Archive for July, 2009
Project Server 2007: Getting over Office Web Components Limitations
31 July 2009This posting came about based on a comment on my posting http://blogs.msdn.com/brismith/archive/2009/05/13/project-server-2007-my-filters-don-t-work-in-my-data-analysis-views.aspx from Dick Ruemmele. Chris Bulson had also chased me up on this as I hadn’t had a chance to follow up. The issue is that OWC is somewhat limited in filtering – and the desire here was to have a list showing capacity and work – but only if work had a value (capacity almost always has a value). This isn’t possible with OWC against the default cubes (not sure if MDX could help here…) but if you use Excel as the client and point at your Analysis Services server and your project cubes then you have more flexibility – including Value Filters! I found the details here on the Excel blog (and do take a look at the latest postings on the Excel 2010)
With the default view we see all rows (names obliterated to protect the innocent!)– but we only want ones where Work > 0.
But by selecting Value Filters (on drop down next to Resource List) we can select Greater Than, and then set Work Greater than 0:
And we only see the rows with work!
SSRS or Excel Services might also be other options to explore to overcome some of these limitations of Office Web Components (OWC)
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Two Strategies For Aligning Means
30 July 2009Aligning the means between individuals, project and organization is a Herculean task for any Project Leader. The means are the rules of the project. The way things are done.
Following are two strategies that can be used to align means. To provide you with some ideas. To start the discussion.
Patterning – Going Through The Motions
In essence, with this strategy the project team is told what the means are; the larger organization knows best. This idea originates from Jeff Sutherland in “Shock Therapy: Bootstrapping Hyperproductive Scrum”. If you have a new team that has no experience with Scrum, you will put a very experienced Scum Master in charge and he will set the rules. Relentlessly.
Only a few rules, that make up the basics of Scrum, but they have to be followed with strong discipline. The Scrum Master will make sure this happens.
Set the rules first, than, after a while, let go when it becomes natural. This is called “patterning”.
Continuous Transparent Feedback
A human system always communicates with its environment and based upon the feedback it gets from it, alters its behavior. If a group of animals will drink water from a well and one of the groups dies because of it, they entire group may search for a different well. If a company introduces a new product, and sees its stock plummeting because of it, it might change its strategy.
It is therefor essential that the project members get continuous feedback on their own performance and the environment. This is where the use of analytics, metrics, “in-your-face” information visualization and plain old coaching comes in. By providing feedback to the team on how well they perform under the current project rule set, they will adapt to more effective means if needed.
Subscribe with iTunes to “The Project Shrink” video podcast.
Two Strategies For Aligning Means
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Stay Ahead of the Pack With These MS Project Resume Building and Job Search Tips
30 July 2009We all know that times are tough for many Project Managers and the companies that employ them. Even if you are not currently a daily MS Project or Project Server user, these products have such a…
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New location
30 July 2009Hey everybody. I finally got my own site up and running, and have moved my blog to here. I have wanted to do my own thing, and finally got around to it. Thanks to aspadvice for the many years of hosting. To my large following (Ok, maybe just my parents!), if you want to follow corporatecoder uninterupted, use the feedburner subscription, I usually update that if I move. Thanks and see you on the other side!
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Exciting Announcements about Project Conference 2009
30 July 2009|
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The Microsoft Project Team is pleased to announce exciting updates for the 5th Project Conference in Phoenix, Arizona from September 14-17, 2009. |
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Acceptance Of The Project Culture
29 July 2009It is important for a project to have a specific culture. It is the culture of a group that determines what we think is essential and how we interact with others. It’s how we do thing around here.
But not all individuals like the same culture. People have preferences. Some like plan-driven approaches. Some like pure agile.
Three things determine the acceptance of the project culture…
No threat.
The new way of doing things should not threaten your position. If you don’t produce much, but manage to fly under the radar, unnoticed, you are not happy when radical transparency is introduced. We discussed the perceived threat that agile might bring some weeks ago:
“The difficulty comes when Agile starts to create transparency and accountability. Most organizations are not used to that, and will go through many “growing pains” that will either slow down or completely stop an Agile adoption effort. … When the Project Manager starts pushing more decisions onto the sponsor, and more accountability onto the project team, things can get awkward and frustrating.”
Make sense.
The “way of doing things” should make sense. It should be perceived as being useful. Some company policies can make no sense, and enforcing them onto the team can be a source for resistance. We all have experienced these kind of situations.
A friend of mine told me once … “On a project where I was one of several PMs, weekly progress reports had to be written and send to all other Project Managers. After a while I got the impression that no one was actually reading these things, because of the kind of questions I was getting – answers were all in the reports. As I was not fond of reporting just for the sake of reporting anyway, I started little irritating experiments like issuing identical reports with different dates, adding nonsense risks, just to see if anyone was paying attention. As you might have guessed, no responses what so ever.”
