Schedulers Make Things Happen
Time Lapse: a 30-Story Building In 15 Days (2.5 min)
The Project Administration Institute (PAI) has been providing Microsoft Project scheduling and training services for project and portfolio managers since 1992.
With 30+ years of practice we have selected and tuned Microsoft Project’s many features to make them easier to understand for the project manager, team, sponsors, and stakeholders. We use programmed custom fields which, unlike filters, highlight integrity issues and changes as they occur during planning, replanning, and status meetings. Instant change visibility enables executive sponsors and project teams to collaborate, model schedule change and recovery decisions, test “what if” options, and avoid time consuming reporting and adjustment iterations, surprises and disputes.
Industry consulting firms report that only 30% to 40% of projects meet their original target completion dates or budgets, implying that project management needs improvement. But projects by definition are “unique endeavors”, unlike assembly lines with repeating processes that may be tuned. During a project supply chains and resources may vary, design and funding may need to change, conditions and location may vary. A project team encounters and overcomes multiple surprises. Failure to meet original target completion dates or budgets is a measure of the inherent unpredictability of the project environment requiring unforeseen time and effort. We provide executive sponsors and project teams the ability to assess and recover from changes when they appear with dynamic modeling of their project schedules. Visibility combined with our tracking/reporting system manages change and drives a project to its earliest possible completion.
If you would like your schedulers or project managers to have these high visibility scheduling capabilities we can have your people scheduling your projects like professionals in a short time.
PAI Apprenticeship training produces your own functioning schedulers in contrast to MS Project classroom training which covers most of the features of MS Project but doesn’t teach them our visibility features or the planning and control cycle they will learn immersed in your live environment. Most candidates, if they were project managers, will have some experience with MS Project. For those with no prior MS Project experience prior classroom training may shorten our training time, but I have found that students with aptitude and no MS Project training do fine.
Sample
To sample the visibility and flexibility of our process send us one of your executing Microsoft Project schedules. We’ll meet on line to ensure your schedule’s integrity and then how your schedule will look as it’s status is updated, changed, recovers from slippage, and is prepared for the next status update.
Free Pilot
To experience the benefits of the process in your environment we offer a free multi week trial for one of your projects. At the start of the pilot we review the existing project schedule for integrity and status currency with the project manager. We then produce the To Do’s report for week 1. The team executes the week 1 To Do’s. After week 1 ends we meet to update status. To Do’s tasks are either Marked on Track for their original end date or adjusted to reflect a new reported end date and then Marked on Track. If slipped tasks affect milestones or the project end date candidates for compression are highlighted. Compressing one or more highlighted tasks will recover the planned dates. We then provide reports of progress and changes, the resulting new schedule, a report of why things changed, and To Do’s for week 2. The team then executes the week 2 To Do’s. This process repeats until the pilot ends.
Implementation
To explore implementing this process let’s discuss your environment, timing, and cost.
To learn more about our project scheduling the About menu includes links to the Philosophy, PAI Library, Biography, and Resume pages.
For the scheduling community the Free Resources menu provides links to Free Mentoring and Coaching, the PAI Library, the Glossary of terms, the Q&A discussion board, and the Community Library.
Contact Information:
Ed Mahler, PMP
917-734-3953, Fax 914-834-5248
Email edmahler@paiwebsite.com
Project Administration Institute, Inc.
16 N Chatsworth Ave, Suite 207
Larchmont, NY 10538