The case for corporate career paths is conclusive. Large corporations began to develop career paths, in many cases as they created corporate universities, in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Employees view career paths and the corresponding professional development references as an employee benefit. Research has identified career paths as one source of increased employee satisfaction and retention. However, 69% of corporations do not have formal project management career paths. The Project Management Institute, the advocate for the profession, has recognized this need and is providing PMI’s career framework, a sample set of job descriptions for project management, program management and portfolio management that may be used by corporate human resource departments as they create project management career paths and by practitioners as they plan their careers in the project management profession. This presentation outlines the process that was followed to develop this sample set of project management job descriptions and the process a practitioner may follow as they assess their competence in one of these sample job descriptions.

An overview of how the Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 can help organizations rationalize their legacy application portfolios. You'll learn the following IT portfolio management fundamentals:

• What is APM and why is it important?
• How does application portfolio management link to project portfolio management?
• How do you continuously evaluate and rationalize application portfolios from multiple dimensions, including annual or total cost of ownership, performance, business importance, and architectural fit?
• How do you minimize application redundancies, avoid maintenance cost "black holes," and maximize the business value gained from the application portfolio?

The Project Manager Competency Development (PMCD) Framework - 2nd Edition provides a framework for the assessment of project manager competence based on the premise that competencies have a direct effect on performance. It defines the key dimensions of competence and, within those, identifies the competencies that are most likely to impact project manager performance. This presentation will outline the structure of project management competence as described in the PMCDF and introduce a process to benchmark an individual against the performance criteria defined using an evidence based approach.

Tracking time is a mission critical task within any professional services organization, throw in a support function and you have a real challenge. Come hear how Microsoft Enterprise Servers organization is solving their time and expense tracking requirements using Project Server.

In today’s fast paced global economy innovation is the key to the next big breakthrough in products, services, and processes. However businesses are often challenged with facilitating innovation due to cultural, strategic or logistical pitfalls. This session covers the best practices for fostering a culture of innovation by enabling a business’s most valuable assets, its people, to actively and easily participate in the innovation process. A live demonstration will show how anyone can capture, investigate, formulate and evaluate ideas to conclusion using Microsoft’s Enterprise Project Management solution and SharePoint Server 2007.

One of the keys to a successful deployment of an enterprise project management application is developing a process\system for modeling both resource availability and resource demand and then effectively reporting on and managing the gaps between these two concepts. This session will examine best practices around modeling resource availability and demand within an organization using Microsoft Office Project Server 2007. It will also look at the organizational processes\philosophy changes that are helpful in making availability and demand modeling more effective.

Learn how the Project Engineering Team is using Project 2007 to manage the next release of Project. This session gives you insight how Project 2007 is used internally to manage the Product development schedule as well as Project's interactions with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a clear statement of the objectives and deliverables of the work to be performed by a project team. This paper aims to familiarize the reader with the Practice Standard for Work Breakdown Structures—Second Edition. PMI recognized the importance of the WBS when it published the first edition of this global Standard in 2001. The Practice Standard provides guidance about characteristics of a high-quality WBS as well as a discussion about the use of a WBS in practical experience. The Standard is consistent with the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

Customers and EPM implementation partners increasingly choose hosted Project Server 2007 because of its outstanding performance, reliability, and security. This presentation will discuss best practices around provisioning new environments, hardening security, monitoring key EPM processes, managing hotfixes and workarounds, backup, and optimizing client-server Internet connections. If you are considering implementing an on-demand Project Server 2007 deployment for your organization or one of your clients, this session will provide you with the knowledge you need to select a high quality hosted EPM vendor.

PMI’s Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3®) is designed to help organizations translate strategy into successful outcomes, consistently and predictably. In support of this statement, OPM3 utilizes a framework of globally developed Best Practices in organizational project management that aligns maturity in the structure and execution of project, program and portfolio management with the achievement of strategic business improvement and successful organizational outcomes.

