If organizations’ productiveness are measured by the projects they execute, isn’t enterprise project management a critical management tool?

In the early days, project management software was primarily a standalone scheduling tool that shared little (or no) information with other enterprise systems. Project managers relied on experience and discipline to process and tally information from multiple sources and present a holistic, project-centric view for management. This is what it took to align projects with overall business strategy.

But today, it’s possible for executives to envision key corporate initiatives managed as a set of projects for a large enterprise. Rolling out Oracle’s Primavera solutions as a system of record to manage these initiatives as projects represents a new era of influence for project management in the enterprise.

Executives hoping to maximize their return on investment on Oracle Primavera should see beyond the out-of-the-box features that Primavera provides and drive their IT departments to lay out a comprehensive footprint of inter-connected systems. This will create a complete, project-centric view of the information necessary to analyze and make decisions for an entire organization.

For example: a garden-variety view of integration with Primavera is the sharing of basic project progress information (e.g. percentage complete) with financial & accounting systems . But it’s critical to reach beyond these common integrations to build a top-level project management view of the business.

Consider an asset-intensive organization (such as a nuclear power plant or a aircraft carrier), which has a significant number of initiatives—each of which represents the management of a full lifecycle of an asset. In such an environment, the approach to the project-driven enterprise begins with integration of a powerful solution like Primavera to financials, procurement, logistics, contracts, manufacturing and more to devise a comprehensive asset lifecycle management view and “asset portfolio” for the enterprise.

Starting with the planning phase, decision makers can use enhanced what-if, scenario modeling capabilities of Oracle Primavera to plan and fund ‘asset projects’ that will yield maximum return. The complete flow of an asset from sourcing, procurement and project management of related activities (construction, manufacturing, logistics) along with financial accounting can be inserted between Oracle Primavera and other enterprise systems in the landscape.

With the advent of sophisticated middleware tools and rich API/Web Services for most enterprise class software, the complexity of integration should not be a barrier in rolling out scalable integrated solutions that present a unified view of information across systems by role.

System Integrators should understand the flow of data with respect to business process and enable IT Managers to drive and choose an integration strategy & tools necessary for orchestrating a complete solution aligning with a goal of providing timely, valuable information for every facet of the business in a projects-centric way. The path of least resistance is to offer reporting alternatives and present silo’ed data from a multitude of systems in a cohesive manner and as a means to lower costs. It is worth examining the integration possibilities with Oracle Primavera before settling for less.

Primavera has always been at the forefront in providing excellent integration for its products, right from the early days of P3. Primavera’s strong push to enterprise software in the early 90′s underscored the need for robust integration capabilities to be built into the product. Today, Primavera (as with other Oracle products) boasts premium integration offerings—a very rich API, support fort web services, and a host of pre-built integrations between other components of the Oracle stack.

Future rollouts of Oracle Primavera will have integration ingrained into its very core as more organizations embrace true enterprise capabilities of Oracle Primavera and drive greater efficiencies. We are truly on the verge of the project-driven enterprise—holistically managing an organization as a collection of projects in an interconnected world.

Contact us on questions on this article or for further insights into how to move your organization to be project-driven in the near future.

ABSTRACT
Best practices to be followed during resource management and resource leveling. The reason of getting attracted to this subject matter is to make best utilization of the resource to combat the competitive risks, customer satisfaction and further scope on time and budget. This can be well achievable if we can able to make perfect resource allocation and staffing which in turn will bring most success to the project. For this let us have an idea of these following points that has been described in logical.
Objective 1: Understanding Resources allocation, assignments and its parameters
Objective 2: Analyzing resource allocation graph & Resource Leveling concept
Objective 3: Key factors involved in spreading of resource across time periods

 What is Resource Management?

1.  Resource Management is a very important aspect of project management that deals with the human, financial, distribution and demands of project resources.

2  Proper and careful management of human resources will lead to certain possibility of project success.

3 However, mismanagement of resources can lead to project failure, overtime, budget / cost overrun, and other unfortunate and unavoidable concerns/events.

