Project tracking and communications tools

[Mr. HIStalk]

What software or forms do you use to track an active project ... tasks, percent complete, assignments, due dates, etc.?

[Art_Vandelay]

Central Project Management System
All Information System Department projects are tracked in a central Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) system. All project managers (PMs) are expected to maintain their project work plans in EPM. A small Project Office (PO) runs reports to validate this.

Some other areas of our Delivery System use stand-alone Microsoft Project Plans, Excel Spreadsheets, Sharepoint Lists or hosted project management services. The Delivery System does not have a single PO for all projects in all areas.

Methodology and Project Office
A common project methodology that was extracted from the Project Management Institute's PMBoK. This defines deliverable standards, templates and checklists that are used by the PMs. Few of the deliverables are mandated (proposal, work breakdown structure, status report, change control, notice of completion). The PO continually updates the project methodology as improvements are recommended. We are honestly limited in our approach to versioning the changes and rolling them out to PMs which has been an ongoing challenge.

The common project methodology contains standard work-breakdown structure (WBS) items that are tracked via reports to provide some level of consistent reporting and analysis. The issue has been the need for customization of the WBS items which can make standardized reporting difficult. The lack of standardization has hampered efforts to really estimate what are seemingly comparable projects. It is not perfect but it is a start.

The PO provides training to new PMs and helps the existing staff. They also support EPM and the reporting.

Communication Tools
Major projects use a Sharepoint Services Site for tracking of deliverables. The Sharepoint Services Sites can be searched from a Portal Site.

A standard status report is used for larger projects. This has made a difference in project visibility beyond the standard work plan reports.

Improvements in the New Year
We hope to improve the following in 2008 -

1. Single Issues Database for large projects - not individual lists
2. More structure to the WBS with some new items by the type of project (for ex: version upgrade, new install, web development, network upgrade)
3. Use of Sharepoint Lists for key follow-up's
4. More rigor to training and change management for the project methodology
5. Alignment of system development approaches
6. Improve resource management

[p_anon]

I find that the biggest challenge to using "collaboration tools" (e.g. SharePoint) for status reporting is getting everyone to keep their status updated on the site. The best advice I have is to keep your status updates minimal, i.e. don't ask too much. Maybe even just ask for a green/yellow/red dashboard-style response; just keep it simple.

The second problem with reporting status is in how the statuses are used. I've been asked in many ways and in many different work environments to "game" the system so that "we all look good." Just keep an eye out for people gaming the system.

EDIT: I forgot to answer the question. I like SharePoint for projects (the free version is perfectly fine), so long as we keep it simple. We just need to watch out that we don't burden everyone with too much overhead ("keep it lean").

[mprocino]

I've been in situations where "collaborative management" solutions like Microsoft Project, SharePoint or Clarity were used. They usually added nothing but overhead to the project, and often confused the true project status with meaningless statistics. You don't need a complicated tool to tell you if your project is doing well or not.

In most cases I designed a very simple dashboard with less than 10 elements that could be updated daily or weekly. This gave us all we needed to know about the project, and took just a few minutes to complete.

[Art_Vandelay]

Clarification: the standard status report is basic with a quick summary of the project status, who are the contacts, the top issues requiring resolution, the summary project work plan and what should be completed by the next status report. Sharepoint is used as a more friendly and searchable network drive where key deliverables and informational documents and status reports are kept. Red, green and yellow flags are used on items to draw attention to areas where help or attention is needed.

IMHO - when an IS department gets larger, the approaches to tracking projects requires more structure. Each new requirement we add is checked to be sure that the value it adds to the organization or IS exceeds the "pain". I have and do work within this structure and find it effective. Project Management is all about communication, communication, communication and organization.