What are some early intervention solutions you've implemented?

[Paxman]

Hi Everyone,

 

While I've been using PPM for just over 3 years now, I've learned the ins and outs of getting data in and out that tell a story of "what is", and even using basic logic I've seen a lot of "what was vs what is" but I don't always see or hear a lot about solutions that tell us "what will be". By that I mean using information coming in to PPM that trigger early warning signs to businesses about possible upcoming problems before they actually happen, letting the system tell you rather than needing to interpret it yourself from extracted data.

 

Has anyone implemented anything (portlets, reports, or otherwise) that helps keep them and their business ahead of the pitfalls of project management? I am interested to hear about them to learn and spark some ideas of my own!

 

Matthew

[navzjoshi00]

As a starter, start with tracking the very basic info, e.g.

Timesheets

What would happen if the timesheets are not approved on time? - Build a process/portlet around identifying which ones are approved late

 

Projects

Is there any missing information at project level? - like Cost Plan not created, Status reports not filled, projects not baselined

 

Resources

Look for info around missing resource information, like rates, financial info, etc (a portlet would help)

Look for info regarding how resource booking is conducted - e.g., a role is allocated to a project and it is never replaced with a resource (when it should really have been done on time)

 

 

NJ

[Paxman]

Hey NJ,

 

Thank you. Good responses. We've definitely got all of that, but I still think those are great answers.

 

I guess some of the things that go further beyond this I might be interested in is if anyone has used any sort of predictive analytics tool (maybe Oracle Predictive Analytics, or anything really) again existing PPM data to try and map out project outcomes and/or issues based on previous outcomes of projects. Maybe for example, using predictive analytics to match up baselines, costs plans, or schedules against older completed projects to try and get a gauge on projects that may be approaching trouble based on trends in the business that affected similar projects.

 

Maybe that sounds convoluted, but I'm in thinking mode and I think there might be something out there!

 

Matthew

[navzjoshi00]

Looking for something on these lines?

 

Adoption Metrics - Oracle

regoXchange :: Adoption Metrics - Oracle 

 

 

Rego’s Clarity Adoption Metrics package consists of two sets of metrics: Project metrics, and Resource metrics. Project metrics measure how effectively project managers are using Clarity to manage their projects. Resource metrics measure how effectively resource managers are using Clarity to manage resources.

Metrics are scored on a scale of 0 to 5, with higher scores indicating greater adoption and use. All metrics can be viewed numerically or graphically, and can be broken out by OBS. In addition, metric data can display as a 12-month rolling history to help identify trends. Project metrics can also display by lowest / highest adoption rates for a specific resource metric or all resource metrics.

There is a variety of way to view the Adoption Metric data, therefore, Rego has made this simple by creating an Adoption Metrics object that contains multiple tabs. Each tab displays one or more of the Project or Resource Adoption Metrics. Based on the nature of the Metrics some tabs will allow the ability to use a pull down menu to select a specific Adoption Metric. There is also a Metrics trending view that pulls monthly snapshots of the metrics.

Project metrics consist of the following:
• Project Status Reporting – Measures how well PMs create and publish project status reports.
• Project Risk Adoption – Measures how well Risks are being used and managed.
• Project Issue Adoption – Measures how well Issues are being used and managed.
• Project Schedule – Measures how well PMs create tasks and keep the project schedule current.
• Project Baseline – Measures whether or not baselines exist.
• Project Zero ETC’s – Measures how well the PM assigns resources to tasks with ETCs.
• Project Past ETC’s – Measures how many improperly scheduled tasks the PM has.
• Project Milestone / Key Tasks – Measures how well PMs create and manage Milestones / Key Tasks.
• Project Schedule Variance – Measures how effectively PMs manage their schedules.
• Project Effort Variance – Measures how effectively PMs manage their project efforts.
• Project Budget Variance – Measures how effectively PMs manage budgets or cost plans.
• Project Unfilled Roles – Measures project roles with allocations that are already started or starting within the next 30 days.
• Project Data Quality – Measures how effectively PMs complete the Description, Stage, Progress, Objective, and Sponsor/Business Owner fields.
• Project Commitment – Measures the hard allocations for a project over a two week time frame.
Resource Metrics consist of the following:
• Resource Clarity Usage – Measures how often users log into Clarity.
• Resource Timesheet – Measures if timesheets post in a timely manner.
• Resource Allocation – Measures how well RMs keep total resource allocations within the expected range for future time periods.
• Resource Actual Utilization – Measures how well Resource allocations match actuals.
• Resource Allocation Date in the Past – Measures how many resources are open for time entry with dates in the past.
• Resource Data Quality – Measures how well RMs complete the Resource Manager and Primary Role fields and optionally the Skill and Employment Type fields.
• Resource Commitment – Measures how much resource available time is committed to projects.