This presentation will follow a progression of practical steps to demonstrate how OPM3 helps an organization translate its strategy into successful outcomes, consistently and predictably. Following a discussion of the foundational concepts of OPM3 and an overview of the Standard, a (fictitious) case example will be used to demonstrate how OPM3 focuses maturity in organizational project management on the achievement of strategic business improvement. Finally, a model of the Business of OPM3 will show how alignment of the value decision making with value delivery leads to consistent and predictable fulfillment of the organization’s strategy.

EPM provides a framework for aligning the IT investments with the needs of the business. This session will review the elements of governance, explain how current PPS supports the best governance practices and assess implementation issues.
Key topics:
• How do I use the EPM solution to effectively govern Projects, Programs, Applications, Portfolios, Strategy, Budgets and Resources?
• Does one size fit all or should it be tailored to your organization?
• What are best practices for IT governance implementation?

This session will provide insight into how Microsoft Human Resources overhauled its entire portfolio of projects, instilled a process and governance culture, and on track to deliver significant business impact. By leveraging the core competence of the product development process, skill set and experience within the HR function, Microsoft enabled a more robust planning method allowing for only the right number of the right initiatives to be approved at the right time.

Enterprises continue to adopt a variety of PPM solutions, whether in the IT organization, or to support product development processes, or in broader enterprise implementations. Project accountability and visibility is a key driver, but enterprises also find benefits as they struggle to master the discipline of “getting the right things done,” seeking effectiveness in project selection and efficiency in resource allocation. Gartner analyst Dan Stang will discuss how a strategy of “crawl, walk, run” can be used for successful PPM implementations in your organization.

At its best, IT Governance improves IT's ability to deliver on dynamic business objectives and reduces risk. To accomplish this, IT organizations must adopt new financial practices, portfolio rationalization, and operational standardization. This session attempts to answers critical questions and offers benchmarks for IT executives deploying or considering IT governance projects based on IDC's current Developer Collaborative survey and market analysis. This presentation will also set a framework for IT Governance process, organizational and
functional definitions and the IT Portfolio Management technologies to enable successful service management across IT projects, programs and operational assets. As Global 2000 (G2000) organizations struggle to gain efficiencies of scale and leverage across IT projects and programs and operational assets, market and technology support is emerging to integrate capabilities across both environments. IDC sees significant growth emerging in this dynamic space and the need to clearly define and lay out the market.

Organizational capabilities in executing on project initiatives are directly linked with the implementation of supportive PM Competency Models and individual PM proficiencies. This session highlights the role of the New Microsoft Project 2007 Certification Program in increasing PM Competency and in realizing the business benefits of Microsoft EPM Solution. The Microsoft Project 2007 User Certification is a professional certification program designed to support project management professionals and organizations seeking to quantify their proficiencies in the use of Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Project Server 2007. The Microsoft Certified Professional credential for Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 provides industry recognition to project managers and other professionals who use Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 and Office Project Server 2007 to manage and support projects in an enterprise project management (EPM) environment International Institute for Learning, Inc. has been selected by Microsoft to develop Microsoft Official Curriculum designed to prepare candidates to successfully complete the Microsoft Project 2007 certification exams. Microsoft Official Curriculum is offered by Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions and Microsoft Certified Partners.

Those that haven't used the analytical capabilities of the Portfolio Server have often found themselves wondering if their investment mix is optimum and whether they are misallocating their scarce resources. The arrival of the Portfolio Server Optimizer has brought along capabilities such as business drivers prioritization, projects prioritization, resource optimization, the efficient frontier and the value-investment analysis as a method to make investment decisions and to gain superior insights into business IT alignment.
Key topics:
• How the analytical capabilities of the Portfolio Server Optimizer are supporting the IT investment decision-making?
• What best practices should be used to prioritize and manage IT project portfolios?
• What results have organizations seen from using the Portfolio Server analytical implementations?

You have your EPM solution installed but how do you set up the security within the application so that users only gain access to the information they need? This session will discuss how to set the system up so users are able to do their job with the correct permissions. This will include best practice, common mistakes and recommendations on setting up the environment to make the day to day security maintenance as easy as possible.

