Elevate SharePoint Project Management with PM Central

Growing up, I was quite passionate about cycling - to a point that, in my mind, competing at the Tour de France was not out of sight. I remember cycling along the scenic Manila Bay one summer and a bunch of cyclists went by me - zoom! I tried to catch up but failed. It dawned on me that I can only go so fast with my average bicycle that didn't come with all the extra gears and lightweight material that the other cyclists had.

Fast forward to 2009, and I've gotten feedback from people having the same feeling of reaching the limits of SharePoint (WSS or MOSS) out-of-the-box when leveraged as a Project Management Information System (PMIS).  I've gotten comments such as:

"How can I roll-up multiple project schedules into a portfolio view?"

"Is there a way to establish task dependencies?"

"I wish there was a better alerting mechanism."

Those days are long gone. Bamboo Solutions recently released PM Central. It's a great add-on that takes project management with SharePoint to the next level. I had the opportunity to test drive it in a recent project I was working on.

In the book SharePoint for Project Management, I clearly stressed that prior to taking advantage of a technology like SharePoint, it is paramount that a sound, pragmatic project management process be put in place. If not, you won't be able to reap the full benefits, and will end up aimlessly clicking through the various features and functionalities of the technology. This mantra applies to PM Central as well. In case you don't have a standard project management process, here's a simple one that you can get started with.

In my assessment of PM Central, I stepped through the three key areas of a typical project life cycle: Project Planning, Project Tracking and Project Reporting.

Project Planning

I just got started on a project called "SPA Workshop". I've met with key stakeholders and defined our objectives. In addition, I've already defined the initial set of work packages and have already created the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Most of the requirements have been documented. It's now time to have the collaborative project site created. If you'd like to learn more about the basics of Project Management, feel free to check my Manage Your Projects ... Not Just Your Schedule series.

Once PM Central is installed in your SharePoint environment, creating a new project site is straightforward. Just like out-of-the-box SharePoint site templates, a project site in PM Central is pre-defined with lists, libraries and Web Parts relevant to any project environment. In addition, it is also pre-populated with sample data to help project managers to easily identify what the list or library is for.

I really like the initial configuration checklist feature, it makes any project manager's life easier. It reminds me to enable and configure certain features should I want to exploit the capabilities of PM Central to its fullest.

After configuring these features, I got started and entered the project information to the relevant lists such as: Project Objectives, Project Team Contacts, Project Documents, Project Risks, Project Discussions and Project Announcements. I know that all of this is not any different from OOB SharePoint; however, what stood out was when I worked with the Project Tasks list - it allows me to establish Finish to Start dependencies by identifying the predecessor of a task.  Task Durations are calculated based on the Start Date and End Date entered.

Additionally, I can specify the WBS ID for the specific tasks, which is then used to sort it accordingly. When displayed, it's a far more sophisticated Gantt chart as compared to OOB SharePoint.

Project Tracking

Project team members receive their task assignments via email and when they login to the project site, it is customized so that they can see tasks, issues and risks assigned to them. This is a great feature that provides the resource relevant project information.

What's really impressive is that if a task gets delayed and the dates are updated, it can recalculate and adjust the successor tasks as long as the dependencies have been established.

Another benefit to PM Central is enhanced Web Parts like Alert Plus, which is quite useful in sending reminders to the project team.

Project Reporting

Now we're cooking with gas! Hands down, this is where the bang for your buck comes in when leveraging PM Central. There are multiple features that provides top-notch project reporting capabilities.

First, within a project, the Gantt chart of a task list clearly shows task progress.

Second, I can configure relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to easily see the high-level status of project schedule, risks and issue. Configuration of the KPIs is very similar to KPI configuration in MOSS.

Once configured, the KPIs can be seen on the project site's home page within the Project Info Web Part.

Lastly, thanks to the Chart Plus Web Part, the ability to roll up project information from various project sites is very much available. This is beneficial in reviewing and assessing the health of a portfolio of projects. Another key feature that is not available in OOB SharePoint.

How Do I Like It?

I can see PM Central being utilized by organizations who've outgrown OOB SharePoint for Project Management. I think it's the next logical step to equip SharePoint with better project management tools. It's clearly not intended to be as sophisticated as Microsoft Project Server, I really like the ease of use and minimal initial configuration and setup.  Just look at this simple, easy to navigate project settings page:

In future releases, I'd like to see the following capabilities integrated:

• In addition to task duration-based estimates on start and due dates, the ability to enter task estimates in work effort would be great
• The ability to capture schedule baselines to compare and contrast with the actual schedule for better project analysis
• Integrate relevant cost considerations
• Provide resource availability information at a portfolio level in order to staff project resources appropriately
• The ability to change Finish to Start dependencies to other dependency types such as Start to Start, Finish to Finish and Start to Finish
• Enhance project scheduling by integrating resource calendar ing capabilities
• Seamlessly synchronize project task and resource list with Microsoft Project

Training hard and being committed in cycling can take you a long way, however, enhancing your gear can definitely take you further.

Two thumbs up for PM Central. Kudos to team Bamboo Solutions for a solid product! It's such a great platform for everyone out there already leveraging SharePoint.