Right group.
We, Project Managers, radiate to the outside world our icons like Gantt Charts, two-digits precise risk assessments and large documents that seems to cover every little aspect imaginable. If you are a member of our group, you ooze control. We also have a specific language that sets us apart from other mortals. By adopting our symbols, our rituals and speak newbie PMs try to affiliate themselves with the group called Professional Project Managers.
If you want to be affiliated with a certain social group, you have no problem what so ever, in adopting the rules of engagement associated with that group.
Subscribe with iTunes to “The Project Shrink” video podcast.
Acceptance Of The Project Culture
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Gain vs Loss – Project Management’s Conundrum
29 July 2009By: Collin Quiring
Project Management is usually involved in the creation of “the new” or the modification of “the old”. In the beginning stages of a Project almost everybody involved talks about the great benefits, the wonderful aspects of the newer version and how they can’t wait for the change. More often than not, however, those same people seem to throw up roadblocks to accomplishing the goals of the project as it becomes closer to fruition.
Why? There are all sorts of reasons that cause this behavior but I think that one of the key ones is the perception of gain versus loss. When it gets down to it, people tend to like “the devil they know” instead of having to do things differently. Besides the issues that come with something new like having to be trained in a new tool or process comes the psychological balance of risk/benefit or of gain/loss. People tend to talk about how they want something better - newer and improved. But, the desire to stay with the known version of what they have is extremely strong.
The need for the Project Manager is to understand that just because people are excited about the gains as a result of their project they need to know what those people feel is being lost. As Project Managers, we can become immersed in the details and tangible results of the project and forget about some of the effects to the existing situation. As I talked about in a previous blog about marketing the concept of Project Management we need to be addressing the concerns of the stakeholders in how it affects their current (soon to be “old”) tools and methods. This is part of the marketing and changing the perception that Project Management is only about disrupting the status quo.
Project Managers must understand that the gain/loss mindset exists for every person affected by the results of the project – some of whom may not be direct stakeholders in the project itself. We concentrate and promote the gain part of the project – which we need to do. But, a essential piece of the project should be to try to understand and address what the gain/loss equation looks like to the people involved. The transition of losing the “old” and gaining the “new” won’t be as difficult if there is an attempt to assuage the loss part of the equation, rather than just concentrating on the gains.
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Upcoming PMP & MS Project 2007 Training from LIFELONG Kuwait
29 July 2009
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PMI Certification Preparation |
PMIS Training |
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Preparation for PgMP Certification |
Preparation for PMI-SP Certification |
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Best Regards
Bilal Okour
Popularity: unranked [?]
Upcoming PMP & MS Project 2007 Training from LIFELONG Kuwait
29 July 2009
|
PMI Certification Preparation |
PMIS Training |
|
Preparation for PgMP Certification |
Preparation for PMI-SP Certification |
|
|
|
Best Regards
Bilal Okour
Popularity: unranked [?]
Iterating through Microsoft Project Subprojects
29 July 2009
Master Projects in Microsoft Project don’t always behave the way you expect, especially if you are trying to iterate through all the tasks in them. The reason is that the file doesn’t really contain the subprojects, it merely acts as a shell to display them. So if you are writing some code which has to work on a master project you need to take this into account.
The simplest explanation is an example. The code below will start with a master project, then find the list of subprojects, open each one in turn and display a message box with the project name. You can of course do whatever you want with the subproject as soon as you have it open.
Sub openMySubProjects()
Dim sProj As Project
Dim mProj As Project
Set mProj = ActiveProject
For Each Subproject In mProj.Subprojects
FileOpen (Subproject.Path)
Set sProj = ActiveProject
MsgBox sProj.Name
‘for each task in sProj…
‘do things to the tasks in your subproject
‘next task
Next Subproject
mProj.Activate
End Sub
A couple of things to note here. First, I’m using the mProj and sProj variables to reference the different projects I have open. We want to return to the master project at the end so I set mProj equal to the ActiveProject when we start and then return to it by calling mProj Activate at the end.
The second thing is that the subproject object only has a few properties. It is a reference to a project and not a project itself. We use the Path of the subproject to open the file that it is referring to and then use sProj to refer to that file once it is open. Just to be sure you get the point, subprojects point to the file, we are using a project variable to refer to that file when it is opened. You can’t get typical project properties (not even Name) from subprojects. You only use the subproject object to get to the project.
It goes without saying that this is a trivial example. You should probably close it once you are done with it, and maybe even validate that it exists before you do anything with it, but I just wanted to make this as simple to follow as I possibly can.
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