Many organizations like to have their own branding and look and feel applied to their internal applications like Project Server. As Project Web Access is built on top of WSS V3 there are plenty of opportunities to customize the Project Web Access Website. This session provides you with an overview of how PWA uses WSS Master Pages and templates. Further we will discuss the out of the box customization possibilities from simply replacing logos over using the simple UI feature to adding new pages. It will also provide you with an overview of how PWA uses WSS Master Pages and templates.

Ever wondered why you cannot change the PWA access master page in Sharepoint designer? You always wanted to know what other option you have to customize the look and feel of your PWA site programmatically? You always wondered how to write Project Webparts and deploy them? Then this is your session. It will provide you with a deep dive in PWA customizations such as master pages, features, site definitions and Web parts.

Join this session to gain a deep understanding of the Project Server Interface (PSI) and server side events. Learn best practices and tricks and how you can use the interface to create entirely new solutions built on top of Project Server.

Learn how to leverage the Project Server 2007 Report Pack to create your own custom SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2005 reports.
This session will walk you through each of the seven sample reports from the Report Pack.

Learn how to leverage the EPM 2007 timesheeting and statusing APIs to customize either one or both timesheeting and statusing out of the box functionalities.
This session will walk you through the APIs available, and demonstrate how to leverage them in order to customize EPM 2007 to meet your company's timesheeting and statusing needs and processes.

The Project Client Programmability Improvements session will focus on the Project Client object model. Get the details on changes and new additions that have been made to the Project Standard 2007 and Project Professional 2007 programming model.

Although the Project Server Interface (PSI) is a rich set of web services that provide access to the majority of Project Server data, there are still scenarios where custom extensions to the PSI are necessary. This session will be led by a Project Server Developer who will discuss such scenarios, the details of implementing extensions, and best practices for extensions.

In this talk we will take a brief developer tour of WSS and MOSS, examining the .NET object model that is used to create, manipulate and access Sharepoint sites and other components like lists and document libraries. A general understanding of the developer perspective of WSS and MOSS may prove useful in customizing Project Server.

In this session, you will learn about the architecture of Project Server from a Developer perspective.
Learn the interactions between Project Server Interface, Business objects, Project Server Events and the Queue.

Project Server and Project Portfolio Server are two complex server products which are connected through the Project Server Gateway. A solution starter called EPMSync was written to enhance those connections. This session will explore how the EPMSync solution starter works. Additionally we’ll dive into some detail around how it was written.

The sheer amount of data in the EPM Solution, coupled with the number of options available to report and present data can be confusing. This session will deliver a methodology for report Development, helping you select the right data and the right tool to create outstanding reports, spreadsheets and dashboard-hosted key performance indicators.

So you may understand the Project Server security model but do you understand how to program against it? This session will cover off how to program against the security model via the PSI make an Administrator’s maintenance of security permissions easier.

A work request/initiative typically goes through several stage gates before it is funded. Also companies use different Governance processes for different types of requests. Eg. A ‘simple enhancement request’ may have 2 steps, but a ‘Major project’ may have to go through 20. In this session, we will look at ‘Project Server Workflow Platform’ which enables building a customizable, structured Governance Process using the SharePoint Workflow Platform (which is based on the Windows Workflow Foundation).

In this session we will demonstrate the new features in Project Standard 2007 and Project Professional 2007. We’ll show how you can build graphs and charts of your Project data, understand the drivers behind your schedule, and integrate financial data into your planning. Additionally, we’ll explain how you can use new features in Project with the EPM solution to manage deliverables between project plans and easily take your plan offline.

An overview of the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management solution comprised of Project Server, Project Portfolio Server, and Project Professional. This session will focus on the overall capabilities of the solution that demonstrate the key themes of easy to get started, visibility and insight, programmability, and integrating with existing business processes.

