Making Effective Business Decisions Using Microsoft Project -- Copyright -- Contents -- 1: Business Intelligence: Knowledge of Key Success Ingredients for Project Server 2010 -- In This Chapter -- Maximizing PPM Ingredients, Culture, and Technology for Business Success -- What Is the Project Management Lifecycle? -- Aligning Project with Business Life Cycles -- Planning in a Governed Environment -- Significance of Portfolio Management and Demand Management in Today's Evolving Market -- Information: What Fuels a PMO's Success? -- Overview of Information Acquisition -- Overview of Knowledge Management -- End Game: Automation and Getting to Dashboards -- Stakeholders in a Project Management Environment -- Delivering Results, Not Surprises, with Microsoft Project 2010 and Microsoft Project Server 2010 -- Profiles of Business Influencers -- Profiles of Corporate Candidates -- Stakeholder Classes -- Scalability and Succession Planning with 2010 -- Technology Meets Strategy: Welcome to the Business User Network -- What Are the Common Traits of the Two Roles? -- What Are the Roots of the Differences? -- What Are the Challenges in Working Together? -- What Works, or How to Save This Marriage -- Business Users Connected to Business Objectives -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- References -- 2: Value Proposition by Role of Project Server 2010 -- In This Chapter -- Clairvoyance with Project/Server 2010: Forecast Future Results -- Project 2010 Scalability Flowchart -- Introduction -- Perspectives -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- Key Summary Points -- References -- 3: Meeting CFO Needs with Project/Server 2010 -- In This Chapter -- How the CFO Gets the Attention of the PMO -- What the PMO Is Expected to Deliver to the Bottom Line -- Managing Financials: Start with the Project Business Case.

Benefits: Designing a Project Process to Measure Outcomes -- Investments: How to Derive Quantifiable Value from Project Costs -- What and Why Is Work Management Critical to Organizational Success? -- Managing Independent Departmental Initiatives -- Managing Constraints to Your Advantage: Addressing the Planning and Execution Bottlenecks -- Validating Proposals and Holding the Business Accountable -- Synchronization of Strategic Objectives to Actual Effort -- Imagining Structuring Strategies that Can Be Delivered -- Fluency of Actuals Against Estimates -- The Big Picture: Approaching Top-Down and Bottom-Up Planning and Control Options -- Defining a Long-Term Solution that Enables Stakeholder-Class Scalability -- Integrating ERP and Other Financial Data -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- Reference -- 4: The Business Shakes Hands with the Microsoft Project 2010 Platform -- In This Chapter -- Logical Architecture Is More Natural for Business Users -- Business Platform Designed for the Business User -- You Don't Need to Be a Technologist to Be an Effective Practitioner -- Reviewing and Approving the Proposal -- A True Enterprise Platform -- Governing Project Components Defining the Work Management -- Microsoft Project 2010 Platform Is Highly Extensible -- Extensive Work Flows, Forms, or Approvals? No Problem! -- OK, It Manages the Work, But What About the Financials? -- Options to Integrate with Microsoft Dynamics -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- Key Summary Points -- References -- 5: End Users' Critical Success Factors: Using MS Project 2010 -- In This Chapter -- Project Management in Small Business and the Enterprise -- Project Management and Organizational Maturity -- Project Management in Small Business Using Microsoft Project Desktop Client -- Enterprise Project Portfolio Management with Project Server on SharePoint.

