Software as a Service: Tip 7 - Influencing product quality.

Most customers of traditional installed software have very little ability to influence the development of new product features or to bring about changes and enhancements to quality of service. Your SaaS provider understands all too how that it is just as easy to switch relationships with SaaS providers as it is to enter into one. As a customer of a SaaS solution, you will have a much greater opportunity to influence product and service quality via your ongoing relationship with your provider.

Software as a Service: Tip 6 - Best in class data security.

Most SaaS vendors understand all too well that application data must be backed up religiously and that security is a top priority. Customer IT departments are typically pulled in many directions and often can't be as focused on one solution. Hence, customers can rest assured their data security is probably better with a hosted solution, not worse.

Software as a Service: Tip 5 - Less risky investment.

Arguably, SaaS offers a less risky solution than traditional software installed on the IT infrastructure of the customer. And, instead of spending a considerable amount of money up front, customers pay for the software as they consume it and, typically, with no long term obligation or financial commitment. The monetary risk is considerably less and much easier to mitigate.

Software as a Service: Tip 4 - Vendor serves the customer.

In the SaaS business, vendors work for the customer. Customer's don't have to rely upon their IT department to install, configure, administer, and support the solution. Everything is already up and running, securely, at the vendor's place of business.

Software as a Service: Tip 3 - Low cost of entry.

As an attractive alternative to outlaying large amounts of budgetary funds, customers can roll out SaaS solutions to those needing the functionality with minimal involvement of the busy IT staff. The cost of entry is very low compared to installing complex solutions across the entire company.

Software as a Service: Tip 2 - Try and buy.

Most SaaS providers offer a 30-day free trial. Typically, this is not a practical option for traditional software that requires onsite installation, configuration, and administrator training. But with Saas, such trial periods can be a vital and valuable way to assess, prototype, and gain consensus on the best solution to select and implementation approach to take.

Software as a Service: Tip 1 - Time to value.

Of the many areas of benefit that SaaS provide to an organization, one of the most significant is time to value. Unlike tradtional software that often requires complex installation, configuration, administration, and training, SaaS solutions only require a browser. This enables the organization to quickly go live resulting in faster realization of benefits.

Project Server : Tip 10 - Portfolio Modeling

Project Server offers a Portfolio Modeler Tool for portfolio analysis that allows you to perform basic what-if analysis for such things as staffing changes in a single project or across a portfolio of projects. This tool can help you improve resource assignments and avoid resource overallocation.

Project Server : Tip 9 - Understanding OLAP

Online Analytic Processing (OLAP) technology relies upon a multidimensional view of data. While relational database structures are two dimensional, OLAP leverages data cubes which contain preprocessed three-dimensional data, time-phased and aggregated by business dimension. Each time Project Server processes the OLAP Cube, it stores the data in a collection of tables labeled with the prefix "msp_cube."

Project Server : Tip 8 - Understanding Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)

Each time a new project is saved in the Project Server database, the system optionally provisions a new project workspace on the server running Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). The project workspace contains the WSS services customized specifically for Project Server such as document libraries, issues and risks, lists, discussions and surveys, which users access through the Project Web Access interface.

Project Server : Tip 7 - Additional communication tools.

In addition to the core communication between project managers, project team members, and the leadership team, Project Server provides additional features for communication and collaboration. Some of these features are native to Project Server, others leverage SharePoint. Features native to Project Server include Status Reports, Automated Alerts and Reminders, To Do Lists, Outlook Integration, Task Delegation, and Ad hoc Reporting.

Project Server : Tip 6 - Understanding the project communications life cycle.

At the heart of Project Server is the cyclical assignment and update process between project managers and team members. Work assignments flow from the project plan to the project resources that perform the work and resources report progress data back to the plan. This communications life cycle flows through the following five steps.

1. Project manager publishes the plan to the Project Server database
2. Project Server notifies resources of their new task assignments
3. Team members update their progress on the project
4. Project manager receives and reviews team member task updates
5. Project manager publishes the latest project schedule

At any time throughout the project, executives can view the project portfolio of the organization.

Project Server : Tip 5 - Enterprise resource pool.

