Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Finan
ncial Maanagement
Pressure tto reduce or maintain bud dgets is driving sharper scrrutiny of discrretionary spending, and
increases the importannce of effectivvely identifyin
ng and deliveering project p portfolios thaat best align w
with
an organization’s businness strategy and that maxximize returnn on investmeent (ROI). Thiss additional
scrutiny reinforces the
e importance of adopting b best‐practice financial man nagement pro ocesses to
improve ccost and beneefit estimatingg, and effectively tracking cost performmance to ensu ure that each
project is delivered witthin budget aand that the p
portfolio realiizes the foreccasted benefitts. In additionn,
providing project accounting views can be a challenge when ffinancial dataa is spread across multiplee line‐
of‐business (LOB) systeems.
Key challe
enges that orgganizations faace when tryiing to improvve their financcial managem
ment processees
include th
he following:
Standdardizing costt and benefit estimates. A Accurately cappturing realisttic cost and bbenefit estimaates
for prrojects early in their life cyycle helps executives effecttively select pportfolios thaat maximize R ROI
underr varying budget constrain nts. Cost and b mates are a keey variable useed in portfolio
benefit estim
selecttion and also are used to m measure finan ncial perform ance during p project execu ution.
Project accountingg and change e managemen nt. Projects seelected to be included in tthe portfolio n need
to proovide accurate cost accoun nting throughhout the entirre project lifee cycle. Changges in scope oor in
execuution of the project will have an effect o on the overal l project costt and related benefits wheen the
projecct is complete ed.
Financial visibility and insights.. Executives n need reports and views thaat allow them m to assess
financcial performance across th he project life
e cycle. Effect ive analysis o
of financial daata for projectts or
the enntire portfolio
o requires a p powerful, flexxible, and eas y‐to‐use repo orting systemm.
Integrration with LOB systems. Organizations need to be able to quickkly and easily obtain accurate
financcial data from
m appropriate e LOB systemss. Whether thhat informatio on is payroll o
or expense daata
from an accounting system, planning data frrom a businesss case, or acttual project ccosts, the abillity to
integrrate the data into one view w for manage ement and ovversight is crittical to ensuriing that accurrate
financcial information is available when need ded.
The Micro osoft® Enterprrise Project MManagement (EPM) Solutioon helps orgaanizations meeet these
challenges by providing comprehen nsive financial managemennt capabilitiess throughout the life cyclee of a
project, frrom capturingg cost and be enefit estimattes in a busineess case, throough effectiveely tracking co
osts
®
during pro oject executioon. Microsoftt Project Servver 2010 is fleexible and exxtensible, which helps to ensure
that the toolset can be e configured tto meet an orrganization’s specific need ds. Project maanagement offfices
(PMOs) caan use custom m fields to staandardize the e collection off cost data orr take advantaage of Excel 2
2010
®
Web App or Microsoft InfoPath Forms Services to embed poowerful financcial estimate Web parts within
the Projecct Server 2010 business caase infrastructture. Budget and cost reso ources help m managers
effectivelyy track projecct financials aand manage cchange througghout the pro oject life cyclee.
M
Microsoft EPM
M Solution Guiide |1
Capture Cost aand Ben
nefit Estimates
The flexibble business case infrastruccture of Projeect Server 20110 helps standardize the ccollection of ccost
and beneffit data for eaach request to o assess an in
nitiative’s finaancial value. PPMOs can sim
mply add custtom
fields to aan online busiiness case forrm—a Projectt Detail Page,, or PDP; see tthe Demand Management
section—to capture multi‐year costt and benefit values, or em mbed detailed d cost and benefit templattes
within the e business casse using Excel Web App orr InfoPath Forrms Services Web parts (seee Figure 1). After
capturing the data, anaalysts can buiild formulas tto derive mettrics—ROI, Intternal Rate off Return (IRR)), and
so on—to o better understand and co ommunicate aa project’s finnancial value..
M
Microsoft EPM
M Solution Guiide |2
Figure 1. Pro
oject Server 2010 – An Excel Web App Web partt embedded in a project businesss case
Accurately capturing cost and benefit estimates is critical, be cause this data is one of the primary
variables used to assesss and select competing initiatives, meaasure financiaal performance against
baseline in the execution phase, and analyze wh hether the inittiative realizeed the forecassted benefits
when the work is comp pleted.
