Utilities Company

Creating cost savings through the consolidation of multiple project management software applications

The Client

The Client is a non-profit corporation responsible for the management of electrical power distribution to 20 million customers in a major US state, which represents 85% of the state's power load and covers 75% of the land area. Additionally, the Client manages financial settlement for the competitive wholesale bulk-power market and administers customer switching for 6 million customers in competitive choice areas. In 2003, the Client reorganized their Project Management Office (PMO) and established standardized processes and tools to more effectively control and deliver projects.

The Challenge

The Client utilized a highly manual process to manage and report on project status across the organization. In some cases the same information was transcribed and reported in different places, resulting in duplicate effort and confusion due to the lack of data synchronization. Project managers were spending an inordinate amount of time simply managing the administrative aspects of the project rather than directly managing their projects.

In addition, the PMO spent excessive amounts of time reviewing and verifying project status information during its monthly reporting cycle. Several tools were used by project managers such as Microsoft Office Project, Excel and PowerPoint, and Lawson Financial to track and report on project status. The Client desperately needed to streamline their processes and tools in order to reduce administrative effort, improve reporting accuracy, and provide real-time project status.

The Client was also looking to upgrade their Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 to Microsoft Office Project Server 2007. A number of limitations in their existing system drove this need. The Client needed an experienced and proven partner that would manage the smooth transition of users and data to the new platform as well as provide them with custom training to effectively use and administer the new system.

The Pcubed Solution

Pcubed proposed a process improvement initiative to develop and implement a migration strategy to consolidate as many processes and technologies possible. As part of the migration, Pcubed and the Client architected a solution that centralized project data within the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution. This included a migration from Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 to Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 onto a hosted environment.

Project managers, team members and administrators were provided with just-in-time training to address new aspects of the system. This solution provided project managers with the ability to track and report on their projects using real-time resourcing, budget and timing information. Dashboard reports, based on Microsoft SQL Reporting Services, replaced the various Microsoft Office Excel reports that were once stored on a shared drive.

A key part of the solution involved integrating the Client's Lawson Financial system with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 so that actual costs from Lawson would automatically be updated within Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.

Key elements of the solution included:

• Use of Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 to manage the entire project cost, resourcing and timing, including baseline, planned and actual data.
• A new timesheet management process to manage resource workload.
• Creation of real-time project and organizational dashboard reports that support export to various file formats.
• An integration mechanism to automate data transfer from Lawson Financial to Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.

The Results

Pcubed worked with the Client to develop a customized Microsoft Office EPM Solution that eliminated the need to manage project data using various, disparate tools. Project managers can now enter information one time into a single project repository allowing stakeholders to immediately view project, department, and divisional health with confidence in what is being reported. Additionally, it is anticipated that the new timesheet management process will allow for robust resource management practices to ensure projects are optimally staffed for successful delivery. It is estimated that the solution will save project managers and the PMO personnel approximately 65 staff-hours per month in administrative overhead resulting in a cost savings of over $250,000 per year.