Selecting a project portfolio that aligns with the organization’s strategic priorities can be a daunting task. Learn how Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 can help organizations to:

• Standardize governance processes across the enterprise
• Developer detailed business cases for each project request
• Prioritize optimize and select the optimal project portfolio
• Deliver projects on time and within budget (Overview of the Project Server Gateway)

Ever wonder what is a resource and what are all of the features within Microsoft Office Project that impact resources? Come hear an overview of what Project and Project Server have to offer for the Resource Manager.

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 redefined the team member experience as well as the way in which time is tracked and managed. This presentation is an overview of every aspect, planning, entry, approval and reporting, of time and task management in the world of Microsoft Office Project.

This session describes and demonstrates the collaborative features in Office Project Server 2007 including deliverables, the project workspace, and project tasks list integration.

Are you having difficulty building graphical charts and reports to effectively communicate project data to different stakeholders? Come learn how to quickly create compelling reports with Microsoft Office Project 2007 and how to correctly interpret the data in the reports. We’ll demonstrate how you can connect to and analyze your data with Microsoft Office Excel charts and Microsoft Office Visio diagrams.

Demand could be anything ranging from a simple enhancement request to a 1 million $ strategic initiative. Companies need a way to capture demand in a simple, centralized way – this gives them a central repository of all requests. They also need a way to process demand in a structured manner, typically using a optimization/governance Process – this helps them get the ‘maximum bang for the buck’. In this session, we will look at how EPM addresses demand capture and Demand Processing.

Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) brings software development teams together to deliver great software by providing a set of integrated and collaborative tools for the Architect, Developer, Tester, Database Developer and the Project Manager. By linking Project Server with VSTS, the Project Management Office can be connected with the reality of what is happening on the development floor. Come to learn about and discuss the scenarios and high-level design of how Project Server and VSTS can work together to provide visibility and resource management for software projects.

The EPM Solution provides report-ready data designed to enable you to create rich, real-time reports that can drive better team member, project manager and executive decision making. This session focuses on the business value of the data held in the EPM Solution and demonstrates how to present that data to your project community.

In this session we will cover, the EPM Solution Architecture looking at the components that are required to make up a successful Architecture, covering key areas such as; databases, DAL, front end, etc. Ensuring the key data flow elements are understood for both Microsoft Office Project Server and Portfolio Server. After attending this session the attendee should be able to understand the solution architecture and its single components as well as the data flow in both Project Server and Portfolio Server.

Get answers to some common Project 2007 support questions. As this is meant to be a chalk talk we encourage you to bring your own questions for the Q&A portion of this session.

Learn about tools for helping you keep your server running well. Also learn about built-in tools and techniques for figuring out issues when they happen.

If you ever had trouble with your installation or operation of your Project Portfolio Server environments, this session is for you. This session will show you the best practices and tools to monitor and troubleshoot your environment to keep it healthy.

This session will cover administrative functions both in Windows SharePoint Services and Project Server. The SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration features of Diagnostic Logging, Shared Services (including provisioning new PWA sites), Timer jobs, Backup/Restore and administrative account management will be covered. In Project Server we will be looking at the administrative side of Cube Building, Custom Fields, Active Directory Synchronization, User Management, Administrative Backup/Restore, Project Workspaces and last and definitely not least Queue Management. The focus will mainly be on new and changed administrative features of Project Server 2007 so not too much time will be spent on features that have changed little since 2003. This session will also not be covering the administration of Project Portfolio Server.

Learn how to recover from a catastrophic failure on your SharePoint/EPM farm.
This session will discuss what are the options to recover from a loss of any component of your SharePoint/EPM Farm: SQL server, application server, disk …
It will cover SharePoint/EPM Farm or database restore options including pros and cons as well as a live demo.
This session will not cover in details backup/restore plans and all high availability options.

Emmanuel P. Fadullon is a senior consultant with Microsoft Services and a member of the Worldwide Center of Excellence for Enterprise Project Management. He has been with Microsoft for over 6 years. Emmanuel has worked in various technology areas including messaging, infrastructure, portals and software Development. Prior to Microsoft, Emmanuel worked at the IT division for several companies including IBM, AIG and Credit Suisse.

