Pinnacle Insights

September 30 came and went, and Project Online went with it. If your organization saved its projects as MPP files and pulled an OData export before access ended, you did the most important thing you could have done.

In my last post, Project Online Retirement: How to Choose What Comes Next, I walked through how one organization chose its path off Project Online. This time I want to talk about the part of a migration that almost nobody plans for.

Let’s talk about that now infamous “September 14^th Memo” from the Deputy Secretary of War. The one titled “Fostering One Strong Industrial Base.” If you haven’t seen it yet, you can read it here. There is a lot in the memo, and I’m not going to cover all of it, but there are some big things to unpack. I will do my best to cover those that are most relevant to our customers.

The memo itself appears to take aim at the fundamental business system compliance requirements outlined in Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS)

On September 30, 2026, Microsoft retired Project Online. If your organization ran its project portfolio there, you may have already completed a Project Online migration. You may have arranged extra time with Microsoft. Or you may be holding a backup of your projects and wondering what to do with it.

The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) has released DECM v8.0, marking one of the most significant structural updates to the Earned Value Management System (EVMS) Compliance Metrics in recent years. This version of the DECM introduces a fundamentally new approach to surveillance through metric prioritization. For program leaders, EVMS practitioners, and contractors preparing for surveillance or certification, the impact is substantial.

One of the major responsibilities of the CAM is to be ready for the Integrated Baseline Review (IBR). 

Pinnacle successfully completed an EVMS implementation for the Sierra Nevada Region of the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) located in Folsom, California.

Benefits Realization Management is at the heart of Program Management - or should be.  But what is it - and how can it help deliver successful Programs?