The centralized enterprise resource pool is key and required in order to implement the advanced resource management functionality in Project Server. The resource pool contains resources and attributions that drive functionality like matching people to tasks. After you complete task planning, you can then begin the resource management process and build a team for your project.

Project Server : Tip 4 - Enterprise resources.

A resource is an enterprise resource when it is either created in the Enterprise Resource Pool using the Microsoft Project Professional client while connected to Project Server with Enterprise Features enabled or when the resource is imported into the Enterprise Resource Pool using the Import Resource to Enterprise Wizard in Microsoft Project Professional. Resources that exist in local projects, but not the Enterprise Resource Pool, are termed a local resource, meaning that it is local to the project only.

Project Server : Tip 3 - Enterprise projects.

A project is an enterprise project when you create the project schedule using Microsoft Project Professional while connected to Project Server with Enterprise Features enabled and you import the project to the enterprise using the Import Project to Enterprise wizard. In a Project Server environment, no other non-programmatic method of creating an enterprise project is possible because all projects are stored in the Project Server database.

Project Server : Tip 2 - The difference between saving and publishing.

There is a difference between saving and publishing your project to Project Server. When you are working on a project plan, you will want to save your project from time to time to protect against losing your work. However, you may not have finalized your project plan and want to continue to add information to it, review it, and/or modify it before publishing. Therefore, you save it first, and publish your project only when you believe that it contains enough information that will make it useful to other viewers of the project plan on Project Server.

Project Server : Tip 1 - Valuable, but not a simple tool.

Microsoft Project Server is an extremely valuable application for companies seeking to engage in enterprise project management and project team collaboration. However, Project Server is not a simple tool, even for those who have used Project Server before and have experience using Microsoft Project Professional. Ensure adequate administrator and user training when implementing Project Server.

SharePoint: Tip 10 - Using Portal Sites.

SharePoint 2007 provides a new kind of site template called a portal site template. The portal site template lets you define a hierarchy of sites such as a PMO site and project sites that can all be created at once. So, rather than creating project sites one at a time with site templates, portal site templates create a set of multiple sites that are intended for use together.

SharePoint: Tip 9 - Managing business processes using workflows.

Managing a PMO is all about managing processes and many of these processes are mostly manual. SharePoint provides extensive support for managing organizational processes by using workflows. SharePoint can generate tasks and other kinds of list items to drive movement through the workflow. Rather than keeping all the information about processes filed away where few people will take the time to find and read them, SharePoint has a workflow feature that triggers and tracks the processes associated with your documents.

SharePoint: Tip 8 - Using lists with Excel and Access.

Quite often, individual departments use spreadsheets and databases for analyzing and keeping track of data. And just as often, the information technology department is completely unaware of these things. As a result, IT may have a problem when a department's spreadsheet stops working or when a department outgrows its database. SharePoint provides extensive features for integrating with Excel and Access such as creating one-to-one relationships between spreadsheets and databases to SharePoint lists providing a natural repository for working with tables, rows, and columns.

SharePoint: Tip 7 - SharePoint isn't right for every organization.

Be open to the fact that SharePoint isn't right for every organization. If you have difficulty getting people to cooperate with you or to see the value in SharePoint as a collaborative platform over other alternatives, then you and your organization may be best served by waiting until the winds of change come through. Since it is very difficult to prove the value or push a new way of thinking, be prepared to plant new ideas and be ready to act upon them when the time is right for the organization to fully embrace the change.

SharePoint: Tip 6 - Continually sell your SharePoint.

When you and your team discover new features, capabilities, and uses of SharePoint, don't be surprised if everyone else doesn't see the same value that you do. Take the time to show and explain the business value of SharePoint. Seeing is believing and often your users have to see SharePoint in action to understand its value over business as usual approaches.

SharePoint: Tip 5 - Use SharePoint as the hub.

Companies make significant investments in people and technologies. With IT staff already overburdened, it is not surprising to find little support and enthusiasm for implementing yet another complex, high maintenance vendor application. The result is that many users, despite all the advances in systems and technology, find themselves increasingly alienated and isolated from their companies information environments. Most end users will tell you that there is a missing link. Using SharePoint as a hub solves this problem and provides users with access to their information assets.

SharePoint: Tip 4 - Managing unstructured assets with SharePoint.