Attend this session to learn technical details about how Office Project Server integrates with Windows SharePoint Services. Topics include site topologies, site creation, user synchronization, and object linking.

This session will provide the best practices required to deploy Microsoft Project portfolio Server 2007 successfully. This session will cover the architecture, the approach to Developer a capacity planning and sizing of an installation, the potential scalability path for each component and the security configuration to accommodate Windows Integrated Authentication and application-based authentication.

Congratulations! – you just completed the arduous task of migrating to the latest EPM system. Are you ready to service your first help desk call? Can you recover from suspect project data? What happens if the server queue gets stuck? If these concerns are starting to gnaw at you and keeps you awake nights, then this session is a must-see. Learn about the EPM operations strategies for Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007 – backup/restore functionalities, system and queue monitoring, focus on high-potential problem areas, scaling up or scaling out when you need to grow the environment, or even if you just want to get a grip on that next major step -- the seemingly innocuous activity of transitioning from that fledgling initial pilot to full production.

Designing your SharePoint Farm and understanding the essentials is the most important thing you may do. This session will focus on the fundamentals in making sure your SharePoint farm is designed appropriately.

This session covers the components of the EPM solution and the main considerations when planning for deployments that require high availability, when to scale up and out, points of failure and software/hardware boundaries.

This session covers the post installation steps to prepare Project Server for functional use starting with administrative farm setup, role based security, security delegation and application configuration within Project Server.

This session covers the preparation, design and sequencing of implementing an EPM solution focusing on key activities in pre-planning, architecture, installation, monitoring and troubleshooting.

Learn about the tools and techniques developed for performance and stress testing Project Server 2007. The session will cover tool capabilities and some test results.

You have your EPM solution installed but how do you set up the authorization? This session will discuss how to set that system up so users are able to do their job with the correct permissions. This will include best practice, common mistakes and recommendations on setting up the environment to make the day to day security maintenance as easy as possible

Configuring Portfolio Server 2007 can be a daunting task given the power and complexity of the software. This session will demonstrate the flexibility of Portfolio Server’s configuration capabilities, demystifying how the system can be tuned to match various organizational PPM requirements. Topics will include configuring user accounts, organization hierarchy, financial management, workflow and more.

High quality management information relies on the quality and consistency of the underlying data. EPM management reporting is reliant on quality project planning. How can organisations ensure base data is accurate and effective?  Obviously ensuring that the user community has effective training will help, but this does not provide an assurance that data is accurate.  The majority of organisations resort to a process of manually auditing plan data to ensure quality; checking for consistent data against standard planning best practice.  Manual auditing is a time consuming and error prone process. CPS’ development - Project Auditor - allows the automation of this entire process.  CPS’ Project Auditor is embedded in the EPM Project Web Access Interface and allows both Project Managers and the PMO to electronically audit all or selective project plans against both standard planning best practice and company specific standards such as:
• Are plans baselined?
• Do plans contain the right key milestones?
• Is there remaining work in the past? 
• Is there progressed work in the future? 
• Are resources assigned to summary tasks?
The toolset allows the user to select which projects to audit based on the standard EPM security model and which audit checks to execute. Run as an on-demand or batch basis CPS’ Project Auditor will immediately and clearly highlight inaccuracies and deficiencies in base data allowing organisations to easily improve data quality on a continuous basis.

Organizations today operate under a high degree of scrutiny aimed at ensuring the right balance of investments and operations to help deliver business success. Unfortunately, companies often struggle with the challenge of how to select the optimum portfolio of projects to bring the most value to the firm, given constraints on time, resources and funding. As a result, ineffective portfolio and project management (PPM) results in disproportionate spending across business drivers, missed opportunities, and a reduction in the value of the project portfolio.
 
This session will provide keen insight into how Global 1000 companies have successfully leveraged project portfolio management processes in conjunction with automated toolsets to achieve an optimum return on investment. Specifically, this presentation will offer program and portfolio managers, PMO's and CIO's insight into the Project and Portfolio management disciplines, the PPM lifecycle and supporting tools, key roles and their responsibilities within each phase of the lifecycle, along with a discussion of PPM Maturity levels. 