 

 

NJ

[Paxman]

Wow NJ, that definitely looks like the place to start for something like this. Thanks for the link!

 

Matthew

[navzjoshi00]

You're welcome

 

NJ

[Legacy User]

Noted in “Project Issue Adoption” that “All closed issues have a resolution.”

 

Believe this should be “All Resolved issues have a resolution.”  The way CA PPM works, once one closes an issue, the Resolved Date and Resolve By fields are blanked.  Therefore, we’ve taken this to mean that there are two end states possible:  Resolved or Closed:

 

 

-          Resolved:  Issue was worked on and solution was found, implemented successfully

 

-          Closed:  Issue was canceled – may have been in error, duplicate, customer accepted it as is, etc.  Whatever the reason, solution was not implemented, perhaps not identified, perhaps never sought.

 

A closed issue, therefore, might not ever have a resolution.

 

We also like this approach as it aids filtering issues for resolutions vs. those that weren’t resolved – if everything is closed, then one must search text fields for indications of resolution.

 

Otherwise, good stuff!

[Legacy User]

Matthew,

 

I highly recommend Critical Chain Project Management method for scheduling and managing projects.  The methodology brings a predictive means of measuring likelihood of hitting target dates on time and preventing everything from being worked on at the same time (an outcome of scheduling everything using ASAP constraint).

 

 

 

These charts are from Speed4Projects (http://speed4projects.net/critical-chain/ccpm-methode/) (most of this site is in German) – the idea is this:

 

 

-          If green, leave it alone

 

-          If yellow, project team should have a recovery plan ready should project go red (it may naturally stay yellow or go back to green – so don’t firefight everything!)

 

-          If red, implement the recovery plan

 

Concepts are found in:

 

 

-          Critical Chain<https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Chain-Eliyahu-M-Goldratt/dp/0884271536> (CCPM for single project)

 

-          Hanging Fire<https://www.amazon.com/Hanging-Fire-Achieving-Predictable-Uncertain/dp/1499660901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496667988&sr=1-1&keywords=hangingfirehttps://www.amazon.com/Hanging-Fire-Achieving-Predictable-Uncertain/dp/1499660901/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496667988&sr=1-1&keywords=hangingfire> (CCPM in multi-project environment)

 

-          The Phoenix Project<https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business/dp/0988262509/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496668155&sr=1-1&keywords=phoenix+project> (CCPM in Agile/DEVOPS environment)

 

All are written as novels – making them more fun to read than a text book!

 

Nice summary at PMI:  Critical chain project management improves project performance<https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/critical-chain-pm-improves-performance-5305>

 

Have seen some competitors putting this into their PPM apps (TOC4U/SAP PPM, Millarium/SAP PPM, Exepron<http://www.exepron.com/> (2016 Gartner “cool vendor in PPM”, PlanView offers a best practice<https://success.planview.com/Planview_Enterprise/Best_Practices/8.20.0_Planview_and_Critical_Chain> recommendation on ‘how to implement CCPM’).

 

I have an idea submitted on this:  Add Critical Chain capability<https://communities.ca.com/ideas/103053903>  It doesn’t have many votes, but the votes that are there are from people that have been in project/resource management long enough to know the value of CCPM.

 

It’s an old tune, now, that I’ve been playing – but when my customers are excited with success, telling me that we need to use CCPM on every project, I don’t easily give up.  Agile doesn’t replace it, either.

[mike2.2]

We built a number of governance portlets to let us know the following:

 - Resource records not setup correctly

- project records not set up properly

- Timesheets with potential issues.

[Andrew M]

I look at this two ways for early warning systems in PPM.

 

1. Where possible tell the user the actions to take, make it easy.

PM/RM/PMO/PPMO then take the needed actions before the problem starts

 

Example below for the project. This has a lot of business logic, such as alerting PM's they will run out of money if they keep the spend up at current rate, Risk resolution dates approaching etc. 

 

2. KPI's

This will depend on your organisation but you can define then assess. 

We can also define "alarms" where tolerances are exceeded, alerting us to problem projects.

Generally in my experience this has been about cost and impacts to the portfolio.

 

It's possible to also "play out" previous projects against a current project, i.e. form a hypothesis that based on  previous performance this deviation indicates a delay. 

 

If any of this sounds like what you want, get in touch

 

Andrew