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Evolution to Primavera Project Portfolio Management

Just a decade ago, profuseness in existence of automatic systems, Enterprise Management Solutions, ERPs was rare and could not be envisioned. Enterprise Resource Planning systems, Management Information Systems, Financial Management Systems were not considered to be worth investing huge amounts in, like millions of dollars as their value for money was not acknowledged and man was too less refined intellectually, technically and information technologically and to concepts like artificial intelligence in respect of Enterprise systems. But a boom was witnessed back in 2001 of newer and newer computer languages which were being invented and their process of becoming quickly obsolete.  Every passing day was bringing revolutionary changes in the way gigantic enterprises operated in global village scenario compared with outdated practices. IT revolution had trailed French revolution.

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Now heaps and piles of work get done in hours that dozens of employees on huge pay scales used to do in months. But it has only changed the way an organization operates. For man-power or human resource too, IT revolutions and automations by soft wares have entirely only changed the directions of mindsets, operational procedures and careers.

I, despite being a chartered accountant, found out within 3 years of professional career after I graduated from college that there was no survival for any company operating globally without profound knowledge and command over ERP systems implemented in-house and being insightful of their nature. It was 2006 when I, being the biggest proponent of Project Portfolio Management, proposed its procurement and implementation. On behalf of my company, I started my hunt for different soft wares trainings and IT certifications but to my surprise, I could find none in the near vicinity of mine. This was an era when only a handful of business tycoons of the world acknowledged its significance and there existed extreme monopoly in this emerging industry.

Presently, after about more than 10 long years, it is now that services are being rendered on vast scale in all walks of IT everywhere. But still quality, commitment, cost effectiveness and dedication are intrinsic part of only a few among them. Prescient Solutions Group Inc. keeps and maintains the honor to be one of those. Prescient Solutions Group is considered to be one of the best soft ware solution company and specializes in niche of Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM). It has got everything to offer that project manager might ever need or a multinational or transnational enterprise must be equipped with. A couple of years ago, our company started its operations after successful implementation of EPPM from Prescient Solutions Group Inc. In true sense, the company can now signify project management tools how inevitable they are in this era. Extensive market research of several numbers of companies led us to Prescient Solutions Group. Catering so well the major industries of the world, Prescient Solutions Group Inc. has created a real difference in Project Portfolio Management. Allocating budgets for PPM will never be an investment rather it will be saving for any company in longer run.

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Introduction to Baselines of Primvera P6

Introduction to Baselines of Primavera P6

The Primavera P6 provides the option to assign a maximum of three user baselines. Each baseline is provided to each project. Let us have a look at their role in successfully tracking overall project status.

Sched Sample 1

Baseline for Current Project

This baseline shows the current activities in project schedule that can be viewed in editable view.

Baseline for Project

This baseline resembles the current project baseline and is only created once all stakeholders have agreed upon final baseline. This baseline is usually not changed unless the due process has been completed and is normally kept under version control.

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary User Baselines

These baselines are usually used to help get quick snapshots for comparison reporting and near term variances.

Basics of Baseline

The baseline is created using Maintain Baselines dialog, this will generate a full copy of the project within the database. You will not see the baseline project in project list as it is labeled as baseline copy.

There is no limit on the number of baselines that can be created within Primavera Project P6. However, this should not mean that you get carried away by the notion. The creation of each additional baseline means a full project copy, which would increase the amount of space occupied in the database. The performance of P6 database will eventually get affected because of the creation of too many baselines.

User Baselines

User baselines serve a different purpose which is mainly to assist the scheduling manager handle variance for a shorter period of time. One other way of looking at user baselines is that they provide snapshots of monthly status updates. Multiple user baseline fields can be used to create variance reports which would help the management spot differences between current and previous periods.

If the baseline is set as primary, the BL1 columns of the table area will have dates before the project which have been created in the Assign Baseline dialog. On the other hand, the data shown by BL2 and BL 3 will show data from baselines where snapshots have been allocated for Secondary and Tertiary fields.

The same BL prefixes are used by the variance columns which have been assigned to them in Assign Baseline dialog. One other use of different types of baselines is to display Gantt chart via Bars dialog. Select the display options to show baselines as bars below the activity bar. Bar Style settings in lower tabs can be used to modify their appearance.

Conclusion:

The capabilities of Primavera P6 are very powerful and useful and you can further capitalize on user baselines to better manage projects.

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An introduction to High Level Resourcing?