Initiating and Managing Projects Using the Microsoft Project Desktop Client -- Effective Work Scheduling and Resource Planning with Microsoft Project Desktop -- Collaborative Work Management: Integrating to SharePoint -- Visual Reporting from Project to Excel for Charting, Graphing, and Pivot Analysis -- Project 2010 Moving Closer to Agile Planning -- Being an Effective Enterprise Project Manager Using Microsoft Project Server -- Initiating and Managing Projects -- Enabling Cultural Adoption and Ease of Use for End Users -- Fluent Project Management Using the Fluent UI: Introducing the Ribbon -- Frontstage and Backstage to Create the Optimal Work Management Tool -- Customizing Is as Easy as Right Click/Left Click -- Tabs that Empower the Business User -- Quickly Find and Present Information -- More Effective Options to Update and Share and Connect Information -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- Key Summary Points -- References -- 6: Thinking Local, Going Social: Project Teams Can Thrive Using Microsoft Project Server 2010 -- In This Chapter -- Project Management Looking Ahead -- PPM as a Critical Part of the Business -- Collaborative Project Management: Avoid Negative Project Momentum -- PPM Lifecycle -- Creating Business Value through Project Management Processes -- Successful Project Management Leads to Portfolio Leadership -- Expanded PPM Lifecycle -- PPM Kiss of Death: Making Decisions with a Lack of Interrelated Data -- Adopting the PPM Lifecycle as a Component of the Business Lifecycle -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- 7: Better Together: Microsoft Project 2010 Worksites Using SharePoint Server 2010 -- In This Chapter -- Integration of Collaboration, Social Media, and Project-Related Information -- Project Management as Practitioners Want It -- Dynamic Worksites and Collaborative Workspace -- Project Team Discussion.

SharePoint Server 2010 Offers Critical Business Capabilities -- Search Capabilities Meeting Business User Needs -- Advanced Workflows without Needing Deep Programming Abilities -- Leverage Integrated Communities to Build and Manage Knowledge Assets -- Collecting Information from Multiple Sources -- Being Social in a Project Environment -- Social Computing and Communication -- Business Users and Their Customized Pages -- Active Updating as Users Can Tag and Rate Content -- Creating Highly Connected Teams through Alerts and Notifications -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- 8: Effective Transition of Strategy and Execution: Program Management Using Microsoft Project Server 2010 -- In This Chapter -- Projects Are the "How," Programs Are the "Why" -- What Is the Purpose of the PMO? -- What Are the Challenges of the PMO? -- Information Management -- Information Content -- Communications Skills -- Accuracy -- Other Considerations -- Holding It Together -- Program Collaboration Means Business Results -- Project Manager Empowerment -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- References -- 9: Intelligent Business Planning and Controlling Using Microsoft Project 2010 -- In This Chapter -- Understanding Strategic Planning with Project Server -- What Is Strategy and Strategic Planning? -- Importance of Strategic Planning -- Linking Strategy to Performance -- Creating and Managing Portfolio Lifecycle for Project Server -- Portfolio Lifecycle -- Portfolio Lifecycle Governance and Workflow -- Planning for the Portfolio Lifecycle -- Understanding and Building Business Drivers -- Value of Using Business Drivers -- Defining Business Drivers -- Using Project Server to Master Demand Management -- Value of Demand Management -- Planning for Demand Management -- Enterprise Custom Field Entities -- Project Detail Pages -- Workflow Stages -- Workflow Phases.

Building Project Selection Criteria -- Project Dependencies -- Prioritizing Projects and Reviewing Priorities -- What the Efficient Frontier Is and How to Use It -- Understanding and Using the Efficient Frontier -- Analyzing Cost Scenarios -- Working with Constraints in Portfolio Planning -- Cost Constraints -- Resource Constraints -- Creating and Running Multiple Scenarios for Portfolio Planning -- Creating Multiple Scenarios -- Applying Strategic Analysis for Corporate to Departmental Needs -- Using Custom Fields in Strategic Analysis -- Committing New Work Portfolios and Measuring for ROI -- Managing Scenarios -- Commit a Portfolio Analysis -- Measuring for ROI -- Project Server Optimizing Governance for PMOs -- Enable the Strategic Role of a PMO -- PMO Governance -- Collaboration Infrastructure -- PMO Competencies -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- References -- 10: Intelligent Business Planning and Reporting Using Microsoft Project 2010 -- In This Chapter -- What Is Dynamic Reporting . . . -- Slicing, Dicing, Drill Up/Down, and Pivot -- Project Server 2010 Cubes -- Creating Easy-to-Access Reporting in Project Server/SharePoint BI -- BI Center and PerformancePoint Services -- SQL Server Reporting Services -- Excel and Excel PowerPivot -- If You Like Dashboards, Wait Until You See PerformancePoint -- Business Users Can Run What-Ifs -- Collaborative Business Intelligence -- Extending Reporting -- Important Concepts Covered in This Chapter -- Index.