Exciting times for Project Online!

We are living exciting time for Project Online. I have to say that things have been a bit quiet the past few years. Indeed we had the resource engagements feature and new reporting capabilities with PowerBI, but since a few months, we do have some interesting announcements, showing us that Microsoft is giving a second youth to Project Online. Our entire community is excited by this trajectory and I wanted to share some topics which were announced at or around the Ignite Conference in Orlando (interesting session to replay).

PLANNER INTEGRATION

This first new feature emphasizes what I'm telling from years and years since I'm deploying MS Project / Server / Online. MS Project is NOT a task management tool, especially when you're using it in an Enterprise context. It is meant to manage a portfolio and bring visibility on your workload and the project progress and health. Not to manage 2-hrs meetings or granular tasks. Of course you can do it, but I'll be tedious and it requires a high level of expertise with the tool. And from my experience, if you try to manage a 3000-tasks plan with dependencies, resources and timesheets, it won't last for long. Thus I always advice to use if necessary a Sharepoint list or any other solution to manage a backlog of activities. Planner came to fill this gap in O365 environment but still it wasn't linked in any ways to Project. 

Now this integration does exist, still in v1, but the momentum is there, MS will go on improving this integration. From now, this is "just" the ability to send a task from Project to Planner with a hyperlink, but we do wait for a both-way integration to roll down and up the assignments and (actual) work for example. 

It brings then the question of the timesheet: if the actual work is rolled up from Planner to Project, how is the timesheet dealing with this feature. Remember that the actual can be forced to come from the timesheet. Then we come to another exciting direction, talking a while ago with some guys from the product group: sending the timesheet application out of Project at O365 level so it can be plugged on Project, but also Planner, SharePoint, etc...

Didn't I told you that we were living exciting times...?

AGILE INTEGRATION

This is a huge WOAA!! A v1 Agile integration in MS Project (for Insiders Fast build 16.0.8625.1000) has been released. Here is what I can share with you. I would have liked to tell you more and propose a quick demo but I couldn't test it myself yet.

• Use Agile in MS Project
• Project Managers can use simple, visual task boards that support Scrum, Kanban, or custom workflows
• Visually manage your projects and tasks using agile-style views
• Plan work in iterations using sprints or choose a Kanban-like workflow to track ongoing status and limit work-in-progress
• Customize workflows to meet your project's tracking and reporting needs
•  Choose your work style
• Project managers can choose whatever methodology makes sense: agile, waterfall, or hybrid.
• Manage task-oriented projects using agile-style views
• Use Gantt views for projects that require upfront planning, resource balancing, and critical path analysis
• Manage sub-projects within a larger project using agile-style views while using a Gantt view for the overall project

• Maintain Transparency
• PMO can centrally manage different types of projects with governance and visibility
• Maintain governance of standards and processes across teams and projects
• Gain visibility across projects whatever work styles are being used to manage them
• Use out-of-the-box and custom reports to report across projects or focus on status specific to agile-style workflows

POWERBI REPORT PACK V2

The first PBI report pack was an incredible enabler for pushing sexy reporting capabilities. It also helped the community to better understand PBI features and how it could strength Project Online added value. With this new report pack, Microsoft is going further, providing 11 pages mainly focused on portfolio and resources. Paul Mather, a fellow MVP has already written an exhaustive post so I give him credit.

TEAMS versus SKYPE

Microsoft Teams is quite a new member (1 year old) in the O365 family, but MS has already announced that it will be replacing Skype for Business, which has already took over Lync. Note that Teams allows integration through tabs with Planner and PowerBI.

Project, Planner, Action list: tools versus granularity, what to choose?

Haven't you already faced some concerns from your customer such as: I have Planner, Project and also an action list in my project site... Which one is intended to track what?? 

Indeed this is a good concern. Without a clear guidance, what is at the beginning a relevant cohabitation of complementary tools can become a huge mess of redundant applications which leads to maintain a large amount of irrelevant data and thus loose sponsors and users adhesion. Garbage in, garbage out!

Which makes me talk in introduction about granularity and schedule type. The granularity is a key factor of success regarding the project weekly updates. Indeed, if the granularity is too much detailed, the project plan will be tedious to update on a regular basis and team members will have a long list of activities to update in their weekly timesheet. On the other hand, the granularity should be detailed enough to allow the project manager tracking with the appropriate visibility his project plan. Here is a recommendation (I say "a" because this is only based on my own experience). So granularity should be what helps you choosing a tool for each need.

1. I do recommend to update a project plan in Project Online with an average of 200 tasks on a weekly basis (steering plan). It is handled by the project or program manager and should stay at activity level such as “specifications” or “chemical testing”. Activities should be between 5 and 20 days (duration), which will also make lighter and clearer timesheets for team members. This steering project plan is mandatory and dynamic.
2. The project manager might need to establish at the project start (during the planning phase) a very detailed project plan in order to have a clear vision of the effort and task sequencing and milestones. In order to achieve this purpose, a definition plan might be created at this time, which might contain a lot of very detailed tasks. This plan is a “one-shot” standalone plan, not meant to be updated once the execution starts. Consequently, it should not be managed in Project Online but locally by the project manager (MS Project) and will be the starting point for the steering plan.
3. Finally, as the steering plan might be too high level to track daily work, a task management application might be required. The task management should not be held by the project manager but by a work-package leader such as the engineering lead. It consists in a backlog tool to track team tasks which cannot be managed at project level. Many tools already exist and can be used for this purpose. Nevertheless, I do recommend Microsoft Planner, a task management solution part of the Office 365 ecosystem, in order to keep a consistency in your IT ecosystem (and also because we might one day have a connection between Planner and Project).

Another 4th item could have been added: actions or to-do's to track at project level such as "calling the provider to confirm the delivery date" or "booking a room for the executive committee". Those actions are not tracked in terms of duration or effort, but just simple tasks which must not be forgotten, thus recorded somehow. The project site action list should be the place for that.

Here is how it could be designed:

I do understand that it might seem tedious, but as soon as the guidance is clear as well as the responsiblities and accountabilities, everybody will understand and follow the best practices and all information will be tracked at the right level in the right tool.

In term of tools, we could summarize with the following recommandations:

• MS Project should be used to build a detailed project schedule in the initial planning phase. This plan is a "one-shot" exercise and will not live during the project execution,
• Project Online should be used by project manager to track project high level activities between 1 and 4 weeks, on a weekly basis,
• Planner should be used by technical leaders to break down those activities into smaller technical tasks to be updated on a daily basis,
• Action list on the project site should be used by the project manager to record and follow project actions assigned to members, which are not technical but rather related to the project management area.

Once more, there is not a unique model and it does depend on a lot of parameters: culture, maturity, business, IT ecosystem, etc. For example, a technical project manager might hold efficiently a detailed project plan without requiring the usage of a backlog. What do you think? I'd love to share your thoughts on this.