EPM and Costs

Accepting my opinions on the importance of methodology and process, EPM implementations are not as cheap as a first glance might appear i.e product cost alone. Inevitably the implementation of an EPM tool like project server will identify process change. I should add that the process changes are definitely worth while as they add consistency and therefore transparency across the enterprise. Of course with this kind of change there are the associated change management, learning & development costs. When compared to potential cost savings of transparent and accountable issue and risk management, the cost could be considered relatively small. The problem as I see it, rests in companies not having a tangible way of measuring the cost of risk realisation which prohibits decision makers being in a position to justify the spend on an EPM solution. It seems to be a bit of chicken and egg scenario i.e. effective program/risk management is an outcome of EPM. This is only one cost justification for EPM but many more exist.

Anyway, as corporations grow in size and complexity, effective approaches to EPM will realise competitive advantages and the ability to respond quickly to costly mistakes. Let's remember that in today’s market, atleast 60% of projects die a slow death due to the many problems not being captured by current processes. It would be scary to quantify the lost revenue faced by many large corporates.

EPM with Project Server 03

I would like to share some thoughts on my experience with Microsoft Project Server 2003 as an EPM tool. I am convinced that Enterprise Project Management (EPM) should be adopted by more organisations as a way of adding increased visibility and accountability to their PM processes. What organisations need to appreciate is that any tool, including Project Server, only addresses about 30% of the EPM dilemma. In my experience most companies do not place enough emphasis on the methodologies and processes required to compliment the effectiveness of these tools. Project Server lends itself well to customisation and organisation's can really leverage its power by incorporating their practices and processes into the customisation and configuration of this product.

The biggest feedback I hear from executives is "I need to make my project manager's more accountable so I can achieve a more objective view of my programs and portfolios". In my opinion, PMs have not really had fair levels of accountabilities and spend an inordinate amount of time scrummaging to defend the current state of play. Reporting and resource management continue to plague the life of a PM and EPM goes some way towards adding a manageable structure to this dilemma. Unfortunately there is also the difficulty of having executives taking responsibility for identified risks/issues. Project Server will add traceable history to these problems, which depending on how competent you are, will be considered a good or bad thing.

Project Server Traffic Light Indicators - SQL Reporting Services

Recently I had to mirror a custom Project Center view from Project Server 03 using reporting services. When trying to dynamically display the traffic light indicators in a SQL reporting services report I started to confront some of the limitations of the 2000 version of this product. The assumption was that these images were not included in the datbase as BLOBS. The problem came when trying to dynamically load an image based on a numeric database value and the relative URL path. The trick I discovered (thanx Google newsgroups) was some quite simple logic in the value attribute of the image control. As an example, I have included the logic for the the schedule field from the dataset.

=iif(Fields!Schedule.Value="1","02 red.jpeg", iif(Fields!Schedule.Value="3","01 green.jpeg",iif(Fields!Schedule.Value="2","03 yellow.jpeg","")))

The logic driving the field values is contained in a SQL view. Hopes this helps someone else trying to do a similar thing.