The tool for project management Primavera P6 helps in planning, scheduling and management of resources at hand. The amount of details that P6 can handle is enormous. You can use Primavera P6 to track work for thousands of hours. One of the key strengths exhibited by Primavera is its capability to create high level resource allocations. High level resource means planning to fulfill resource requirements of a high level project plan.

primavera p6 scheduling

High Level Project Plan

The high level project plan is usually of level 1 or level 2. In this kind of plan, the work details involved are usually basic. Anyone who sees the layout of the plan can identify core or critical elements or parts like construction details, design, engineering or procurement. The levels can go to many sub-levels depending on the amount of detail involved. Some engineering associations range levels from 0 to 5, where 0 signifies single bar and on the other extreme 5 being high level of detailed involved in a task. In case of level 5 tasks, work is categorized into several sub-categories. However, level 5 is not the last level and there many subsequent sub levels involved.

Why high level project plan needs to be resource loaded?

The primary reason why high level project plans may be resource loaded is because it will allow you to accurately assess overall resource allocations required. There are many other factors which get covered using this approach including possible downtimes, need of resources at various project phases and efficient use of available manpower any particular time. Besides, you will be able to predetermine cost and cash flow estimates.

Resourcing High-Level Project Plan in Primavera P6

Primavera P6 provides very simple way of performing high level resourcing, typically when we are beginning from the level 0 or level 1. One of the major benefits of using P6 is that you will be able to save a lot of time and be able to efficiently manage data without getting lost. The best way to create high level resources is to do in groups of trade or occupation instead of individuals. For example, “Site Engineer Construction” assigning “Construction Engineering Team” as high level resource would ensure availability of this team to other parts of the project as well.

The Relation between High Level Resourcing and Levels of Effort Activities

Levels of effort activities can play a very important role in high level resourcing. You can summarize activities using level of effort activity for single resource instead of assigning it several times to multiple activities. Although, we know level of effort activities represent the tasks which indirectly support the overall project but still these can be utilized for equipment or crew in high level plans.

Conclusion

The High level planning and high level resourcing come together to give project managers a fair idea of budget needs and human resource requirements to accomplish various activities. You can easily create a schedule at high level within minutes. Tools like Resource Usage Profile Graph and Activity Usage Profile Graph give estimates for resource demand chart and projected cost curve.

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Important Things To Know About Primavera P6 Calendars

The calendars have become central to the entire scheduling. If you do not have at least one calendar created, you cannot create a schedule in Primavera P6. Here is a quick overview of the calendar features which you need to learn in order to effectively use it to your advantage.

primavera p6 calendar

Calendar for Activities

In the new calendar for Primavera P6, calendars are associated with activities. This allows you to add more flexibility to your scheduling and use multiple calendars for one project. For example, if two works are going on simultaneously at different places, one’s schedule will not affect the other’s work. You can use several calendars on more complex projects involving a lot of occupations to avoid confusion or clutter. However, you can still use one calendar for the entire project if this is what seems to be a more feasible option.

Activity Calendars and Resource Calendars

There are two ways in which you can create calendars in Primavera P6, activity and resource based. The most prevalently used calendars are activity based. For example, you need to perform maintenance of a machine every second Wednesday. In order to put that activity on map, a resource calendar can be created for that machine with the maintenance cycle scheduled into it. All other work related to that machine can now be scheduled around it, wherever the dependencies exist. In order for other related activities to become dependencies, you need to create “Resource Dependent” activity type.

Time Levels

There are three ways in which you can set time levels including; hours of the day, days of the week, and days of month / year. When setting up the rules, work can be scheduled at any of these three time levels. Here are few examples to help you know how you can set time levels.

  • Select days of the month or year that are workable or non-workable, it may include local holidays.
  • Select days of the week which are workable, like setting two days off as discussed above.
  • You can also select office timings, the beginning and ending hours for work.

Calendars and P6 Scheduler

There are different time zones and working days in various parts of the world. For example, in UAE the typically working week starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off. These types of exceptional situations may arise when a project has unusual time zones to deal with. Create a calendar with Friday and Saturday off, Primavera P6 will never allow scheduling of any activity on these two days. All the work and non-work rules can be set in a calendar.

Changing Activities

Changing of activities in Primavera P6 can be tricky. Mostly, a new calendar needs to be assigned to an activity. Be careful when you assign a new calendar because the newly allocated time might add up to increase total duration required to complete the work. The adding up of time usually happens when the time levels are set in hours per day.

