Principles of Execution

Using Microsoft Project To Automate A

Workplace Culture That Works!

Executive Overview

Developing a culture that works is hard work

and difficult at best.

Many organizations suffer from culture

confusion, they have too many high

priorities, they lack consensus among their

key leaders and are plagued with

misalignment between their mission, vision,

and values.

Understanding and applying the 7 principles

for developing a culture that works can drive

amazing culture change in any organization,

agency or business.

7 Principles Framework

1. Principle of Vision: A great culture starts with a vision or mission statement.

2. Principle of Values: A set of guidelines on the behaviors and mindsets needed to achieve your vision.

3. Principle of Buy-In: Is a Team Sport

4. Principle of Best Practices: Values are of little importance unless they are enshrined in a company’s practices.

5. Principle of Stories: All organizations have a unique history - a unique story.

6. Principle of Environment: Your Physical or Virtual Workplace shapes culture

7. Principle of Execution: Team members make a commitment to the team not to the leader, and they hold each other accountable.

Gerald J. Leonard is the author of “Culture Is The Bass,” and the President & CEO of Principles of Execution, a Strategic Project Portfolio Management consulting practice based in the Metro Washington, DC area.

20+ years as an IT Project Portfolio Management consultant and has earned the PfMP, PMP, MCSE, MCTS, CQIA, ITILv3 and COBIT 4.1 Certifications

Acquired certifications in PM and BI from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an Executive Leadership Certification from Cornell University.

Gerald’s Background

•POC

•Stakeholder Expectations

15 Days

•Manual Processes

•Poor Visibility

Challenge•Standardized

Templates

• Integration

•Automation

Solution

•Macros

•Event Handlers

•Automated Baselining

Capabilities• Insight

• Increased efficiency

• Improved Data Quality

Results

Large Government Organization

Create a solution for an older homegrown system to integrate with Microsoft Project Server 2013

The Homegrown system managing over 14,000 projects

We had only 15 days before we had to demonstrate it to the CIO

We worked as a team to make it happen and we did it by day 14

15 Days till lift-off

Integrated Project Management System

Project Warehouse

External System

External System

External System

External System

Financial System

Public Dashboard

Data Warehouse

20+ System integrations

•POC

•Stakeholder Expectations

15 Days

•Manual Processes

•Poor Visibility

Challenge•Standardized

Templates

• Integration

•Automation

Solution

•Macros

•Event Handlers

•Automated Baselining

Capabilities• Insight

• Increased efficiency

• Improved Data Quality

Results

Large Government agency needed to strengthen management oversight of a portfolio of 14,000 active projects.

Integrate Project Server 2013 with a Home grown Application using .Net 1.0 and ASP technology.

Limited visibility by the PMO if Project Managers were updating their schedules and project information correctly

Business Problem

Manual Processes

No standard project schedule templates or process to enable consistent management of the PMO environment. Schedules did not contain network logic or schedule dependencies.

Project Managers schedule updates were all manually updated with no scheduling engine available to understand the downstream impact on forecasted tasks.

Business Goals

Accelerate project development and delivery through improved processes

Strengthen planning and programming processes to maximize the use of available funding

Be an innovative pacesetter in technology

•POC

•Stakeholder Expectations

15 Days

•Manual Processes

•Poor Visibility

Challenge•Standardized

Templates

• Integration

•Automation

Solution

•Macros

•Event Handlers

•Automated Baselining

Capabilities• Insight

• Increased efficiency

• Improved Data Quality

Results

Best Practices and Environment

40 + Standardized Templates

Custom Lookup Table

Data Quality is Like

Integration

Component

Web Service

Web Service

Event Handlers

Automation – Leveraging Powershell

<#

.SYNOPSISForces a Checkin of all projects in Microsoft Project Server 2013

.DESCRIPTIONThe list of currently checkedout projects is queried from the Draft database.After the list of Project UIDs is retrieved the script makes a connection to the PSI Projects WebService to initiate Force Checkin of all the projects.The Checkin requests enter the Project Server queue and will be executed there.

.PARAMETER ProjectServerURLURL of the Project Server instance to be connected to (example: http://pwavm/PWA

.PARAMETER DatabaseServerName of the SQL Server (or database instance) containing the Draft database (example: SQLSRV1\INSTANCE1)

.PARAMETER DraftDBName of the Draft Database (example: PWA_Draft)

.EXAMPLE

.\AutomatedProjectCheckin.ps1 -ProjectServerURL http://pwavm/PWA -DatabaseServer VMSQL -DraftDB IPMSCH_ProjectWebApp_DBForce CheckIn all projects currently checked out

.NOTESYou need to have Read permissions to the Draft Database and Project Server Administrative permissions to run this Script.

#># Add PowerShell PSSnapinAdd-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

$SqlCmd = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand #setting object to use sql commands

#$SqlQuery = "SELECT [Proj_UID], [PROJ_NAME], [proj_checkoutby] FROM [draft].[MSP_projects] WHERE proj_checkoutby is not null and proj_type in (0,5,6)" #setting query "get drop paths"

$SqlQuery = "SELECT p.Proj_UID, p.PROJ_NAME, (select r.ResourceNamefrom [dbo].[MSP_EpmResource_UserView] r where r.ResourceUID = p.PROJ_CHECKOUTBY) AS CheckedOutName FROM [draft].[MSP_projects] p WHERE proj_checkoutby IS Not null and proj_type in (0,5,6)"

$SqlCmd.CommandText = $SqlQuery # get query

$SqlAdapter = New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter #

$SqlAdapter.SelectCommand = $SqlCmd

$SqlCmd.Connection = $connection

$DataSet = New-Object System.Data.DataSet

$SqlAdapter.Fill($DataSet)

Project Server 2013 Technology Platform

•POC

•Stakeholder Expectations

15 Days

•Manual Processes

•Poor Visibility

Challenge•Standardized

Templates

• Integration

•Automation

Solution

•Macros

•Event Handlers

•Automated Baselining

Capabilities• Insight

• Increased efficiency

• Improved Data Quality

Results

Macros

Automate the standardization of data quality

Event Handlers

Automated Baselining

Schedule Phase Baseline Updates

Initial Schedule Current set to BaselineIf Baseline1 not set thenCopy Baseline to Baseline1

Scoping Schedule Current set to BaselineCopy Baseline to Baseline2

Design Current set to Baseline3

Final Design Current set to Baseline4

Revision Reset Current Baseline (based on Project Pool revision approvals): copy previous current schedule (Baseline) to lowest available non-reserved Baseline (Baselines 5 – 10)

•POC

•Stakeholder Expectations

15 Days

•Manual Processes

•Poor Visibility

Challenge•Standardized

Templates

• Integration

•Automation

Solution

•Macros

•Event Handlers

•Automated Baselining

Capabilities• Insight

• Increased efficiency

• Improved Data Quality

Results

What was achieved:

Microsoft Project Server 2013 was deployed with event handlers and web service that pass data back and forth with the homegrown system

System and schedule standardization

Increased visibility and improved data quality

Microsoft Project macros and PowerShell Scripts to automate data formatting and automation of admin routines

Over 700 + project managers trained with only 40+ Schedulers using Microsoft Project Professional.

Insights

Increased Efficiency & Improved Data Quality

Q&A

Principles of Execution, LLC

Gerald J. LeonardPfMP, PMP, MCTS, CQIA, ITIL,

COBIT

President/CEOGerald@Principlesofexecution.com

http://www.principlesofexecution.com

Developing A Culture That Works!