Unlike structured assets, less structured assets such as Word documents, Excel Spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Visio workflows, etc, are not usually stored in databases. Contrary to what IT staff may think, these assets are stored in more locations than just file servers such as PC hard drives, email folders, removable media, as well as printed and stored in filing cabinets. By providing a manageable environment for less structured information, SharePoint enables and makes it possible to standardize, share, archive, backup and restore, secure, audit, analyze, and legitimize the unstructured assets of the organization.

SharePoint: Tip 3 - Accessing structured assets with SharePoint.

Structured assets are found in the databases of the formal systems of the company. Though it is easy to query and aggregate data from these systems, accessing these systems is often difficult to do and it can be challenging to teach busy executives how to login, navigate menus, and run reports to get the information they need. SharePoint makes it possible and easier to control and customize access to these structured assets as well as to consolidate data that comes from multiple back-end sources.

SharePoint: Tip 2 - Identify and replace disparate repositories.

Many organizations have disparate repositories for storing information that quickly erode into a collection of information dumping grounds. Seek to identify and replace with your SharePoint the following kinds of disparate repositories:

• Documents, spreadsheets, and images stored on PC hard drives
• Documents, spreadsheets, and images stored on network shares
• Reference materials stored in three-ringed binders
• Calendar appoints and todos stored on cork boards
• Archived files stored on Zip drives and CDs
• Links for web resources found in a user's My Favorites folder
• Flipcharts and sticky noted from brainstorming sessions and meetings
• Worker knowledge stored in the heads of subject matter experts

SharePoint: Tip 1 - Understanding how SharePoint fits into your PMO.

SharePoint is a Microsoft offering that provides the server infrastructure to support needs that information workers have such as collaboration, document storage, and the ability to inform others and to be informed by others. While understanding the technology and features of SharePoint is important, understanding how SharePoint fits within your existing PMO and how it can be used by all those involved in support of executing the best practices of the PMO is even more important.

People Accountability: Tip 10 - Act as if you have the authority.

Often times, project managers have very little real authority in terms of reporting structure, or budget, or even being part of the leadership team’s decision making process. But, in fact, project managers do have authority. When a person commits to do work for you, when a functional manager commits resources to you, when an executive commits their time and attention to you, you as project manager have authority over all of that. And, you have the right to exercise that authority.

People Accountability: Tip 9 - Immediately praise good performance.

When your team member delivers the promised work on time or ahead of schedule, always acknowledge that good performance. Tell them and their functional manager how much you appreciate their efforts and how important their contribution was to the project’s success.

People Accountability: Tip 8 - Immediately confront poor performance.

Don’t allow poor performance to continue. Immediately confront performance that is not meeting agreed to expectations whether this is poor quality work, work that is incomplete, or work that is late. Rather than looking the other way or hoping the project team member’s performance will come around, immediately step in to get things back on track. Take the appropriate actions to ensure the project team member can actually do the task, has the time and skills to deliver what has been committed. If necessary, escalate to functional management especially if they are the cause of the problem or part of the problem.

People Accountability: Tip 7 - Continually stress the importance of the task.

Usually, during the project kickoff meeting the project manager presents the overall project plan, discusses the details of the project tasks, and stresses the importance of project and tasks and their critical path. However, as the project progresses, team members can often think that their particular task is not so important or critical to the project timeline resulting in missed deadlines or waiting to the last moment to finish work. Continually stress the importance of the task as team members will only view the task as important as you do.

People Accountability: Tip 6 - Inspect what you expect.

Project team participants need to know what you expect of them and when you expect it and the expectations need to be specific and measurable, not generalities. You must inspect what you expect regularly as your follow up sends a clear message that you expect the performing resource to follow through at their end. When you inspect, be mindful to both confirm that which has been accomplished and to offer or determine any areas of help or information that are needed to finish tasks.

People Accountability: Tip 5 - Inform others about the person's commitment.

Don't keep commitments, especially shared resource commitments, a secret. Tell others about them. No one wants to have their professional reputation put at risk, so the more people know about the commitment that you have from a shared resource, the more likely that resource will be to ensure that their commitment to you is met. Conversely, if only the two of you know about the commitment, it may not seem as critical to your performing resource and it may seem easier to break.