On-demand Microsoft EPM is poised to double in 2007 and triple in 2008! Learn why on demand Microsoft EPM can be a great way for organizations to pilot or deploy Microsoft EPM faster and at a lower cost than deploying onsite. On-demand services including hosted tours, a short-term trial (or “Proof of Concept”), interim hosting, and long-term hosted deployments will also be discussed. Scenarios in which each of these services makes sense and the special hosting demands of EPM 2007 will be covered. Three leading EPM implementation partners will present customer case studies: Technology Associates will discuss BP, Project Solutions Group will describe the Xilinx EPM deployment, and Pcubed will describe how California State Automobile Association (CSAA) benefits from on-demand Microsoft EPM.

In this session, you will learn about an innovative and cost effective way to get the power of Enterprise Project Management in just days and without the expense of lengthy consulting engagements and IT infrastructure costs.  Most EPM systems take months to design, configure and implement.  VirtualePM (VePM) is preconfigured with industry best practice and can be set up in just days. 

VeMP utilizes the Microsoft Project and Portfolio Server platform and is pre-configured with ‘best of breed’ reports, views and processes that enforce standardization and help organizations gain the visibility they need to manage enterprise resources, schedules and budgets.  VePM’s powerful configuration was developed leveraging nearly two hundred EPM implementations.  The solution comes preconfigured with cost/budget categories, views, templates, reports, and custom fields that accelerate implementation time, lower cost and enforce industry best practice.  In addition VePM customers get access to powerful executive dashboards that give management the information and visibility they need to run their business.

A significant challenge for many organizations using Microsoft Office Project and/or Project Server is how to support project modeling and scenario planning in a consolidated multi-project environment. One significant issue is how to extract sub-sets of the overall project portfolio, make various “what-if” changes and then re-integrate the modified plans while preserving the original logic links in the consolidated schedules.  This problem is frequently experienced in industries such as pharmaceuticals, aerospace & defense, IT and Government, among others.
Using the forProject™ software along with Microsoft Project, see how to create various planning scenarios from your consolidated master schedule while preserving your cross-project links and dependencies. Make changes in the subset model and review custom comparison views. Accept or reject individual changes and import all accepted ADDS, CHANGES and DELETES back into the Consolidated Master Schedule.  A detailed log is retained to show all changes and the cross-project links are reestablished in the Consolidated Master Schedule.
The forProject™ software also helps solve the significant integration problems faced by organizations using Microsoft Project and the myriad of other commercial scheduling and Earned Value Management (EVM) tools. The challenge for many organizations is how to integrate data from a variety of sources, often in different formats and at different levels of detail, and to combine this data into meaningful and consistent information in a common format. 
forProject™ is XML-based, but can integrate data in a variety of formats including MS Project, .xls, .csv and others.   forProject™ can integrate both scheduling and financial data and includes many special functions to ensure data integrity, including the ability to:  
• Aggregate labor or cost data according to the established financial reporting calendar
• Handle weekly, monthly and many other fiscal or period-based calendars
• Group and summarize data by WBS, CLIN or other grouping structure
• Map fields from any source system to appropriate fields in the target system
• Adjust data to take into account different business rules and algorithms between systems
 
forProject™ is a unique product in the marketplace and  will save significant amounts of time and money.  It is a perfect solution for consolidated project modeling and effective integration of project scheduling, Earned Value and other financial data to answer the many integration challenges experienced by most organizations. 

Like everything we do in life, implementing an EPM solution can have unintended consequences creating waves of resistance through the organization. Focusing on the organizational change required to implement EPM, this presentation explains why EPM implementations meet resistance and how to anticipate, manage and overcome these obstacles.

EPK-Suite is a resource and capacity planning, project/program/portfolio management, collaboration, and budgeting/cost management system which compliments Microsoft Office Project and Project Server. EPK-Suite customers have found that they can get going quickly with the system and achieve real results in as little as 4-6 weeks.

