by being too late, cost too much, or not fully meet their intended objectives. Numerous studies have looked at why projects disappoint. Many of these studies often conclude that better project management, communication, stakeholder involvement and change controls would have reduced failure rate. However, as books like Built to Last (Collins Business; 1 edition; November 2, 2004) suggest while best practices and better tools help there is nothing more important than picking the most qualified and best-fit resources to run the project (what Jim Collins called having the right people on the bus). Having the right people on the team makes everything easier; in fact, less process and less enforcement is needed since great team members innately know what needs to get done and just do it. As a result, more and more organizations are investing in cataloging their resources, understanding their resource’s capabilities and interests, and using more sophisticated workforce planning tools to find the best resources for their projects.
In the last and final part of this blog we will look at the top 4 project management trends in 2009.
Ten Predictions for Project Management Trends in 2009
Posted by Tenrox Project Management Software Blog in project management on January 14th, 2009
2008 was an eventful prosperous year for the project management practice, project management service and solution providers:
- Several independent vendors merged with larger entities; many more new small companies with innovative technologies emerged on to the scene. Given the poor macro picture, the amount of M&A and startup activity in this space shows how much interest there is and how much more there is to do, to improve in project management.
- What do you mean you don’t do on-demand?! On-demand adoption surged in 2008 and is now the standard way to deploy project management software. In fact, the tables have turned. Vendors that do not offer on-demand solutions look out of place, out of touch with the market.
- Project management continued to gain credibility as a legitimate profession that is very much in need given today’s complex project, workforce, market realities and regulatory requirements.
- Working remotely, virtual offices, working from home, are now almost as accepted as working from the office in an increasing number of industries and work types. It is now common to find work arrangements that account for some work being done from home.
The stage has been set for some very exciting changes in the project management world. In a three part series, I discuss ten potential project management trends that may be more prominent in 2009.
- #10 The increasing correlation between project management and operational excellence
It used to be that senior company executives such as the CEO, CFO and board members would generally stay away from project management related decisions. The expectation was that CIO, COO and other operational executives would “take care of” ensuring that the company has effective project management practices. In fact, most executives generally regarded project management as something the “techies”, field level workers and mid level managers should worry about.
In today’s highly competitive flat world, the “Chinese wall” between executives and operations has broken down. In 2009, we will continue to see increasing sponsorship, collaboration, and direct involvement of senior executives in project management initiatives. Senior executives have come to appreciate the direct link between effective project management processes, best practices and tools and operational excellence. This task is no longer delegated away and deemed to be a tactical activity. Senior executives and board members view project management improvement initiatives as a strategic investment.
- #9 The CFO and the project manager friendship
An increasingly project-based service-oriented economy has led to more complex customer engagements and billing arrangements. By instituting charge backs, even internal departments have to justify their costs, deliver services efficiently, and earn the business of other entities within the same organization. Consequently, for CFOs measuring project value and recognizing revenue in compliance with various GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) cost accounting and revenue recognition regulations has become an even more daunting task. The intricacies of estimating project value have created unprecedented ties between financial executives and projects managers who have to collaborate to produce incontestable project value assessments that can withstand the various forms of potential financial and project audits the organization may be subjected to. Given the current trends, the CFO/project management alliance is likely to grow stronger in 2009.
- #8 The rise of the Project Workforce
As explained in my book The Rise of the Project Workforce (www.projectworkforcebook.com) more and more individuals choose the projects they want to work on rather than the company they work for. Similarly, more companies are adopting the Hollywood model for a larger percentage of their workforce. In this model a project team is quickly assembled to execute a well defined objective; the team is just as quickly discharged once the project (the movie) has been completed. This flexibility makes both the company and the workforce more agile in a rapidly changing competitive marketplace.
In Part II we will look at the next three trend predictions for project management in 2009.
