The Importance of Project Management Software

Have you ever wondered how important software is for managing projects? How much time does it save? How much it can help you in delivering a successful project? What parts of it are lifesavers and what parts can you live without?

Having these questions ourselves, our company has conducted a research with a subject “Project management on an enterprise level”, during the past month, supported by Seavus Project Planner and Seavus DropMind™. The main purpose of the research was to identify the needs and requirements of people who are faced with project challenges everyday.

The research has shown some very interesting results that we would like your input on.

Part I

First, let’s share the statistics about the respondents. The first part of the survey was dedicated to analyzing industry the companies operate in, company’ size, location and job title of the respondent.

From the responses provided, most respondents work in companies within Manufacturing (13.40%) and Consulting (11.34%) industries, directly followed by Business / Professional Services (8.25%), Construction / Home Improvement (8.25%) and Government / Military (7.22%). Other industries presented have less than 7 % of respondents.

Regarding the companies size, most respondents work in SME (24.74%) directly followed by companies with 1000-10000 employees (18.56%). However most of these companies have between 1 and 3 offices (51.55%).

The job title of the respondents is summarized in the graphic below:

We believe this reach provides an accurate sample of the PM market, and that the conclusions can be trusted.

Part II

Next part of the survey was connected to the actual usage of the project management software that is chosen within the responders’ company.

We wanted to explore the usage of the Microsoft® EPM within these companies and more or less we were surprised by the answers. It is interesting to see that large number of companies that have been using MS Project Standard are not using Microsoft® EPM and do not even consider implementing this solution within their companies.

However, it was also interesting to see the importance of different parts constituting the project management solutions for the people using Microsoft® EPM (or for those that are considering using it in the future) and for the people who haven’t been using it or are not considering using it in the future. We have divided the most important features in 4 categories: Project Management, Resource Management, Time Management and Collaboration. Follow up the appropriate responses in the tables below:

(The green colored cells are related to respondents who are or will be using Microsoft® EPM and the orange colored cells are related to people who are not or will not be using Microsoft® EPM).

As you can notice all of the features above are important and very important for the biggest number of the respondents, except for the wikis which both groups has indicated as not important feature. Moreover, almost 79% of respondents stated that it is very important or critical for them to track project progress. Assigning privileges/roles is valued with 3, (on a scale from 1 as useless and 5 as critically important), from almost 50% of the respondents and for all respondents is important to know that their project is on budget and on schedule.

Other interesting answers were given on questions such as where the respondents store important documents (.mpp files; general documents and project related documents). The answers were diverse, since this was an open question. However, some of the most frequent answers were: on the Server, SharePoint, Network, and File Server and it is more than obvious that people want to have their pm solution installed on the server in the company (89%) than to have it hosted (10.81%). Moreover, they prefer to install the solution from their own IT department (75.68%) than to have the installation from the solution provider (24.32%), but almost 57% of the respondents are ready to pay for installation and support from third party.

The answers on the question “How the teams update task progress?” were expected. 37.55% of the respondents stated that e-mail is used for updating task progress. Surprising 18.18% of respondents verbally update tasks and 15.58% use MS® Excel. Software programs were mentioned by a small number of people.

Same answers were given on the question “How do you share info about late tasks, risks, or general project related knowledge?” with 75.32% for e-mail, 48.05% verbally and 28.57% MS® Excel.

This survey provided many valuable answers, but as you can notice, there are some conflict areas. We encourage you to share your opinion on the results and moreover your experience in the field. Let’s create together the big picture of this survey.

Earned Value Reporting – Estimate at Completion

In this article on Earned Value Reporting we’ll closely look at the concept of Estimate at Completion. What the Estimate at Completion tries to tell us is the forecast value of the project when the project has been completed.

Much of the following was derived from the book “The Project Management Question and Answer Book” by Michael Newell and Marina Grashina.

What is the estimate at completion?

The estimate at completion, frequently shown as the EAC, is the forecast value of the project when the project is complete. It should be noted that the EAC can be calculated in a number of different ways and is only an indicator of what the project’s cost will be at the end of the project.

The estimate at completion is a value that can get project managers in trouble. In its most commonly used form it is the budget at completion divided by the cost performance index.

