Project Office: a project management system

Large and medium-size enterprises often use project approach in their everyday activities. Generally, the traditional model of project management is connected with a number of problems that arise due to insufficient information, necessary for timely managerial decisions. This reduces efficiency of project groups and, as a consequence, of the company as a whole. Companies generally encounter the following difficulties when implementing projects:

• Disconnected and scattered information on the project (data presentation formats, data locations, completeness of information)
• Difficult search of necessary information
• Lack of information on personal experience of project participants
• Difficult exchange of information between participants and project groups in the course of project implementation
• Limited functionality of calendar resource planning systems

The IBS Integration Solutions Department offers a solution on the basis of corporate portal services: project management system Project Office (PMS Project Office). This solution is an efficient way to level out such problems.

PMS Project Office is management organization for one or a number or projects. The organization consolidates a number of managerial functions that are common for all projects, in the framework of a single information environment and existing internal company standards. The single information environment for project management support is the most important component of PMS Project Office.

The environment is created by integration of the calendar resource planning system with the portal platform.

Implementation of PMS Project Office is necessary when project works are continuous and involve production processes or main business support. Use of PMS Project Office is justified when the business support system is distributed geographically, when a large number of works for implementation of system solutions is carried out at the same time, and in case of centralized management of large-scale regional projects.

Increase of enterprise project activity management efficiency is the main objective of implementation of such system. The objective can be achieved due to:

• Decrease of project risks. The effect is achieved due to system's ability to maintain project documentation archive, including project plans, appeared problems and used methods for their resolving, project implementation history, project reports and project decisions.
• Increase of accuracy of time, resource and finance management. The effect is achieved due to system's ability to accumulate statistical data for projects implemented in the institution. This allows determining norms necessary for planning of new projects.
• Improvement of project implementation quality. The effect is achieved due to system's ability to ensure accounting and subsequent users' work with documents, events, decisions of each project life cycle stage, starting from minutes of setting up meetings to project completion acts and final reports.
• More balanced loading of staff and equipment. The effect is achieved due to that the system can calculate planned load on resources and allows subsequent automatic load redistribution between the resources on the basis of established limits and load redistribution rules.
• Improvement of project reports preparation efficiency. The effect is achieved due to system's ability of automatic forming of reports and graphic materials that describe project implementation progress. Reports of various types for different user groups and customized reports for personal use (including reports for top managers of the institution) can be formed automatically.

Implementation of PMS Project Office will allow achieving the following objectives:

• Implement project approach in activity of the institution (if not used before). The IBS Integration Solutions Department is prepared to offer project management methodology, project procedures and regulations and to provide services connected with their implementation within the project framework.
• Formalize and arrange project activities of the institution. Specialists of the IBS Integration Solutions Department carry out a survey, determine the problematic areas and the efficiency growth areas of the company project activity in the framework of PMS Project Office implementation project. Specialists of the IBS Integration Solutions Department adjust the PMS Project Office software and adapt the PMS Project Office documentation in order to avoid drawbacks revealed in the course of the survey and increase project activity efficiency.
• Establish a single project implementation information support environment. PMS Project Office enables accounting of all project documentation, including versions of documents. In addition to that, the system enables searching the information by subject headings, projects, time intervals, document types, key words and phrases taking into account Russian language morphology. The system allows for storage and use normative and reference project information, typical document patterns and regulations, typical project plans, etc.
• Ensure joint work of specialists participating in the project from remote locations. PMS Project Office allows that users jointly access the project and normative and reference documentation, exchange instant messages, consult with project group members. Users of PMS Project Office can remotely co-ordinate purposes of project works, register problems and risks, as well as proposals for their elimination.
• Ensure accumulation and processing of project implementation experience. PMS Project Office automatically gathers and processes the project implementation statistics for the projects carried out in the institution. This feature allows that managers and specialists use previous institution's projects experience. It facilitates improvement of planning efficiency and increase of execution discipline level. In addition to that, the accumulated project implementation indicators are the basis for forming of norms when planning implementation of new projects.

The PMS Project Office solution is based on a Microsoft's platform. The solution includes:

Contacts

IBS Integration Solutions Department

Contact person: Konstantin Smirnov (Ksmirnov@ibs.ru)

Phone: +7 (095) 967-8080