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Our short article takes a high-level view of the structure of EPM, its benefits and limitations. In an age where large enterprise organisations seek to standardise and centralise project governance, the use of project and portfolio management (PPM) tools has increased. Alongside these Enterprise PPM solutions Microsoft Office tools such as Word, Excel and MS Project (MSP) have remained popular because of their familiarity, functionality and relatively low cost. For most project managers MSP remains their go-to solution and for almost all of us Excel and Exchange feature in our daily working lives. Microsoft have stated that MSP has evolved from a desktop scheduling and resource management tool into a collaborative PC/web based PPM solution and this evolution has been further solidified with the integration of these tools into Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM).
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An introduction to Microsoft EPM
An Introduction to Microsoft EPM © Polarisoft Ltd. Published March 2014
An introduction to Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM)
Our short article takes a high-level view of the structure of EPM, its benefits and limitations.
In an age where large enterprise organisations seek to standardise and centralise project governance, the use of project and portfolio management (PPM) tools has increased. Alongside these Enterprise PPM solutions Microsoft Office tools such as Word, Excel and MS Project (MSP) have remained popular because of their familiarity, functionality and relatively low cost. For most project managers MSP remains their go-to solution and for almost all of us Excel and Exchange feature in our daily working lives.
Microsoft have stated that MSP has evolved from a desktop scheduling and resource management tool into a collaborative PC/web based PPM solution and this evolution has been further solidified with the integration of these tools into Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM).
BackgroundEPM integrates Microsoft Project Professional and Project Server to create a unified PC and web-based PPM solution. This is built on the collaborative platform of SharePoint Server 2010 and further integrates with other common Microsoft products, such as Office and Exchange.
Figure 1. Basic Enterprise Project Management structure
The individual components of EPM
SharePoint Server 2010 Platform
Resources to be aligned with strategic priorities
Gain control of all work types
Visualise performance with powerful dashboards
Powerful visuals Enhanced ways
to:o Plano Collaborateo Manage
resources
Microsoft Project Professional 2010
Microsoft ProjectServer 2010
InformationTransfer
Exchange
Microsoft Exchange combines calendar software with contact management and a mail server in order to create one of the most popular collaborative and messaging servers in the world. It is compatible with additional features such as voice mail storage, calendar, and contact organizing application and scheduling and uses the Microsoft Office Outlook as its email platform.
Microsoft Project Professional 2010
Microsoft Project has long been the industry standard in project planning tools, and is arguably the most comprehensive in its class. The capabilities are built into the tool to handle Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), Task Dependencies, Resource Levelling, as well as a number of reporting features that support Progress, Costs, and Resources. This version provides powerful and visually enhanced ways to plan projects, as well as collaborate and manage resources.
SharePoint Server 2010
SharePoint was originally created by Microsoft as a document management tool. This allows businesses to have a single cloud based document repository and results in resources across the globe being are able to access document templates and information. As a result governance and best practice is much easier to maintain.
Microsoft Project Server 2010
Microsoft Project Server provides an end-to-end collaborative project, portfolio, and resource management environment. It allows businesses to easily gain insight, visibility and project governance control, which enhances decision making, improves the alignment of projects and portfolios to strategic goals, as well as maximize resource utilization.
Core Capabilities of EPM
Figure 3. Core capabilities of Microsoft EPM
EPM Lifecycle
Figure 4. EPM covers the full lifecycle of a project\portfolio
Once a project\proposal\portfolio is created, it is necessary for the organisation to evaluate and optimise competing investments in order to ensure a maximised ROI based on the resource and financial capacity available.
Gain Visibility
Enterprise Ready
Easy Start Up
Extend with Programmability
Benefits of Microsoft EPMOrganizations that have MS Office technology will find EPM a less onerous implementation exercise:
Out of the box integrations with MS Excel, Access, Outlook and Project EPM can be deployed as a SaaS or as an on premise solution Developers can easily access features and rapidly build solutions/add-ons using familiar tools such as MS
Visual Studio 2010 The in-built Microsoft Project functionality will appeal to a vast number of Project Managers High end user buy in due to familiarity Native integration with SharePoint, a hugely popular document repository tool Supports several different geographies – Asia, Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, Latin America, Middle-
East and Africa, United Kingdom, United States
SummaryGiven the huge penetration of individual components of EPM within most companies combined with the ease of integration EPM almost always makes the consideration list of anyone considering a PPM solution and it remains EPM’s single biggest competitive advantage.
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