EAC = BAC / CPI or EAC = (BAC x ACWP) / BCWP

This is a rather pessimistic estimate of the amount of money that will be spent at project completion. It says that the things that have gone wrong in the project until now will continue to go wrong, and we will not learn how to improve them between now and the end of the project. There are many reasons why this is true. There could be bias in our estimates. If the early items in the project were underestimated, it is likely that the later items in the project will be underestimated as well. If there is a chronic problem that has been evident in the early part of the project and the same people and equipment will be used on the later project activities, then the EAC will probably be accurate by this method. On the other hand, if different estimators and team members or different pieces of equipment are being used later in the project, the EAC may not indicate the project’s true estimated cost at the end.

Unfortunately, as we will see, much of the research that has been done in this area indicates that projects that are over budget when they are 25 percent complete are very likely to finish over budget. Not only that, but these projects are likely to finish with a worse cost performance index than they had when they were 25 percent complete.

The Project Manager and Press Briefings

Thankfully, the projects I’ve run have not required that I go before the press and give any kind of a briefing – either pre- or post-project. The closest I’ve come is helping a customer put together written press briefings – these were in the case of US Airways for an enterprise-wide software implementation and Rockwell Collins for the release of their pharmacy website for employees and retirees for publication in a trade journal.

Carl Pritchard presents his take on press briefings and the PM’s role when leading those types of projects. The following text, for the most part, comes from his book entitled “The Project Management Communications Toolkit.” Again, I’m not wholeheartedly endorsing this process or the information contained here, but I think it is solid information nevertheless and would be helpful to project managers who find themselves faced with the need to “meet the press.”

Press Briefings

Few environments are as grueling for a project manager as when he or she must face the media. Press briefings are held to inform members of the media about the status of a project, its environment, or its supporting organization. They are intended to present the project organization (or host organization) in the best possible light. Press briefings are held when a project or its impact is sufficiently significant that public information campaigns using mass media are appropriate. They should be held whenever the project has achieved sufficient recognition that the project organization’s perspective on the effort is deemed to be of public interest. That recognition may be positive or negative in nature, and may be proactive or reactive, depending on the nature of the project organization.

The Subject Matter

The subject matter for a press briefing should be determined well in advance of the briefing to ensure that the correct information is shared and any information that the organization does not want to share is clearly defined for those hosting the briefing. Members of the media are often given “press kits” at such gatherings, highlighting corporate history, general information, past press releases, and any contact persons’ business cards. The organizational spokesperson (sometimes, the project manager) should open with a statement regarding the nature of the project and the issue(s) that brought the project into the public eye. The statement should anticipate any questions, objections, or concerns that may be raised. If broadcast media are present, consideration should be given to phrases, paragraphs, or references that may be presented in 8- to 20-second sections (classic “sound bites”).

A press briefing need not necessarily include question-and-answer periods, but keep in mind that most members of the media will have questions. Although the spokesperson is not compelled to answer these questions, failure to respond is sometimes interpreted as a lack of cooperation or as a sign of deviousness. In situations where off-the-cuff responses may be dangerous, it is wholly appropriate to offer to do supplemental research and respond at a later time. The most effective spokespersons will identify the time when the additional information will be available and how it will be made available. If “no comment” is the appropriate response, alternative means to couch that phrase can be very effective and can leave media representatives with something quotable. Saying “This would not be the time to offer comment on something of that nature,” followed by an iteration of the key point of the briefing affords the presenter the opportunity to emphasize what is important.

Summary

Press briefings are potentially volatile situations, but they are the host organization’s to control. Simple considerations (like morning coffee and comfortable seating arrangements) can go a long way to defuse a potentially hostile audience. Clear rules of conduct and engagement can also minimize the possibility that the session appears to be out of control—and the more that can be done to ensure a positive attitude and a forward-looking perspective, the better.

What’s the value of Project Management?

It took three years, but the ‘Researching the Value of Project Management’ study commissioned by PMI is producing tangible results.  Conducted by researchers Janice Thomas and Mark Mullaly, PMP, through Athabasca University in Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, the research looked at more than 65 case studies from a globally dispersed array of industries.

The study has been written up as a book and there have been a number of spin-offs as a result.  The most interesting of these is a practical, online guideline tool which discusses how best to get value from the project management activities in your organisation.

I have seen a demo of the tool and it’s my understanding that PMI will make it more widely available soon.  At the moment it is only available to people who buy the book.  Keep an eye out for it, as it is worth running for your company.

