Microsoft EPM

The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution is one of the leading toolsets in the Enterprise Project Management market.  Microsoft has been very successful in assembling this toolset and making it a standard across industries. 

The Microsoft Office EPM Solution is based on a number of tools from Microsoft:

• Microsoft Office Project Server 2007
• Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007
• Microsoft Office Project Web Access
• Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007

Implemented together these tools provide the EPM technology that many organizations are trying to instill.  As with any of the high end EPM systems there is a level of technical complexity that comes along with using a number of elements for a complete EPM solution.  Microsoft Office EPM Solution has an open architecture but no standard API.  It can be customized, but upgrades can then become problematic.

Even when the technical challenges are met organizations still face the need for solid process, training and organizational adoption of Enterprise Project Management.  Microsoft EPM has few business rules built into it so training, process development, work aids and templates are even more important.

Using the Microsoft Office EPM solution helps many organizations with one of the major adoption challenges.  As Microsoft Project is in place somewhere in almost all organizations, it has a much better chance of being adopted by project managers.  This alone makes a Microsoft EPM based Enterprise Project Management solution a desirable choice for many organizations.  In organizations that have standardized on Microsoft technologies, and specifically Microsoft SharePoint Services, it can become a straightforward decision.

Taking a closer look at the components of the Microsoft Office EPM solution can help understand how these tools fit together to support an organization’s Enterprise Project Management technology needs.

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 integrates three components required for the Microsoft EPM Solution:

• Office Project Professional 2007
• Office Project Web Access
• Windows SharePoint Services

Within Project Server all project schedules, resource data, and associated status data reside.  Project and resource information are stored centrally in the Office Project Server database and use the Microsoft SQL Server database functionality to allow reporting and slicing and dicing of information.

As in all Enterprise Project Management implementations the ability to pull together information about project performance and resource assignments is critical.  For organizations that have SQL Server reporting skills this makes the Microsoft Project Server environment a natural fit.

MS Office Project Professional 2007

As mentioned above Microsoft Project seems to be in about every company.  For many Project Managers it is the only project management tool they have worked with.  Talk to any Enterprise Project Management implementation consultant that has suggested taking Microsoft Project away from a set of users and you’ll hear painful stories of pushback, revolution or malicious compliance.

One common topic associated with Microsoft Project is the limitation of its Critical Path Method (CPM) or scheduling limitations.  From most organizations outside of construction or perhaps major Aerospace and Defense contractors this is not a showstopper.

Office Project Professional has all of the functionality that you would expect to see in a Project Management desktop system. It provides functionality to plan, monitor and status work.  Schedules, activities costs, and resources are all visible to project managers.

In addition to standalone project management functions, Microsoft Project along with Microsoft Office Project Server gives visibility of project schedules, tasks, calendars, costs, and resources and their assignments across the enterprise.  Microsoft Office Project facilitates collaboration and communication across project teams, and with other stakeholders. Collaboration support has become a mainstay of most EPM solutions today.  Many users may already have wikis or use email for automation of communication, but having integration in context with project information can be very powerful if implemented correctly.

Office Project Web Access

Office Project Web Access gives access to information stored on Project Server 2007 about projects, resources, and costs and ties into Windows SharePoint Services collaboration features. There are a number of specific EPM functions supported with Office Project Web Access components:

• Project Center – prioritize projects that support your organization’s business goals and analyze cost and schedule variances.
• Resource Center -- analyze resource allocation, availability, costs and perform capacity planning.
• Timesheets – record timesheets information and update task progress and allocate task assignments.
• Status Reports – across projects and programs.
• Data Analysis – build and generate reports for projects, resource, task, assignment, schedule, progress, cost, and other information.  

Windows SharePoint Services

Windows SharePoint Services provides the workspaces which team members and stakeholders can use to view project information and portfolio information.  Many organizations have or desire these systems, but they are often not integrated with their project management systems. Microsoft is now competing with the high end of Enterprise Project Management systems by supporting these types of functions and integrating them into their EPM Solution.

Project management information that users may track are:

• Deliverables – review or approve project related deliverables.
• Risks and Issues - identify, track, update, assign and escalate Risks and Issues.
• Documents. Locates all project-related documents in one central repository for access as needed by the team members and stakeholders. Documents can be added, updated, viewed, searched, and archived, depending on permissions. You can assign a specific status to a document, and you can control document versions by using the check-in and check-out process.  

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007

For the past five years or more, top-down portfolio management has become a major focus of many organizations.  Large IT organizations are especially focused on the management of their portfolio of projects.  Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is targeted at senior executives, portfolio analysts, and program managers. The following features are built into Project Portfolio Server:

• Portfolio Builder - builds your portfolio of projects and supports enterprise-wide portfolio governance processes.
• Portfolio Dashboard – provides dashboard view to evaluate and control the portfolio of project.
• Portfolio Optimizer – used to prioritize projects by aligning them with user defined strategic, financial, and risk metrics.

Pinnacle can help ensure the adoption of your Microsoft Office EPM implementation by teaming with you to meet the business, technology, and process challenges for implementing Enterprise Project Management.