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Project Management Software - Tips for a Successful Roll-Out
April 27, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Computer Based Information Systems
Project Management Software - Tips for a Successful Roll-Out
By Rudolf Melik
From time to time we encounter prospects with the following modus operandi. The company:
- Uses a small to mid market accounting application such as QuickBooks, ACCPAC or Great Plains for financial reporting
- May be using Microsoft Project to build plans for projects that require planning
- Has implemented spreadsheets (or a custom app) to track cost and billing information that is then manually keyed into the accounting system
The company’s management is aware that how they run their business can be much improved and there are tremendous cost avoidance, cost reduction and revenue increase opportunities if the right process improvements are made. The company has allocated the funds and resources to make the investment. Now the hard work begins.
After months of research, demos, questions and walkthroughs the decision is made to purchase a solution. The full software cost including a multi-year on-demand agreement, integration and implementation costs are prepared by the vendor and reviewed by the company.
And here comes the doozy.
After reviewing the project deliverables, some of the members of the customer team in charge of the initiative insist that all project details be exported back into the accounting system. The rational being that financial types (CFOs, senior executives) want to have all the cost and detail information in the accounting system. Sounds pretty harmless doesn’t it?
The problem with this approach is that the accounting system is being used as a detailed project tracking system with too many GLs (general ledger accounts), too many segments, too many transactions, too much data. Also, if you look at any GL entry in the accounting system you will still not be able to easily trace it back to the exact time entry, expense entry, or project charge that created it, unless you add even more complexity to the GL transactions you create.
Before you roll out any project management system, you should be convinced of the following fundamental principles, or the project management initiative will fail before it ever sees daylight:
- Use your accounting application to do what it is created for; to report on financials
- Use your project management system to plan, budget and track detailed project and workforce actuals, cost and revenue
- Export client/project cost and revenue transactions to your accounting application with enough detail to manage your receivables, accounts payable and financial reporting. However, stay way from trying to reproduce in two systems detailed cost and revenue information that you already have access to in your project management solution.
For more details about project management and Sarbanes-Oxley, see Rise of the Project Workforce.
Rudolf Melik is the author of The Rise of the Project Workforce: Managing People and Projects in a Flat World, and is the CEO and a founder of Tenrox. In his writings and speeches, Melik explores the ways that companies can thrive in a world where rapid technological advances and globalization are changing how we get work done and manage the people who do it. Rudolf’s professional blog can be found at: http://www.talentontarget.com/talent_on_target.
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