Managing Your IT Organization

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Managing Your IT Organizations Costs with MS
Project

• Karl Vantine
• www.pcubed.com

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Objectives

1. Rethink the Project User

1. Explore some non-traditional uses of MS Project

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Whats MS Project for anyway?

• Schedule Management Usually

• Resource Management Sometimes

• Cost Management Rarely

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Then Whos Using it?

• Project Managers for Scheduling Tasks Usually

• Resource Managers for Tracking Work
  Availability Sometimes

• Finance Accounting Managers for Tracking Costs
  RarelyAlmost Never

So Why Not?
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Cost is Trickier

• Project costs are fairly straightforward
• But coordinating organizational costs harder
• For example, how does one deal with
• Cost Centers vs. Project Numbers
• Actual Labor Cost vs. Blended Rates
• Cash vs. Accrual Attributes
• Operating vs. Capital Expenses

So how do we capture this stuff?
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Getting Started

• Find out
• What costs your organization money?
• How you categorize those costs?
• Whos responsible for managing them?
• How you plan for future costs?
• How you measure success?

Then you have the ingredients for managing costs
with MS Project
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What Costs Money?

• Internal Labor But not just time on projects,
  also upgrades, maintenance, bug fixes, training,
  etc.
• External Labor Contractors, Consultants, etc.
• Equipment Software, Hardware, Supplies, etc.

• Tool Tieback
• Resource Type work, material
• Task Type admin tasks, recurring tasks
  (invoices or equipment payment)
• Custom Coding contractor vs. consultant

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How are those Costs Organized?

• Project Costs? Cost Centers? Department?
• Cash or Accrual Accounting?
• Calendar or Fiscal Year?
• Rate Structure?
• Operating vs. Capital Expenses?

• Tool Tieback
• Custom Codes to distinguish categories
• Payment Milestone Placement
• Blended Rates, Actual Rates, Role-based Rates
• Life Cycle Phases (labor) HW/SW standards

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Whos Accountable for Costs?

• Project Managers?
• Resource Managers?
• Cost Center Managers?
• Finance or Accounting Managers?

• Tool Tieback
• Plan Ownership
• Views (Portfolio Analyzer vs. Resource Usage)
• Update Processes

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Planning for Future Costs

• Strategic vs. Operational Planning?
• Historical Trending, Lessons Learned?
• Resource or Deliverables focused?
• By Department, Program, Initiative, or Project?

• Tool Tieback
• Multiple Baselines
• Templates
• Generic Resources
• Custom Coding

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Measuring Success
Cant improve what you cant measure.

• Actual vs. Planned
• Earned Value
• ROI, IRR, NPV

• Tool Tieback
• RYG Indicators
• Formulas
• Views Outlook Integration, Portfolio Analyzer,
  Project Center (find out whats used today
  reproduce it)

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Sound like a lot of Work?
Sureso why Bother?
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Picture your Typical Scenario

• Project Effort managed in MS Project
• Actual Costs managed in LOB system
• Timesheets captured in another LOB system
• Costs forecast in Excel

Manual Processes Multiple Tools Inaccuracy
Extra Work
Outdated Data
Confusion
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Wouldnt it be Great if

• Managers used same data (Project, Resource,
  Finance)
• That data set was complete (cost time)
• That data was real-time (LOB Interfaces)
• That data was kept in one place accessed
  through one system

Automation Centralization Accuracy which
facilitates better planning
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Demo
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Project 2002 Architecture
Champions Scheduler
Executives, Owners Team Members
Microsoft Project Professional
Microsoft Web Access
CAL
CAL
Internal Business Systems
Microsoft Project Server
Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server
SQL Server
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Questions
For More Information Contact Karl Vantine
karl.vantine_at_pcubed.com