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MS Project - Propability of project starting

Proposed Answer MS Project - Propability of project starting

  • Monday, 2 January 2012 7:41 PM
     
     
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    I have a large portfolio of projects to manage. Many of these projects are done in close cooperation with various customers and are sponsered development done for these customers. Since the customer is paying and ultimately using the result of each project, they are the ones giving the final go for starting a project or not. But the resources to be used in projects are shared between the projects and for that reason we have a difficult planning situation (e.g. customer A says yes to project where resource X is needed, but resource X is already working for customer B and is available in 10 weeks)

     

    So basically we have a "sales pipe" of projects coming in with various percentage of propability to start or not, as well as a portfolio of actual projects currently running.

     

    My question is: is there a way to manage this sales pipe and the the actual projects in MS Project 2010? Can the system handle the situation where resources are limited and shared between projects? Can we do "scenario analysis" where we move resources from one project to another, or delay a certain project to be able to finish some other project earlier etc.... 

     

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  • Monday, 2 January 2012 8:04 PM
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    To a limited extent yes. However your main solution is in People Process Tools. Essentially if your sales people promise every customer immediate start on their work and delivery in a month, you are up the proverbial creek without a paddle!

    Therefore you need a process for quoting for each job. It needs to include an agreed start date valid for X days. After that if the customer still delays signing the order, they re-join the job queue.

    The most efficient way to run any project is with people dedicated to one project until it's finished. However there are always delays and interruptions etc, so the most effective number of projects to run is the number that provides the most efficient use of resources, and no more. Squeeze in one more project (just so the client can see some progress) and productivity drops.

    My schedules always go out in your sceanrio with Task one as Customer signs order as a milestone and all tasks linked to it. The timescale is in Week 1, Week 2 format so teh cstomer sees that the completion date is always a number of weeks AFTER they sign the order. Mange customer expectations. Understand that your schedule is a communication tool and format and structure your schedules accordingly.

    Another tip is to add a surcharge if the client requests a short timeframe. This pays for them to jump the queue somewhat, but they still have to sign within their alloted number of days and have a set number of weeks to complete after signing. The surcharge covers the cost of the team working less efficiently to deliver faster.

    Sales quotes need to say that any delay in signing the order may result in a late start if there is a rush of work on. This isn't a problem usually as perversely some clients will think you must be OK or you wouldn't be that busy!

    So refine your sales/quoting processes and train all sales people in following it. Your tool: MS Project can now help. You do however need a way to report on resource needs for the next 3 months, so either use Project Server or various other techniques to report on resource data across all your projects. Use a project level field to state where in the sales process a proposed project is so you can report on the sales pipeline or all projects where the customer has signed their order.

    Rod Gill

    The one and only Project VBA Book Rod Gill Project Management
     
  • Monday, 2 January 2012 8:59 PM
     
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    Hi there,

    Following on from Rod's sound advice, the Portfolio Selection and Analystics in Project Server 2010 might help you here. If you haven't seen it before, the links are below:

    http://www.microsoft.com/project/en-us/portfolio-selection-analysis.aspx

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/projectserver/ff899331.aspx

    Thanks

    Paul

    Paul Mather | Twitter | http://pwmather.wordpress.com