Preliminaries:

In an overall prospective, the key elements that mostly drive the resource management aspect for any project are:

1.     The Resources Themselves – Before one can manage a resource, one must know what a resource is. A resource may be a human resource (employee), a financial resource, a product to be sold or obtained, skills, technology, information, or elements for production.

2.     Having the Proper Data – The data required for effective resource management includes demand for resources, available resources, and how the resources will fit into the demands i.e. what type of resources been assigned for what type of activities/tasks and in what numbers or units.

3.     Utilization/Allocation – Resources must be used to the maximum capacity for the minimum amount of cost. Resources need to be allocated (assigned or distributed) to related tasks/ activities in a fair and balanced manner, thus making best utilization of the existing resources and taking utmost care of over allocation of resources.

Resource:

1.  Resources include the personnel and equipment that perform work on activities across all projects. Resources are generally reused between activities and/or projects.

2.  In the Project Management module, you can create a resource pool that reflects your organization’s resource structure and supports the assignment of resources to activities.

3. The Project Management module also enables you to distinguish between labor, material, and non-labor resources.

4. Labor and nonlabor resources are always time-based, and material resources, such as consumable items, use a unit of measure that we can specify while defining the particular resource.

5. We can create and assign resource calendars and define a resource’s roles, contact information, and time-varying prices.

6.  Define a master list of resources consisting of the resources necessary to complete the projects in your organization. Then, group resources to create an easily accessible pool from which you can draw when assigning resources to a project.

7. For each resource, set availability limits, unit prices, and a calendar to define its standard work time and non-work time, then allocate resources to the activities that require them.

8  To enable grouping and rollups of your resources across the organization, set up resource codes and assign code values.

Note:  Resources are different than expenses. While resources can be time-based and generally extend across multiple activities and/or projects, expenses are one-time expenditures for non-reusable items required by activities. The Project Management module does not include expenses when leveling resources.

Primary Resources:

The Project Management module allows you to assign primary resources to activities. An activity’s primary resource is typically the resource who is responsible for coordinating an activity’s work. Using P6 Progress Reporter, the primary resource also updates the activity’s start date, finish date, and expected end date. In addition, if an activity has any material resources, the primary resource may also be responsible for reporting the material resource’s units as well. With the exception of material resources, all other resources are responsible for reporting their own hours for assigned activities.

Importance:

For any project, resources are indispensable, none of the  task / activity  within a project can be performed without a resource.  Even to update the information within the Primavera P6 tool, a resource is needed.

Using

1. resource units/cost

2.  activity duration

3.  work/hours

Activity cost and project cost can be tracked.

Resource Allocation in P6:

When considering activity resource development and assignment, there are two questions that must be answered: the first question is what ‘types’ of resources will be tracked and will costs be associated to each resource or tracked independently. Answering this question will determine the level of resource structures needed, and whether an independent cost resource is required. Secondly, will resources be updated based on activity work performance and will payment be based on percentage complete. If this is the case, the user and/or project team must consider the amount of time that is required to not only input resource/cost data, but the time involved to manage and report resource updates. A workflow of field reporting for status update, data input and verification should be considered.

Resources in Primavera P6 are global, in that a single Resource dictionary houses all the database projects’ resources. This dictionary is hierarchical in its structure which allows for controls to be in place for overall resource management. Resources are global in that a single resource (dependent upon user access) can be assigned to multiple activities across multiple projects within the EPS.

In P6, cost loading is typically defined at the resource level. Dependent upon the requirements of both the organization and the project contract, cost loading is achieved as either a lump sum non-labor resource, or a price per unit labor/material resource.

Three areas or levels within P6 contain the settings which govern resource allocation, costing, and updating options. It is important that the user be aware of these settings prior to defining the resource and allocating resource units/costs. Once a resource is assigned to an activity, any changes to the resource settings will apply to new assignments only.

