With all the PMOs we work with month in and month out, one surprising trend has emerged. Almost none are relying on their ERP system for project cost control. Come again? Aren’t ERP systems designed to control costs? Aren’t they the source of record for all things financial in a company? To this former CFO, they certainly should be! Instead, we find client after client using excel spreadsheets to track planned and actual project expenses. And our Daptiv clients are using Daptiv applications to the same purpose.
So – why are these PMOs (both IT and non-IT, btw) using unofficial and sometimes kludgy tools to manage project finances when the source of record is readily available? Turns out there are two main causes of these “workaround” financial systems.
. . .assigning people to projects. I’ll admit, the traditional view of resource management is finding the right resources for your project. But how often does that turn into a fight for scarce resources? How often are projects approved and activated, but as the PM looks for people they aren’t available?
So, that would lead us to actually doing some resource planning! Many organizations will start charting out their resource needs by role during the initiation phase, giving them a head start on finding available resources. Let’s see, I need a PM full-time, 20 hours a week of a DBA, another 20 of a programmer, and so on. Of course, I’m already knee-deep into serious analysis work on the project, and may have already tapped out all the business analysts with all this initiation work going on. So, role planning is not the most important element of resource management.