Primavera P6 calendars are a lot more comprehensive, although you need to learn them in order to work for you and not against you.

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Common Project Control Mistakes Committed By Companies

Among many other reasons which unnecessarily increase costs and decrease efficiency of any project, one important reason is how management uses the tools, supervision, and planning to maximize productivity. However, this is an ideal situation where everything is in its proper place and there are no constraints that the management has to face. Projects control play a critical role in deciding level of productivity actually achieved.

common project control mistakes

A simple way to avoid this pitfall is to set projects control group and not the projects monitoring group which would help a company closely monitor data trends, oversee performance KPIs, and analyze work accomplished after each shift. Here are some of the most common project controls mistakes companies commit.

  1. They do not rely on any turnaround management process or formal project which would help them determine before time that milestones set at particular dates will be achieved. A project gated process or milestone schedule has to be in place to remain on course.
  2. They fail to establish effective project controls which would dynamically schedule planned activities on regular intervals like daily or on shifty-by-shift basis.
  3. There is no proper field supervision for execution of projects. These companies should consider independent field execution supervision. No matter how much resources go into planning, scheduling and coordination if all that has been chalked out cannot be acted upon. Every function needs to be designated to its relevant resource. A team made of individuals who are specialized in their own fields would produce a much better result in comparison to another team where the specialized jobs do not have designated individuals assigned.
  4. Companies may also lack in establishing formal processes which would help them proactively identify work that needs procurement or contracting.
  5. Some organizations overstretch themselves by aiming too high or setting unrealistic targets for quality of work, performance, cost allocations, and schedule durations. They should keep their primary focus on costs, quality of work accomplished, and safety of workers, everything else will eventually fall in its due place.
  6. The preliminary budget set by the companies is not correct and it fails to accurately determine scope of work. Some of the indicators which would be used in correctly estimating preliminary budgets include direct wrench hours and indirect resource estimates. One way of eliminating this problem is to use different tools to reach the cost estimations.
  7. Cost and benefit analysis tools can be very handy in determine the overall risks associated with a project. Asset management teams should rely on comprehensive tools like Primavera P6 to exactly determine scope of the project.
  8. Hierarchy of management plays a critical part in successful completion of a project. The hierarchy various from one industry to another but the key idea is to bring structure to the team. This hierarchy will help in all phases of the project including planning, budgeting, resource allocation, execution, cost controls, and quality assurance.

Management should avoid these common project control mistakes to ensure all projects are completed on time, within available budgets and without putting the workforce in harm’s way.

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An Introduction to Level of Effort Activity in Primera P6

Level of Effort Activity means a special type of activity which has its own unique characteristics in terms of duration. Primavera P6 uses predecessors and successors to calculate duration of the level of activity.

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What Constitutes Level of Effort Activities?

Level of Effort activities is mainly created to support the main project. The work done using this type of activity only help in completion of the project but it has nothing to do with the deliverables. However, it is important because it acts as a catalyst in completion of a project. The tasks performed under this type of activities are still critical to successful project completion. Some typical examples of Level of Effort activities may include clerical or admin work, project management tasks, meetings with clients, and equipment maintenance. Activities of these kinds do not directly impact the revenue which would be earned from the project which is why it is very difficult to assign values to them in numbers.

Level of Effort Meaning

The term has been coined to mean spreading of work. The level of activity is not crucial to work flow and should not appear on Critical Path.

Use of Level of Effort Activities in Primavera P6

The purpose of creating a Level of Effort Activities in Primavera P6 is to track time spent by allocated resources on supporting tasks. The predecessors and successors are used to get dates and durations of level of effort activities performed. In order to automatically calculate these durations and dates, you need to assign FF relationship to successor and SS relationship to predecessor.

The Calculation

The calculation is done by taking Level of Effort activities date from early start date and the finish date comes automatically from the successor. The Primavera P6 calendar is used to make the date and duration calculations. In order to finalize the calculation you will need to reschedule your project. The change in duration of any of the Level of Effort activities will automatically be readjusted.

How to show Level of Effort activities?

In order to show Level of Effort activities you need to make adjustments to Gantt Bar settings. Go to Gantt Bar, right click to select Bars. Make sure the entry named “Remaining Level of Effort” is checked. If there is no such entry made, make an entry using the add button. The “Level of Effort” activities form integral part of complete project schedules as they help display all supportive tasks. Get yourself familiar with them but make sure not to overdo it.

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An Introduction to Level of Effort Activity in Primera P6

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