People Accountability: Tip 4 - Be specific regarding how much, by when.

Often, when resources are unable to complete assigned project tasks, it is because they had a misunderstanding of the results you wanted, the time frame you needed, or the effort needed to produce those results. Be specific regarding what you want, when you want it, and how much work effort it will take. Clarity enables accountability.

People Accountability: Tip 3 - Involve the people that have the authority.

Confirm with the manager or supervisor of your performing resource that the time you need from the resource and the work to be performed by the resource is understood and agreed to. This establishes a relationship with the performing resource's supervisor and reduces the chances that the supervisor will inadvertently assign too much other work to the performing resource.

People Accountability: Tip 2 - Put commitments in writing.

When you reach an oral agreement, put it in writing. This serves to both clarify the agreement that you have reached and to set a permanent reminder or expectation for the commitment. Often times, people tend to think that when they promise things verbally that it is okay to not totally live up to, and honor, the commitment. A written confirmation will emphasize the seriousness of the commitment.

People Accountability: Tip 1 - Get a real commitment!

Know the difference between a real commitment and a brush-off. Beware of best effort generalities such as "I'll try", or "you know I will give it my best shot", or "you can count on me to get it done." Get a specific commitment from the performing resource in measurable terms such as "how much, by when" to do the work promised.

PMO Setup: Tip 10 - Create a journey, rather than destination, mindset.

Sometimes, those that make up an organization can be too impatient for immediate success when it comes to the introduction of change. Whether implementing new systems, new programs, or new policies, often the introduction of change will not be a walk in the park. Usually, those with a destination mindset are too quick to rush to judgment and too quick to become frustrated when things do not work quite right. Establish a journey mindset within the organization that sets an expectation up front that execution difficulties are to be expected and should serve as input to get things right and not a reason to give up on the journey.

PMO Setup: Tip 9 - Use PMO dashboards to drive the PMO strategy.

Many people think of PMO dashboards as something you can only get when you purchase a complex and costly PPM application. The dashboards that you get from your PPM tools, for the most part, are excellent, but don't limit your dashboarding of key PMO information to only that of your PPM application. For one, not everyone in the organization will be authorized or have access to your PPM application. And two, you will no doubt want to "push-out" key PMO information and measurements to the executive and leadership team that may not be, or ever be, contained in your PPM application. Use PMO dashboards to drive your PMO strategy.

PMO Setup: Tip 8 - Identify what type of technology buyer you are.

No one vendor has a lock on the market when it comes to tools and applications for your PMO. Nor can any one vendor give you an automatic guaranty that their offering is truly the best for your PMO and set of needs. So, when it comes to buying technology there are several factors to consider. One of the most important factors is the type of technology buyer that are you. Are you highly innovative and prefer to implement brand new technologies? Are you an early adopter? Or do you fall into a buyer type of early majority, late majority, or even a laggard? There is nothing wrong with any of the buyer types. In fact, you need to align your technology acquisition strategy and purchases with the buyer type that is best for your company and working environment. By understanding and knowing your buyer type, you can purchase and implement the vendor offerings that are best for you whether that is the latest bells and whistles or a time-tested, mature product that already enjoys an established customer base.

PMO Setup: Tip 7 - Establish the components of your PMO architecture.

There is no one vendor application or tool that does everything for your PMO, nor should it. Identify all of the tools, technologies, and services that support the project management office such as desktop applications, server applications, collaboration platforms, internal and external informational sites and services. Align project management maturity and capability maturity objectives with improvements to the architecture. Seek to first use the lowest level of technology architecture that gets the job done.

PMO Setup: Tip 6 - Think processes, not methodology.

Few people will read methodology documents. And, usually, they are static and quickly become out of date. Methodologies often give an illusion of project management consistency, when in reality most users find them too detailed to use or too time consuming to follow. Focus on net, streamlined processes that answer not just the "what is to be done", but the "who, when, where, how, and why" of the work effort as well.

PMO Setup: Tip 5 - Seek to fully use what you already know and have.

When setting up a PMO, there can sometimes be a rush to evaluate and implement new tools, in particular PPM tools. This rush to judgment can often result in selecting a tool based more on vendor supplied criteria rather than specific business use case needs of your PMO. Seek to first fully utilize the tools, platforms, and capabilities that you already have. Then, based upon your identified needs and improvement opportunities, evaluate vendor tools and service offerings that best serve your PMO.

