Use Templates to Enforce Project Processes

If you need some help establishing or enforcing your project processes, try using some of these best practice template tips:
- Create a familiar workspace with site template
- Use project status list with KPI
- Use document library to store project artifacts
- Pre-populate the library with document templates (Project charter, Communication plan)
- Add custom content type for on-going template like meeting minutes
- Highlight key SharePoint functions to ensure early adoption (search versioning and security)
- Ignite standard procedure towards risk and issues management using lists
- Roll-up those lists for reporting or usability

Introduction to Western Principles Project Team System

As reviewed in last week’s Western Principles/Microsoft working session on maturing your PMO, The PROJECT TEAM SYSTEM implementation offers a low cost entry
point to a state of the art Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution. Using a largely pre-configured product, this implementation offers a quick, fully functioning EPM solution that is ideally suited for mid and large tier organizations who are;

•Planning a proof of concept: A cost efficient way to assess if the solution will meet your organizational needs
•Looking for a planned product roadmap: The implementation is entirely reusable within the Silver and Gold offerings, ensuring the tools will grow as your organizations project management capability matures and grows.
•Seeking to support a newly developed PMO: The pre-configured processes provide a short cut to efficient and effective operation.
•Implementing a PMO in the short to medium term: This “out of the box” solution will complement PMO processes and serve as a catalyst for change

It’s a great low cost, starter solution for Enterprise Project Management.

Typical Project Management Challenges

Your organization is not alone if you experience these typical PM challeneges;
- No standardized project schedule tools (excel, paper and pen, Task Lists, custom forms....Project Professional, SharePoint, PWA)
- No formal project methodology (Templates, shared document libraries, assigned tasks, issues and risks, and governance work flows)
- No project status reporting (Task updates, Time sheets)
- No formal project request process (Demand Management)
Informal resource planning (Team Builder, Shared Resource Pools and Resource Management)
- Lack of insight into projects (Team System Views, SSRS, Business Intelligence Center, Excel Services)

Let us know how you manage the challenges.

Establish & Mature Your PMO with MS Project Tools

The Western Principles/Microsoft working lunch session “Establish & Mature Your PMO with MS Project Tools” on October 26th was a big success. Once the introductions were over, the session started with a look at Project Management Maturity level of

organizations. A look at how to achieve your desired maturity, and an introduction to Western Principles EPM starting point solution Project Team System covering off Document Management, Issues & Risks, Project Tasks, Project Status and Portfolio Reporting got the first part of the session in motion. With a working lunch approach to this event, the second part of the session focused on growing and maturing a PMO into Project Server with a look at some Best Practices with Project Server 2010 including Resource Management, Demand Management, Portfolio Analysis and Business Intelligence. Thank you to everyone who attended the session and product demonstrations.

Western Principles a Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year Finalist

PRESS RELEASE

October 29th, 2011

Vancouver, BC – October 28, 2011 – Western Principles announced that it has been selected as a finalist in the Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year category for the 2011 Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards. The ninth annual IMPACT Awards recognize excellence within the Microsoft technology partner community in Canada.

“Technology partners are at the core of Microsoft’s business.” said Neil Tanner, Vice-President, Small Business, Midmarket Solutions & Partners, Microsoft Canada Inc. “We are honoured to celebrate and recognize the outstanding achievements of industry leaders like Western Principles through the Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards. We are proud to work with them as they deliver innovative solutions to mutual customers. ” The award ceremony is in Toronto on November 30, 2011.

About the Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards
In 2003, Microsoft Canada Inc. launched the IMPACT Awards, a program to recognize the numerous achievements within its technology Partner community. This year’s awards program is bigger than ever with over 35 award categories designed to recognize excellence across Microsoft Partner Network competencies, emerging technologies, community involvement as well as sales, marketing and partnering excellence. The IMPACT Awards are open to Active Canadian members of the Microsoft Partner Network.

For a list of all 2011 finalists, and more information on the Microsoft Partner Network IMPACT Awards, please visit http://www.microsoft.ca/awards.

About:
Western Principles is Western Canada’s most experienced Microsoft Project/SharePoint consulting organization. We offer deep experience to help improve our client’s Project success with: Expert knowledge in the Enterprise Project Management space, more Microsoft Project/Portfolio implementations (40+) than anyone else in Western Canada, experience with Project, 2003-2007-2010, SharePoint, InfoPath, Dynamics AX (as it pertains to MS Project) and can assist with new implementations and migrations from previous product versions.

SharePoint 2010: Top 10 Features and Resources, Part 5

2. External lists – this was a great demo during the keynote. Showing a SQL table with contact information subsequently shown in a SharePoint external contact list, taken offline in the SharePoint Workspace, and contact objects shown in Outlook. BDC becomes BCS (Business Connectivity Services) with even much easier systems integration. There’s some documentation on MSDN for creating an external list. Also follow the Business Connectivity Services Team Blog

1. Social Media Investments – status integration with my sites, newsfeeds, my network, all that social media work around the my site. This was totally hush hush. I expect to see this area really expanded through the public beta in terms of best practices and community awareness. I hope to see some real effort from the community around helping establishing how to take advantage of these features. There are a few mentions in the blogosphere including John Anderson’s summary from the SPC session on Social Computing, I’m sure there will be more as the presentation and bits become available. Also make sure you get on the RSS of the SharePoint Enterprise Social Computing Blog

Original article at SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land

SharePoint 2010: Top 10 Features and Resources, Part 4

4. Better Network Differencing & SharePoint Offline in SharePoint Workspace – I stopped by the SharePoint workspace booth, and I think the biggest, best innovations are in the differencing algorithm between the client and server as well as offline (closer?) experience of SharePoint. It’s still far from the 100% offline browsing experience, that may be a pipe dream with what can be done with webparts and search. But now we get lists, and external lists offline as well as what we had before. The peer to peer is still there, but the SharePoint uses are much more core to the product. The licensing model pushes this tool mainstream with Office 2010 deployments. What’s it missing… you gotta know: Blogs, Wikis, Pages… Of course you can get Blogs RSS feeds in Outlook. So really it comes down to Wikis and Pages. SharePoint Workspace Team Blog

3. Large lists – the list throttling was shown off in SharePoint 2010, but the real list sizes showing real scale and control from the farm administrator was impressive. This was definitely used by the competition in the previous version to suggest that SharePoint didn’t scale. Despite the ability to scale to 5 million items in a list in the 2007 version, the 2000 item limit per view was often suggested as a limit for the list due to poor use by end users of the features such as indexed columns, limiting the views or using folders. Now with multi column indexes, and better control over item limited views, you can ensure that the queries are optimized and the list throttling and viewing will be better managed for performance of the server and the list. The happy hour controls is a happy medium for those needing to break out to do queries that are not the best. The SPDevWiki has some of the throttling screenshots and link to the ITPRO sneak peak video. Watch the keynote video demos that Arpan does.

Original article at SharePoint Joel's SharePoint Land