List of Consulting Areas

ProjectPro is specialized in 3 areas of consulting:

Management of Programs / Large Projects

What to do when you have 500 handoffs between 15 subprojects in a 10,000 task program schedule? This is the type of situation, we specialize in. ProjectPro has developed a custom solution for program management. Our solution can handle up to 2,500 cross-project dependencies in a 50,000 task program schedule.

Do you have one of these experiences with Microsoft Project?

• You kept one large, central program schedule (no inserted subproject schedules) and you found that the schedule could not be saved any longer in your Project Server database. The schedule was too large. Our solution allows you to break up a large schedule into small ones, maintain cross-project links and delegate ownership to subproject managers.
• You tried its Links-between-Projects feature and found that the linked subproject schedules got too slow to open or got too hard to work with. You experienced that links got lost. Our solution supports and protects cross-project dependencies, but avoids live-linked schedules at the same time.
• You tried its Deliverables feature and found that it does not allow you to find the Critical Path in your program schedule. Our solution allows Program Critical Path analysis; it helps you find and optimize it.

Our solution will put you, the program manager, in control of your program. It provides a dashboard with the latest forecast dates on all handoffs between the subprojects; see the columns Provider Finish Date and Buffer or Slip in this screen shot:

Our solution provides the following benefits:

• It provides program managers with an overview of all handoffs and their latest forecast finish dates.
• It allows program managers to identify and optimize the Program Critical Path. The tool can display the Critical Path into each major milestone.
• It is easy to use for the subproject managers; they work with standalone schedules instead of linked schedules!
• It protects all cross-project links very well, so they do not disappear mysteriously.
• It allows you to open schedules fast (standalone schedules) and it allows you to save a large master schedule with inserted subprojects into a Project Server database.

We use this solution when consulting with program managers to make their program run smoothly.

Project Server Implementations

Implementing Project Server requires paying attention to technology, business processes and end users. We typically pilot the system to proof the concept and get alignment from all stakeholders as well as to get feedback from the end-users. We can perform for you or help you with:

• The business analysis for the system
• The system analysis and design
• The installation of the software
• The configuration of the system
• Establishing the business processes
• The data migration

Additionally, we can train the users in different roles within your Project Server environment: see our course overview. We can customize these courses to suit your configuration and business processes. We will get you up and running with enterprise project management (EPM).

Schedule Improvement

ProjectPro has performed over 1,000 schedule evaluations and certifications. We have captured the best practices of scheduling with MS Project in the book "Forecast Scheduling with Microsoft Office Project 2010". We can help you:

• Save time your people spend in MS Project on scheduling projects
• Improve the quality of your schedules such that they provide the business benefits you are looking for
• Elevate the level of scheduling maturity in your organization

We treat scheduling as building a valid, robust and dynamic model of your project; a model that continues to forecast your project in terms of time and cost while executing the project. The schedule as a dynamic model of your project allows you to compare against the original plan, the baseline, to determine corrective actions in a timely fashion. A dynamic model allows you to develop what-if scenarios quickly to find the best corrective action efficiently. The result will be that you bring in your project in a timely fashion. When project managers adopt our practices, you, as an executive, will see that more projects are delivered on time and within budget.