PMO Setup: Tip 4 - Keep it simple.

First and foremost, bear in mind that few PMOs have had start-up difficulties or have failed because things were too simple. Rather, complexity and too much detail in things are likely to be a far greater problem and contributor to execution difficulties and potential failure. So, be realistic and be balanced. Keep things simple, at least to start. A good foundation can enable lasting success and continual improvement. For example, don’t worry about sophisticated processes at first, but at getting the basics in place.

PMO Setup: Tip 3 - Beware of "Community of Practice" black-holes.

A project management "Community of Practice" offers the promise to PMOs of increasing project management knowledge and skill throughout the organization. However, in far too many cases, the focus and effort to create a "Community of Practice" takes on a life of its own and becomes a black-hole in the organization where too much work goes into it and too little results come out of it. Seek balance to ensure that a "Community of Practice" initiative quickly adds value and leverages already existing works, rather than becoming an exhaustive effort unto itself.

PMO Setup: Tip 2 - Establish a PMO Charter.

Seek to establish a charter for the PMO that sets the tone of the organization and of the value add delivered. To start, keep it simple and ensure the participation of others in the development of the charter for "their" PMO. Where possible and measurable, align the charter of the PMO to enabling, facilitating, and achieving the key business objectives of the firm such as revenue growth, time to market, cost containment, customer satisfaction, productivity, and quality.

PMO Setup: Tip 1 - Start with a "virtual" PMO.

For many organizations, not just small ones, a "virtual" PMO can be a great way to start. In the "virtual" PMO model, a sole individual is tasked to quickly get things set up and started, such as processes, polices, tools, and dashboards, etc, with minimal debate and distraction. Once set up, the manager of the "virtual" PMO, who may or may not be a manager leveled individual within the company, continues to maintain, improve, and promote the PMO to ensure that it meets the needs of those served by it and is positioned to take on further PMO responsibilities with time and success.

Sales Process: Tip 10 - Conduct formal loss reviews.

Many sales organizations review losses to determine what went wrong, why the sale was lost, and what could have been done differently. Too often, however, these reviews are informal and tend to summarily brush off the details with little interest in identifying problems, recommending corrective action, and determining if any error or negligence was committed. It is much easier to say that the loss was on account of pricing or product problems. Formal loss reviews, especially for significant losses, are a valuable way to address sales process problems, individual performance issues, and to benchmark the competition.

Sales Process: Tip 9 - Use customer references effectively.

When providing customer references to a sales prospect, ensure the following three conditions are met. First, the prospect is qualifed and all issues and requirements needed to make a purchase decision have been satisfied. Second, the customer reference is similar in terms of the business use case for the solution offering, and ideally industry and size of company, as the qualified prospect. And third, ensure the customer reference contact is of the same "buyer-type" of the qualified prospect, ie. technical, economic, user, champion.

Sales Process: Tip 8 - Personalize your proposals.

Some vendor proposals are mostly boilerplate information with little, if any, customer specific input and analysis information. Use the customer feedback provided throughout the pre-proposal activities to personalize your proposal in terms of both benefits that justify the investment and endorsements by those that stand to benefit in the customer organization and will support and attest to the benefits that they will receive on account of your solution.

Sales Process: Tip 7 - Go further with your demos using the FAR technique.

If your company is like most, chances are your sales engineer, though well trained technically, has likely never had any kind of training on how to give effective customer-oriented demonstrations. For each key need that serves to justify your proposal, ensure your sales engineer demonstrates your product using the Feature-Advantage-Reaction, FAR, technique. For each key requirement, demonstrate the feature of your proposed solution that addresses that requirement, state the quantifable advantage achieved by your functionality in terms of money or time or both, and then ask the customer decision maker for their reaction in terms of agreement to the benefit and providing their assessment of measurable value. By the end of the demo, customer agreed to quantitfiable benefits for each key area of requirement will have been validated and can be effectively used in the subsequent proposal and sales process steps.

Sales Process: Tip 6 - Plan for multiple, on-target, demonstrations.