Cost C
Constrain
nt Analyysis and P
Portfolio
o Selectio
on
For most organizationss, scarcity is aa reality. This means that tthe number o of project requests often
exceeds the organization’s budget aand resource constraints. In uncertain eeconomic tim mes, the
importancce of determiining the right projects to undertake beecomes even more criticall. Project Servver
2010 incluudes a portfolio optimizatiion engine that helps anal ysts model vaarious scenarrios to identiffy the
optimal project portfolio. Using porrtfolio selectio on techniquees, analysts caan run what‐iff analyses under a
variety off cost constraints to recom
mmend projecct portfolios t hat deliver th he maximum ROI, and thatt best
align with
h the organizaation’s busineess strategy (ssee Figure 2). For more infformation aboout optimizinng
portfolio sselection, see
e the Portfolio
o Selection an nd Analytics ssection.
M
Microsoft EPM
M Solution Guiide |3
Figure 2. Pro
oject Server 2010 – Cost Constra
aint Analysis view
w
Track and Rep
port Finaancial Pe
erforman
nce
The Project Server 201 10 governance e workflow coontrols a projject througho out its lifecyclle, and plays a key
®
pporting budgget review an
role in sup nd approval cycles. Microssoft Project PProfessional 2 2010 helps
organizations manage and effective ely track finan
ncial data usinng Budget Reesources, Costt Resources, aand
multiple bbilling rates fo
or a resource:
M
Microsoft EPM
M Solution Guiide |4
includes ccalculations fo
or standard EEVM metrics, such as cost aand schedulee performancee indices, bassed
on planning and actual cost, in addiition to sched
dule fields. Pr oject Professsional 2010 gives the
organization the tools it needs to caapture the original intent oof project cossts in a baseline that can b
be
modified by using chan nge managem ment techniquues.
Project Seerver 2010, buuilt on Microssoft® SharePo
oint® Server 20010, takes addvantage of th he Microsoft
Business IIntelligence (B
BI) platform tto provide an easy‐to‐use and flexible rreporting infrastructure to
o
drive tran
nsparency in pproject financcial performance. Taking a dvantage of tthese powerfful capabilitiees,
managerss can build pro oject‐level reports, and PM
MOs can desiggn dashboard ds to ensure tthat executives
have all th
he informatioon they need to stay in conntrol and to s upport fundin ng decisions ((see Figure 3)).
Figure 3. Pro
oject Server 2010 – Configurablee dashboards
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Microsoft EPM
M Solution Guiide |5
Figure 4. Pro
oject Server 2010 – Project Centter view with KPIIs
Integrration with Finan
ncial Systems
Organizattions need to be able to obbtain accurate e financial daata from the aappropriate LOB systems tthat
are the so
ource of recorrd for financiaal information. The comprrehensive Pro oject Server 2010 API, PSI,
ensures thhat organizations can autoomate the colllection of finnancial data frrom LOB applications to drive
project acccounting view
ws and reporrts.
Organizattions can also take advantaage of Microssoft independdent softwaree vendor (ISV) partner add d‐in
solutions that offer cerrtified integraation with fam
miliar Enterprrise Resourcee Planning (ERRP) systems, ssuch
as those o
offered by SAP. By effectivvely integratin ng the EPM Soolution with ffinancial man nagement systems,
PMOs can n ensure data integrity from the projectt accounting perspective aand allow full reconciliation of
costs and expenses. Th he integration n supports biddirectional daata transfer, eensuring thatt project managers
and financial analysts o
or accountants can effectively share daata while worrking in their p productivity ttools
of choice..
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Microsoft EPM
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Addittional Resource
es
For expan
nded help, ste
ep‐by‐step gu
uides, and video training onn how to get the most of P
Project Server
2010 and the Microsofft EPM Solutio
on, visit Micro
osoft Project .
To learn m osoft EPM Sollution, refer tto the following list of related
more about Project 2010 aand the Micro
links:
Productt informatiion
MSDN Pro
oject 2010 Be
eta
Project 20
010 Blog
Project Te
eam Blog
Interacttive conten
nt ‐ Videoss & Session
ns & Webcaast
Project 20
010 Video Sho
owcase
Enterprise
e Project Man
nagement Microsoft Eventts
Project De
eveloper Center
Microsoftt Office Projecct TechNet
Project Profession
nal 2010 an
nd Project Server 20110 Demo Image:
Download
d
Hosted Viirtual Lab
IT Profe
essional rellated – Tecch Center aat TechNett
Project Se
erver
SharePoin
nt
Project Ad
dministration
n Blog
Develop
per related
d ‐ Develop
per center at MSDN
Project
SharePoin
nt
Programm
mability blog
ons? Project 2010 Fo
Additional questio orums!
Project 20
010