This session will highlight some of the enhanced functionality for budgeting/cost management and “capacity vs. demand” resource planning which the system offers. It will also focus on how the EPK implementation approach achieves rapid results for Project and Project Server users. Case studies of current system users will be presented and attendees will have an opportunity to have their questions answered by current EPK-Suite customers.

Large corporations typically face numerous challenges around effective project management and performance measurement. Initiatives in these areas tend to be scattered across business silos and disconnected.  Sequence Advisors worked with PG&E on implementing and executing a comprehensive program management solution for its multi-year, billion dollar business transformation program, based on Microsoft Project Server, SharePoint Portal Services, and SQL Reporting Services.  Leveraging an Enterprise Project Management system and the necessary project management consulting services to support it, the Business Transformation PMO at PG&E gained improved insight into how the program’s projects performed early enough in their lifecycle so that they could be actively managed.  This discipline and approach has been recognized as high value by senior management and is being adopted more widely across the organization.  The results achieved by the Business Transformation PMO have been a primary catalyst in the decision to establish an enterprise PMO and build project management as a core strategic competency at PG&E.

Collaborative Business Intelligence on Microsoft Project Portfolio Management Solution scales beyond Project Portfolio Management on MS PPM platform. This solution integrates TCS business intelligence performance management offerings specific to industry verticals through the integration of MS PPM with Microsoft's Performance Point Server 2007 and includes the predictability logarithm to support business intelligence functionality.

This solution provides business value for the CIOs and CEOs to make right decisions that support their strategic initiatives through Balance Scorecard approach. This solution presents Balanced Scorecard views aligned to high level strategic initiatives and mapped to the programs/projects being executed using the TCS assets to track continuous process performance visibility.

PMLC solution provides a quality decision-making framework through real-time insight into portfolios, investments and resource utilization. This is accomplished by setting business goals and directions, defining measures, evaluating IT projects, treating IT assets as financial assets, and prioritizing investments.
PMLC Solution helps organizations map their business planning to the business process changes through an approval workflow. PMLC provides resource, cost and schedule visibility across programs and projects. The stage-gate project lifecycle from proposal initiation, justification, and review to project execution, deployment, and closure helps stakeholders in making informed decisions. The business stakeholders are directly involved in deciding which projects are accepted and provide guidance on the projects as they are being delivered. This helps the organizations better manage IT complexity and monitor the realization of benefits.

We have often heard the following comment from clients and industry insiders –

…It is the responsibility of Executive Management and the Project Management Office to establish a mindset for the day-to-day use of Microsoft Office Project.

The primary objective of this session is for Milestone Consulting Group to provide project managers with a cognitive ability to work in concert with Microsoft Project as opposed to in conflict with this powerful tool.  Our YJTJ™ process was designed to educate project managers on this mindset. The YJTJ™ concepts provide the essential building blocks that enable successful project management, resource management, and portfolio management.

“Specialist project management software can create or destroy value, depending on when it is that an organisation decides to buy and implement it.  At low maturity levels, software could well end up creating more problems than it solves.  To reach a higher level of maturity, however, project management software becomes a prerequisite.”

Boosting Business Performance through Programme and Project Management
by PriceWaterhouse Coopers (Daniel Evrard and Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez)

Please join Milestone Consulting Group in a presentation of YJTJ™ that will provide an enlightened overview of these concepts.

At the 2006 Project Conference, this session was standing room only!  Microsoft made a unique request of Milestone to conduct a second presentation of this session the following day - that session was also standing room only!

Don’t miss your opportunity to attend “the most productive session of the conference” as stated by last year’s attendees.

Most organizations have a difficult time combining both project operations and internal operations data for overall visibility into how the business is really operating. Capturing project execution data and combining this with internal operations data to fully identify your project operations key performance metrics (profitability/schedule/customer satisfaction) is REQUIRED to becoming successful. Full system integration provides visibility and the data needed to make proactive decisions about projects and operations focusing on ALL levels/roles of the organization

The Project Group America focuses on maximizing management operations while allowing the project manager to function in a familiar, flexible environment without the burden of added administration. This session will walk you through a company’s ideal state of creating, managing, and executing the project to produce optimal value out. 