The tool is designed to help operationalise the findings of the study and provide some guidelines for practice based on the results of the Researching the Value of Project Management study.    More than 65 organisations from all industries around the world participated in the case study component of this research. The study found that there are multiple types of quantifiable value, ranging from better business outcomes to improved strategic alignment, derived from PM implementations, ranging from establishing a PMO to conducting training or hiring a trained expert. The goal of this tool is to help align desired value with appropriate implementation.

It’s a web-based survey that asks a variety of questions relating to different project management topics. It takes you through a series of comparisons between the different types of value that the study identified. For example, you will be asked if “strategic alignment” is more or less important to your organisation than “improved project results”.

When you have completed the survey, the tool then analyses your answers to produce ‘top tips’ about where you should be focusing your efforts to ensure that project management generates the most value for you as possible.  It uses the findings of the research study to calculate project management implementation suggestions for your organisation.

As you might expect, PMI warns that determining the most appropriate project management implementations for each organisation requires strategic thought and the ability to prioritise what each organisation wants to achieve. While this process cannot be shortcut by completing the online tool, suggestions can be made of implementations that might be appropriate based on the needs identified.  They go on to say:

Please be aware that the output of this tool is directional – a suggestion – which is based on the practices of the studied organizations. In the end, the implementation of project management must “fit” the organization it serves, or there can be no value generation. And remember that there is no silver bullet. As interesting as these suggestions may be, project management work that provides value to an organization can only be done by a competent, skilled project manager.

These suggestions cover a wide range of topics (I went through the tool several times with various responses) including project management training, embedding the PMO function, stakeholder relationships and so on. When you know you could do better but don’t know exactly where to start this will help you identify where to spend your effort.

Latest project management recruitment research

John Thorpe, Managing Director of Arras People, gave a presentation recently in London about the state of the project management recruitment market.  Some of you might have filled in the Arras People 2009 project management benchmark survey.  Arras’s studies have a reputation for being wide-ranging and comprehensive, so I was interested to listen to the outcome of this latest research.

Thorpe spoke about the impact of the current economic conditions on recruitment and talent attraction and retention.  He explained that recruitment agencies were seeing a 50% reduction in requests to recruit – there are fewer jobs to fill.  He also said that there is increasing pressure on day rates for project management contractors as well as permanent salaries, but this hasn’t been as detrimental to pay as many people thought.  In the main, salaries and day rates still remain good, and employers are realistic in the need to pay decent rates to attract good project mangers.

Rates vary across the public and private sectors.  The Arras research shows that the public sector pays more for project support roles than the private sectors.  The rates are around the same for project management positions.  The private sector pays much better for programme management roles although the sectors even out at around £100k.

Employers are using recruitment agencies more wisely – they are no longer approaching on spec just to see who might be out there.  Instead, agencies are seeing clients arrive with an approved business case and a clear person specification, all of which means the time it takes to get someone in post is much shorter than it used to be.  Good candidates aren’t hanging on waiting for companies to finalise the head count any more, which has to be positive news for project managers who are currently out of work.

If you are job hunting you might think that it’s a hirer’s market and that you will be up against hundreds of other great project people.  That actually isn’t the situation – companies are holding on to good members of staff and people in roles are reluctant to move in case their new role turns out not to be as stable as their old one.  There may be more people job hunting, but if you are a good, quality recruit, you will likely be in demand.

Thorpe pointed out that there is still an ‘old school’ approach to business management, with the trend in the shift of personal values (for example, work/life balance) contributing to the talent shortage.  He said that many executives have failed to see that project managers are the new breed of business managers:  in the ‘old days’ companies had general or operations managers.  Nowadays companies are project-centric and these roles are filled by project managers, who, in their own way, keep the business running.  In a service based economy, he explained, we have to differentiate on ability, not cost base.

Running parallel to the main Arras survey was the recent ‘Green Shoots’ research, and again you might have filled in that quick survey, especially if you saw the links on the Twitter #pmot group.  The results of that were interesting too:  just over 40% of respondents said we are still in a downturn.  As these results were international – the main survey was UK correspondents – it was notable that the UK had a higher belief that the downturn was continuing than elsewhere, perhaps signifying that the gloom is lifting around the world.  In fact, UK respondents to the survey were more negative than the overall global results in every category.  Breaking that down even further, contractors were the most negative of all, with nearly 20% saying that the position was significantly worse than in January this year.  So if you are a UK contractor, maybe it’s time to start looking at permanent employment, international relocation, or just having a more positive outlook on life!