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Initiate your projects by creating the project within your organizational unit (see Basic Project Setup, above).
When the project is created, you are prompted to immediately define the project team. This allows you to define roles and cost rates, and each team member will receive an email invitation to participate in the project.
Budgets, Costs, and Benefits can be defined up-front, and refined as you go. This makes it possible to submit management reports that are increasingly accurate as the project evolves.
Project Budgets, Costs, and Benefits are defined within the Project Details folder. As they are revised, previous records are retained as an evolving history of these entries. These figures contribute to the project and portfolio reporting.
Costs from cost sheets are reflected in reports as either Capital or Expense Items, depending on how they are set up in the Cost sheets. Time Sheet charges are based on the cost rate established in the Project Roster for each resource (Invite/Manage Members) and are shown as Resources: Tasks.
The Project Roster can also reflect a fixed cost for each resource, which is reported as Resources: Fixed.
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Building task structures within TeamHeadquarters is easy: just right-click on the project’s Tasks folder and select New Task. The database allows for hierarchical task structures by adding tasks under other tasks. Task structures can also be imported from Microsoft Project (98 or higher) by exporting from Microsoft Project as an MS Access database. The import can occur at the TeamHeadquarters Tasks folder or under any task at any level. This allows you to blend tasks created in TeamHeadquarters at any time with any number of different imports at different times. |
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The Gantt Chart tool makes it easy to refine the Work Breakdown Structure. Tasks can be created, viewed, edited, and linked with predecessor relationships from the Gantt. Right click on the project or its task folder and select Gantt Chart. Alternatively, use the project’s reporting menu, which contains a variety of other useful reports as well. |
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It is important to limit the depth of the project’s tasks structure to what can be maintained, ensuring that the project is continually Management-Ready. When project information is not maintained, it fails to add value.
Documents can be stored in the project Library, under Tasks, or under the project Charter. In any case, team members can be notified upon uploading of a new document or version. Documents can be found system-wide with a variety of search options, or within a project by using the project menu option shown here:
Classic project management software works best when the work plan leads the work. In other words, the project manager will proactively maintain the work breakdown structure and resource plan as the project changes, ensuring that task lists are continually accurate. Ticket Queues may be more effective for managing the details of project work when:
The work plan fluctuates often.
The “project” is more of an ongoing effort without a rigid work plan.
The work is highly urgent and traditional planning efforts are unrealistic.
The project is small.
The project involves many smaller tasks, such as bug fixes for software.
TeamHeadquarters includes a Ticket Queue for every project. There are 2 types of scenarios supported here:
Consider these examples of Non-Gantt chart work. In the classic view of project management, these would rarely (if ever) be included in a Gantt chart. However, these items come up often in project work, and they need to be managed. With TeamHeadquarters, it natural to manage them as tickets within your project queue.
Action Items from meetings are often recorded on paper during meetings, and then communicated/confirmed in meeting minutes later. This process can be eliminated by creating tickets as they happen. If the tickets are ‘related’ to a task, then time sheet submissions will reflect the costs of this ‘ad-hoc’ work since it is usually a project cost.
Defect tracking is often done in a separate tool. Development teams may benefit by using the TeamHeadquarters project queue to record defects with the simplicity and accuracy that comes from this approach.
Risk management requirements are often met using a spreadsheet to record potential risks, potential fallouts, and mitigation strategies. However, this approach requires manual follow-up to monitor those risks. Tickets are a bring-forward system, which allows them to be assigned and future-dated. Therefore, risks described in tickets will automatically be assigned when their ‘bring-forward’ date comes. Furthermore, the automatic audit trail in tickets becomes a clear way to track the progress of this vital work.
“Plan with tasks, execute with tickets.” Project plans that have too much detail become too complex to manage. Instead of breaking a project down into 2 hour tasks, consider stopping the plan at, say, 5 day tasks. This makes the work plan and the resource plan much easier to balance. Then assign tickets under those tasks to direct the finer details of the assignment. You should find that adoption of the software increases because the software actually helps the workers to collaborate when they use tickets. Again, this work will naturally be included in time sheets, making them easier to complete and far more accurate.
This approach was conceived as a way to improve execution, but it also tends to make plans more accurate.