The first of the three areas which contain settings governing resource allocation is the resource itself. These default global settings, specific to each resource, affect the resource regardless of the project and the activity to which it is assigned. Secondly, the project also contains default settings which affect all resources within the specific project. And finally the activity specific settings affect the individual resources assigned to that activity.

Within these three levels, a basic understanding of P6 options and the function for each option is required. The first option is Calculate Costs from Units. By definition, costs are recalculated whenever resource unit quantities are modified. By default, this option is found at the resource level (Resource Details, Details tab) and at the Activity location (Activity Details, Resources tab, columns) and applies to any new resource assignment. This option is not used for resources requiring lump sum loading where units/time are not always considered.

Resource Leveling:

Need help in balancing the competing projects?

Resource leveling could be your answer.

Resource leveling is a process that helps you ensure that sufficient resources are available to perform the activities in your project according to the plan. During resource leveling, an activity is only scheduled to occur when its resource demands can be met. To accomplish this, tasks may be delayed to resolve resource availability conflicts. Resource leveling tries to take the available resources and compare them to the demands of ongoing projects. Often, many projects or tasks will overlap, creating strain on resources, especially manpower. Resource leveling tries to take these competing demands and allocate resources effectively and thereby reaching the ultimate goal of fixing over-allocation.

Resource leveling involves examining a project to see if an unbalanced use of resources exists; usually these resources are the people assigned to the project. The workload needs to be allocated equally to avoid overloading team members with too much work, while at the same time possibly leaving too little work for others. There are tools available to project managers to help with the process of resource leveling and each can make it easier to monitor the utilization of resources so that tasks are completed on time and deadlines are met.

Resource leveling is critical to the success of any project. By leveling your available resources, you are meeting the demands of a project without over-extending resources and manpower. Leveling resources involves redistributing an imbalance of allocated work. It assists project team members by keeping them from becoming overwhelmed, working overtime, or running into project burnout. Typically, you level during the forward pass through a project. This determines the earliest dates to schedule an activity when sufficient resources will be available to perform the task. If forward leveling delays the project’s early finish date, late dates remain unchanged unless you clear the checkbox to preserve scheduled early and late dates in the Level Resources dialog box. In this case, a backward pass recalculates late dates.

Resource leveling key options:

1. Automatically level resource when Scheduling – Choose this option to automatically level the resource conflict activities when scheduling

2. Assignments in other projects with leveling priority – Choose this check box to level only the projects which have a leveling priority range specified.

3.Preserve early and late dates – choose this check box to preserve the forward and backward pass calculated dates.

4. Recalculate assignment costs after scheduling – To calculate new assignment costs after leveling use this option

5.Level all /Selected resources – From the resource pool choose any resources associated with activity to be leveled or all resources to be leveled.

Pitfalls to avoid in resolving over-allocation:

1.Make sure “Link Budget and at completion for Not started activities” is checked under project settings.

2.Choose appropriate duration type matching activity type

3.Always preserve early start and late finish calculation during leveling

4.Avoid automatically level resource when scheduling.

5.Increase the availability of the resource.

Conclusion:

Resource management is the most important aspect of making the success of any of the project thus by caring the deciding criteria of competing with the cost and the time.

A common problem that is being faced in implementing Contract Management is around the application of taxes and is particularly stark in countries where multiple layers of tax exist for services performed or goods procured.

Take the following simple example:

In Canada (and it varies by province), typically construction activity and materials are taxed at different levels.

Federal Tax – by the federal government (Current Rate 5 %)
Provincial tax imposed by the Province (Current rate 9.5%)

So, if Contractor A  cost of services is a lumpsum pre-tax amount of $100

Fed Tax@ 5% = 5$
Federal Taxed Amount (A) = 105$
Provincial Tax @ 9.5 of A=105$ * 9.5% = 9.975$
Total net amount = 105$ + 9.975$ = 124.975$

For services, depending on how the contract is written, the contractor/vendor is allowed to reclaim the provincial tax which the owner can elect to pay in lumpsum towards all tax reimbursements when applying for a refund from the province.

