There is a movement afoot to promoted only centralized project management and you’d think you’d be most likely to hear that lecture on a site dedicated to enterprise project management like this one is. However, there’s nothing about the project management industry or the project management systems industry that makes centralized project management the ideal solution for every problem. Even here on EPM Guidance, we can come up with an argument for being more effective by having a de-centralized project management architecture. This article debunks the myth that only centralized project management is effective.
One of the grand debates in enterprise systems is whether you should be looking for one all-in-one tool or whether it’s better to look for the “best-of-breed” in each type of tool that you need. Can’t you do both? Use the all-in-one when it’s appropriate and the best-of-breed when the functionality outweighs the value of integration?
One of the classic problems that those creating new Project Management Offices (PMOs) fail to deal with is the challenge of having enormous responsibility with miniscule authority. It’s a challenge caused by where the PMO is placed within the organization’s organigram. Dealing with this dichotomy early is often a key success factor in the PMO’s evolution. Find out more in this article on the PMO’s dotted line.
Scorecard and Business Intelligence software is the hot button of the IT world these days but the display, as beautiful as it might be, is only as good as the data it comes from. In fact, a dashboard display that shows bad indictors because there is no business process behind the metrics is more dangerous than no display at all.
There are two big methods to deploying enterprise software. The most popular and espoused by the big-box consulting firms we can term the “Big Bang” approach. We make a complete design, take 2 years to deploy but when it finally comes out it’s hopefully everything you ever hoped for. The other way to go is the “Phased” approach. Here we get an approach that may take longer to get to the complete solution and may even never get there but it carries the advantage of paying dividends along the way and being adjustable to change direction if the company changes over time. Which one’s better? Take a read of this article to find out.
With major ERP vendors like SAP and Oracle directing new efforts from the enterprise market to the mid-market and vendors like Microsoft directing new efforts from the end-user to the mid-market, there is bound to be some interesting competition underway. We can think of an ERP system as the unmoveable object but the wave of user support for Microsoft is not to be taken lightly. We can think of them as the unstoppable force. Both are headed to the same place. How does this affect the Enterprise Project Management market? This article tackles this subject.
Should you look for an all-in-one business management tool that does accounting, human resource management and project management or should you be looking for best-in-breed tools that can integrate with each other? This article looks at how software vendors are trying to extend their markets; Downward from the ERP vendors who look to move from the central Finance department out to other departments and; Upward from the desktop project tools towards the centralized management sections of the company.
As project management tools have moved further and further from their Critical Path Scheduling roots, we’ve seen more of a focus on empowering the project management team and extending the definition of the project management team. This article talks about what to look for in collaboration tools for project management.
When you look at an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) implementation, looking at services is inevitable. There are so many aspects of deploying an EPM system that go well beyond simply installing it. Engaging an experienced deployment specialist who has seen EPM deployments over several organizations and under multiple conditions can help to avoid the most common and cost of pitfalls. This article looks at what to look for in an EPM services specialist.
Written originally over 10 years ago, this article is still particularly current today. Most project management tools written originally in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s were based on the Critical Path Methodology paradigm. They were fundamentally scheduling tools. Yet, the practice of project management has becmoe so much more. See my thoughts on whether we should move on from Critical Path as our driving force in the project management systems industry in this article.