It is essential to align reporting to a decision maker’s span of control and his or her decision-making cycle. Once performance information is obtained, there is a big difference between what a CIO or PMO Director needs to see versus a Project Manager. It is crucial for PMOs to report information on the proper granular level – and at the necessary frequency – for the PMO to be impactful.
Get to know your audience’s reporting needs and frequency.
The major players in the PMO process demand different data at various intervals.
- Project Managers
Managing all the details, project managers have a limited span of control and an even more limited bandwidth to manually gather information related to their projects. They need timely, on-demand reports that present key metrics – enabling them to supervise staff and monitor quality. Their focus is on project-level budgets, schedules, resources, and risk metrics. This information enables them to make better decisions.
- Program Managers
A step removed from the project level, program managers strive to meet strategic objectives by managing interconnecting or related projects. They need weekly reports that allow them to move resources across projects, ensuring timely, profitable results. Their focus is on program planning, change/risk management, project delivery, and results measurement.
- Portfolio Managers
At a broader organizational level, portfolio managers prioritize and commission projects with the strategic goals of the enterprise in mind. They need monthly reports that display all projects, whether complementary or not, so that they can decide how to best allocate funding among them. Their focus is on benefits realization, governance, resource utilization, and risk assessment.
- Executives
Executives maintain the strategic direction of the organization by monitoring which projects are pointing them towards their goals – and which aren’t. They need monthly reports that summarize data relevant to the business’ vision. Their focus is on overall investment, benefits realization, and strategic alignment with business objectives at an enterprise level.
- Resource Managers
In many large enterprises, Resource Managers assist all the key players in prioritizing, distributing, and balancing resources in order to meet the strategic needs of their projects, programs, and portfolios.
Hammerhead simplifies reporting with role-centric dashboards.
Projility built Hammerhead to work in conjunction with Microsoft Project Server and their cloud-based PPM solution, Microsoft Project Online. By giving users pre-designed, best-practice metrics that they can leverage from day one, clients can filter their dashboards to provide the level of data that they need.
Role-based visibility allows decision makers at every level to precisely govern what they need to govern. Custom enterprise information can even be pulled into reports for extended portfolio analytics. Pre-built reports guarantee that decision makers see the critical data that they need to see, enabling them to make strategic choices that will benefit the enterprise.
Timely and accurate reports equal informed decisions.
When concise, relevant reports are aligned with business objectives – and delivered when they are needed – decisive actions can be taken. Reporting is one of the most important deliverables of a PMO because it serves as the PMO’s method for communication. Hammerhead provides an easy, fool-proof way to align reports with decision makers – allowing for effective project governance across the enterprise.
Projility provides expert solutions for effective change. We offer enterprise portfolio and project management solutions based on Microsoft Project Server and Project Online, with tailored dashboard reporting, analytics, and decision-making tools via our Hammerhead technology. Projility also implements professional services automation systems established on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Project Service, and presents cloud-based strategies, migrations, and hosting solutions through Microsoft Azure. Contact us for more information.