Does a Project Manager’s day really need to stretch into the evening?  Join Keith Wilson and Robert Happy of the Project Management Practice Inc. along with Mindjet’s Michael Deutch, Wodey System’s Shahzeeb Akthar  and other leading Project Management professionals for  an interview style presentation/discussion on the latest techniques to improve productivity within project teams by leveraging key tools and processes that complement the Microsoft EPM solution.  Learn how to streamline the PMBOK framework for activities such as requirements gathering, scope definition, work breakdown structure, project updates and reporting. Also learn how to employ Mindjet’s MindManager and Wodey / PMPI Project Linker to work effectively in conjunction with Microsoft Project EPM Server to accelerate results.

This session will demonstrate project management scenarios supported by VSTS. These include project planning via integration with Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project, project tracking and communication via the work item tracking system and Team Portal, and business intelligence gathering using the integrated analytics engine of TFS.

This session will share how Visio 2007 can transform complicated data located in disparate sources and formats into meaningful and actionable views leveraging the power of data visualization.  From designing work breakdown structures and timelines in Visio and exporting them for parameterization in Project to reporting graphically on resource utilization and project status, see how Visio’s 2007 can benefit project and process managers in their core activities.

Come to this session and see how Microsoft Project Server/Professional and Microsoft Dynamics SL Project Accounting can work together to produce a powerful solution to optimize project performance!  With access to manage and review project schedule, resource, invoicing, time, expense, and project analytics through Windows SharePoint-based pages, stakeholders in an organization can access critical information easily to keep a project on track and meet customer’s requirements!

In this session, you will see and learn how a Microsoft Gold Partner differentiates their services from others by collaborating with their clients on project activities, changes, and billing using Microsoft Project Web Access and Microsoft Dynamics SL.  You won't want to miss this Best Practice session!

Project Server 2007 has the potential to transform your organization’s capabilities in project management. To realize this value, it’s critical to understand the problem you’re solving and equip everyone with the means for success. Michael will discuss why JP Morgan chose Microsoft EPM and the training and planning behind JP Morgan’s recent success deploying Project Server, a success now fueling interest in EPM from other groups at JP Morgan.

Phyllis will discuss the principles and strategies used at Merck to socialize and integrate a portfolio mindset into the IT organization. Her presentation will also provide insight into the process and change management that is critical to realizing the benefits of Microsoft Project Portfolio Server 2007.  

Amjad will discuss QinetiQ’s deployment of Project Server to 9,000+ users and how EPM, in concert with other Microsoft technologies, are helping QinetiQ reduce overhead costs and collaborate more efficiently to deliver superior business value.

Ryan will discuss how Project Server 2007 is standardizing CSC’s project management practices and optimizing CSC’s ability to manage its global resources. As the creator of CSC’s PMO, Ryan will also address how to build support and legitimacy for EPM across stakeholders in a large and matrix organization.

Capacity planning is a critical activity at Volvo with diverse needs across business units.  Addressing these needs with technology is only part of the solution. Stephane will discuss the people, process and technology issues that Volvo IT overcame as it rolled out capacity planning to business units at Volvo as part of a large scale EPM deployment.

Project management is a need for firms, large and small. For smaller firms, Microsoft offers a hosted version of Project Server that offers the same benefits of an onsite deployment without the requisite infrastructure costs. Michele Rogers will discuss how the IT department of Drive Financial is leveraging the hosted version of Project Server to support its business units while staying agile in a competitive marketplace.

Executing any complex IT project is no easy task. This challenge takes on new meaning when different teams use different tools to manage their work while still adhering to common goals. At Merrill Lynch, software development teams work in Visual Studio Team Server while the project managers monitor their work in Project Server 2007. Kumar will discuss how the 2007 VSTS-EPM connector streamlines the interaction between these two groups while allowing each to use the tools critical to their individual success.