When project management software isn’t your thing
Posted by Tenrox Project Management Software Blog in project management on November 13th, 2008
From time to time we encounter prospects with the following modus operandi. The company:
- Uses a small to mid market accounting application such as QuickBooks, ACCPAC or Great Plains for financial reporting
- May be using Microsoft Project to build plans for projects that require planning
- Has implemented spreadsheets (or a custom app) to track cost and billing information that is then manually keyed into the accounting system
The company’s management is aware that how they run their business can be much improved and there are tremendous cost avoidance, cost reduction and revenue increase opportunities if the right process improvements are made. The company has allocated the funds and resources to make the investment. Now the hard work begins.
After months of research, demos, questions and walkthroughs the decision is made to purchase a solution like Tenrox project workforce management. The full software cost including a multi-year on-demand agreement, integration and implementation costs are prepared by the vendor and reviewed by the company.
And here comes the doozy.
After reviewing the project deliverables, some of the members of the customer team in charge of the initiative insist that all project details be exported back into the accounting system. The rational being that financial types (CFOs, senior executives) want to have all the cost and detail information in the accounting system. Sounds pretty harmless doesn’t it?
The problem with this approach is that the accounting system is being used as a detailed project tracking system with too many GLs (general ledger accounts), too many segments, too many transactions, too much data. Also, if you look at any GL entry in the accounting system you will still not be able to easily trace it back to the exact time entry, expense entry, or project charge that created it, unless you add even more complexity to the GL transactions you create.
Here is a true story from one of our customers who experienced this (names are anonymous for privacy):
“Many years ago, I recall we attempted a similar initiative at XYZ. We decided that we wanted to know everything when we look at our financial reports:
- who bought which products and services?
- how much did the project cost us?
- which customers, projects, products or services has the most margin?
- how much expenses were incurred for a project, by an employee, etc.
We redesigned our GL accordingly and came up with a 3 page document that described the GL structure. I came into the office 2 days later and was passing by the desk of one of our accounting resources. The image of Mary (not her true name) has been with me since that day, I will never forget it.
Mary had an expense report in front of her and she was on the third entry. She looked exhausted and confused. I asked Mary if everything is ok. She said she was having a lot of trouble understanding what each GL segment meant what and which full GL should be used for every expense type. The combinations were too many! We tried various lists and formats to try and simplify their work without success. Our entire accounting team was frustrated and confused by the complexity.
We ultimately dumped our “smart” GL system and went back to a more simplified GL model that captured cost and revenue information at a high level for financial reporting.”
Before you roll out any project management system, you should be convinced of the following fundamental principles, or the project management initiative will fail before it ever sees daylight:
- Use your accounting application to do what it is created for; to report on financials
- Use your project management system to plan, budget and track detailed project and workforce actuals, cost and revenue
- Export client/project cost and revenue transactions to your accounting application with enough detail to manage your receivables, accounts payable and financial reporting. However, stay way from trying to reproduce in two systems detailed cost and revenue information that you already have access to in your project management solution.
Did Your IT Guru Write Your Time Tracking Software Program? Read This.
Posted by Tenrox Project Management Software Blog in IT Management on May 7th, 2007
I was invited for a meeting with the VP of HR, CIO and senior VP of a division of a large UK-based company. I walked into the meeting not sure what to expect. Usually, such meetings are very pleasant and friendly, but not a lot is accomplished in the near-term. Inaction always “happens” first.
But in this meeting we got right into it. They needed a project time management system that connected to their payroll system, and were anxious to know when we could deploy it.
About 45 minutes into the meeting, I could not resist any longer; I asked: “Why this sudden urgency to move forward with this initiative now? We tried to schedule this meeting with you months and months ago and we would never get any firm answers.”
The VP of HR shrugged and in a very sad voice said “Our IT guru just died suddenly and unexpectedly. He is the one who wrote our in-house project management system and was maintaining it all along. With him gone, we have no one who knows about the pay rules, timesheet management, and project tracking like he did. If we do not take action soon our timesheet system may stop working or not support our division’s timesheet policies. That is why we wanted to move forward with this project. We do not want to hire another IT guru and create dependency for such a system that is not a part of our core business but is a critical operational system.”
So, if you have in-house systems developed and managed by in-house IT gurus, maybe it’s time to look for a company and a solution that can provide you with a better, more cost-effective and long-term out-of-the-box solution.
The moral of the story? Don’t wait until your IT guy is dead!
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