In the above case, the contractor when he submits an invoice will reclaim a portion of the tax. His invoice will be for $124.975 including all taxes.

The owner computes the retainage on the Federally Taxed amount ONLY ($105) and holds back $10.5 and pays him $114.475 implying the refund of provincial tax immediately. This might vary depending on contract and language on the refunds are processed.

The path of least resistance is to oversimplify the solution for the problem by suggesting

a. Input net tax amounts in Contract Management leading to complications on statutory reporting (governmental contracts) and accurate reconciliation of retainage amounts.

b. Use markups and/or custom fields to capture the tax information.

It would be wise to explore a tax-service utility that can compute multi-layered tax that allows for consistent, reliable information for Primavera CM users on the project finances with or without tax.

In case you missed our first webinar that introduces Oracle Warehouse Management System and Oracle Mobile Supply Chain!

This is the first part of a three part series of webinars that we will be conducting before the end of summer on Oracle Value Chain Execution Solutions and how to efficiently manage inventory & logistics.

Seasons Greetings from Gaea Global!
As 2011 winds down, we would like to take this opportunity to convey our best wishes, and share some of our customer stories in the coming week.

2011 has been a banner year for Gaea Global. We have continued to expand our practice globally, grow our strategic partnerships and expand our talent pool aggressively.

We appreciate all the support from our customers, prospects, partners & well-wishers!

Thanks!

Gaea Global Technologies

Resource Curves:

What is Resource Curves?

Resource Curves are functionality which helps to spread unit/Cost tied up to an activity across activity’s specific time-period.

What are the Resource Curve Types?

Primavera Client by default provides set of Curve Types like

1. Linear
2. Back-Loaded
3. Triangular
4. Trapezoidal
5. Triangular Increase/Decrease Curves
6. Double Peak, etc…

And few more curves as default type where users can choose any type and see how the unit/cost is spread along.

Based on the curve definitions, here is a sample query by a client as follows:

Issue:

“I have used almost all types of curve definitions and found most of them sounds really useful. But few curves cannot be used at real time monitoring like “Double Peak” because of its Curve distribution. Now i want to know if there is some method which will allow me to create my own curve and manage my distribution something like this- When 50% work is done 50% amount will be released/Spend and remaining upon completion(an imaginary case). Is this possible in primavera?

For the above query, the answer is yes it is possible in primavera for user to create his own curves and manage his own distribution values across.

Solution:

Navigate to Enterprise ->Resource Curves:

After Creating the curves Click Modify to adjust distribution params. For the client issue, we need to have a curve something like this.

Where 50% is distributed during half way work and remaining units/cost  at end of activity.

Apply Actual:

Timesheet Module:
What is apply Actual?
Apply actual is an automated service which will update the actual of a schedule automatically. Apply actual can be used in various scenarios depending on requirements.

Where is Apply actual mostly used?
Apply actual is mostly used when “timesheet module/Progress Reporter” is used where actual units/hours updated by employees needs to be synchronized to current schedule.
Example:
Let’s imagine an activity named “Installation of BPC suite” planned for 5 days and have a resource “X” tied to it. Here resource X is identified as primary resource and has access to “Timesheet module”. Now if update of this activity is only via timesheet where resource X logins in to timesheet module and fills only actual hours, does he need to come back to schedule and update the same units where he is tied up?
Here comes “Apply Actual” logic:
If resource X fills his unit of work for 3 days (1st day- 4 hours: 2nd day- 5 hrs: 3rd day -7 hrs) , and submits timesheet for that week. In primavera client we can just navigate to Tools ->apply actual and apply actual as on 3 rd day >>>>>Now you will see actual from time sheet module gets synchronized to current schedule automatically.
What if i don’t use apply actual?
In the above scenario if apply actual is not used, then proper “At completion Units” will not be reported for current period and “Resource utilization Graph” in web produces unrealistic units.

Note: If user is exposed to “Timesheet module” then “Auto computes actual” option is automatically greyed out. So administrators have to explicitly run the service manually or through scheduled job services.

Auto compute Actuals:

Auto compute actual and “Apply actual” are closely related in primavera. While creating a resource if “Auto compute actual” option is checked, and actual is applied as on some data date units will get updated automatically.

Example:

Define a resource with auto compute actual option.

Tie this resource to an activity:

To Note:

Now observe the planned start and finish for task 3, it is from 2^nd Nov to 8^th Nov and it is not started activity. Look at resource actual unit it is still the same 40 units as budgeted since activity is not started.

Now if Tools ->Actual is done after some 3 days from planned start ( i.e on 6^th Nov) .Then

After applying actual automatically schedule is started and unit is updated, which may lead a wrong picture if really that activity might not have started.

Note: Auto compute actual should also be unchecked while defining resources to avoid scenarios like above.

I recently received an email from one “Project management Professional” pertaining to original duration field in Primavera. The query is as follows:

I have an activity named “Survey Works”, “Substructure levelling”, “Installation of Rocker”, “Steel lining concrete” etc. Now my basic query is for each of the activity specific calendars has been fixed like one below:

Survey Works – Standard work calendar (8*5) (5 days working with 8 hr fixed time period).

Substructure Works – Standard work calendar (8*5) (5 days working with 8 hr fixed time period).

Installation of Rocker – 22 hrs work calendar for 7 days

Lining Concrete – 18 hrs work calendar for 7 days

1.    When i start in fixing original duration, relationships for these activities and then schedule, why activities assigned with 22 hrs calendar stops at specified period at 5 PM and escalates to next day. Logically if i specify “1 day” the activity should start from 8AM (first day) and should end at 8 AM next day taking 22 hrs working period. But for me if I specify 1 day as duration and schedule activity starts at “8AM” and stops at “5 PM” . If I change manually from “8AM” to next day “8AM” >>>>>>>>>Surprising , Duration is not set at 1 day, now showing 3 days. How can this happen?

    2.       Now if i change my duration to let’s say from 10 days to 12 days, Why does   not my remaining duration does not gets synchronized with original duration(means still my remaining is 10 days, i expect that it should change to 12 days). Is it a bug with product?

With respect to the above query, solution was given and it worked:

For query 1 the reason why all the activities are ending at fixed time period is because Time -period properties is set for default timing in primavera web. Check this in Primavera-web.

After logging in to primavera web application navigate to -> Administer ->Application settings:

After Application settings window is open -> click time period and check this setting.

Try this 100% this will work.

For query2:

In Primavera client navigate to project window click on calculation tab and check the option named “Link Budget and At completion for Not started Activities” and try.

I gave a presentation to a wide audience on ” Effective Product Portfolio Management” for New Product Development this morning. I covered the following

a. Short Introduction to Gaea Global – Who we are?

b. Elucidated the problem of Effective Product Portfolio Management and how Oracle Agile and Oracle Primavera provide a compelling solution specifically in the NPD space.

c. Showed how existing ‘Product’ based projects modeled in Agile can be brought into  a Primavera portfolio for determining the best products to rollout to the market in the most effective way with a context on project, resource and portfolio management using Gaea’s Agile Primavera Connector

d. Demonstrated how the project initiation process need not be isolated only as a project in Primavera but can be commingled with a product lifecycle footprint or a product record in Agile  using the connector.

Please do reach out to me if you have any further questions but this space of effective product portfolio management holistically as a project portfolio is exciting and challenging across industries.

The Oracle stack in addition to their best-of-breed PLM and EPPM products in my opinion will provide organizations to see benefit of effective product portfolio management and help them make informed decisions on their product mix and maximize their revenues.

Sury Balasubramanian

Co-Founder, Gaea Global Technologies

San Mateo, CA