Project Planning & Maint Headaches

[lhedrick]

Hello All, My company has been using workfront since last October. There is a lot that we really like about the project but there are a few things we don't. What we don't like really doesn't have much to do with workfront as a tool but something I have faced using other products as well. We currently have a number of templates which are mainly setup using a waterfall process. I would be very interested in hearing how others might have solved the problems below. We are looking for an easier way to setup and maintain our project plans because many of these templates have 100 or 200 tasks, or more. As an example, we use phases Information Architecture Content UX UI development We then have rounds per phase (3 rounds usually), then within each round we might have the following tasks Design Internal review of design revisions of design based on internal review QA QA revisions QA check client review. So, 7 steps per round for each phase. So, with there being 5 phases with 3 rounds x 7 steps, we have, in this example, 105 tasks. Even though we have templates that have all of this laid out, there is still a tremendous amount of setup needed for each specific type of project because they are all unique. (dates, planned hours, assignments (internal as well as contractors), allocations, etc.... for the 105 tasks in the example above) We are a very date dependent agency and we setup internal reviews, QA, client reviews on specific dates. What I am getting at, is the project manager spends a lot of time building schedules and keeping the schedules up to date so the team (full time internal/ contractors) know what is going on and when. And, as soon as they get the schedule back in alignment, it is already out of date and more maintenance needs to take place. The reason we have been using workfront in this manner is in thinking it will help everyone on the team know when the internal reviews are happening so they can have their work ready, so they know when QA needs to happen, so the QA person knows when something is coming to them and so we know when we have to have everything ready for the next client review. Logically this all makes sense at a high level, but on a practical level there are way too many administrative tasks the project managers have to do on a daily basis to keep it all relevant and accurate. It is too burdensome for the project managers who might be managing 8-12 projects at a time. I wanted to see if anyone out there might have heard or know a better way to work within workfront that will help our project manager setup and maintain their project plan, let staff know when certain activities need to happen (QA and Reviews) and allow our Account team to know when to plan client review, and can be provided to our clients so they know what is going on as well. Any and all thoughts would be greatly appreciated. thanks Layne Layne Hedrick Somnio

[VicAl]

Are you using predecessors on your tasks? If not, they could help. Then the PM only has to update one task (or a couple) in a particular project and the rest should cascade into place if there's movement in the dates. You can include the preds in the templates. For your visibility problem, you can create a Dashboard with reports on: Tasks Completed Last Week – Allows you to discuss items recently closed (if you want) Tasks Scheduled for This Week (and any past due tasks) – Let's you know what you should be working on this week Open Issues – Allows you to see ALL the Issues Open Issues That Were Updated Last Week – Allows you to discuss updates on the Issues Risks Change Requests It's something we use on each project in a weekly status meeting, but you can use it across multiple projects or slice and dice it however you want to meet your needs. The Reporting in Workfront is quite powerful. Hope that helps a little. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | IT | Sr. IT Project Manager Denver Water | t: (303-628-7262) | c: (303-319-6473) "http://www.denverwater.org/"> http://www.denverwater.org INTEGRITY | VISION | PASSION | EXCELLENCE | RESPECT

[BenettaPe]

My suggestion is the same as Vic's. We use predecessor's heavily as well as dashboards and reports - to alert others when a task they own need to happen. Benetta Perry APS

[BarryBu2]

You say there are usually 3 rounds per phase, but indicate there might be more or less. Is part of the problem a lot of adding/deleting rounds within the phases? One approach is to create a template that only has the 'round' tasks - no queue topics (I can't stress this enough), sharing etc. Just tasks. Since you can attach multiple templates to a project, the PM's can be trained to add as many rounds as they need, rather than start with 5 phases of 3 round per phase with 7 tasks per round. It's horses for courses. If 99% of your projects have 3 rounds per phase then this would probably be more work rather than less. Barry Buchanan Work Management Australia

[JimBr1]

We too make heavy use of templates with predefined task lists including predecessors. We also drive all the Project Owners to ensure that added tasks have predecessors. All that being said where we have trouble maintaining the schedule is when an a task assignee requests a new commit date (typically in the future of course) and the impact that has (or not) on the project schedule Here is what we see.....When the PM accepts the change, the 'planned' complete date changes but the planned start date does not. This is particularly irksome for tasks that are in 'new' status as the expected duration for the task has not changed - nor the planned work - but the reality is that the task assignee is signalling thru their commit date change that 'I won't be starting OR finishing per the current schedule. In WorkFront the commit date change becomes a MFB date lock with no change to the planned start date. For any dependent tasks (SS in particular) their planned start date is also not impacted. The net net is that changing the commit date does not change the planned start date for a task in new status nor for any dependent tasks. This causes all sorts of you are late emails which degrades and devalues the purpose of the whole notification system and in general makes the exec stakeholders angry that 'everything is late' because the system is so 'scheduled start' driven. Sorry for the rant of sorts - but I would be curious to know if anyone has figured out how to 'automagically' have the planned start date change for tasks whose commited (really planned but let's not go there) complete date has moved. The PM can fix the 'schedule start date' via a multistep manual process but I want the PMs to manage the work - not manage the tool. Jim Brown FujiFilm Medical Systems, USA

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Jim, Our UberCalc solution could relieve your PM's commit date headaches: it can automatically reset the commit dates to the (PM') planned start dates. "http://store.atappstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/SynchronizeCommitDates.png">http://store.atappstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/SynchronizeCommitDates.png "http://store.atappstore.com/product/ubercalc/#1">http://store.atappstore.com/product/ubercalc/#1 Regards, Doug

[MarieKe1]

We do as Vic relayed we have dashboards that include many of the items listed (Project & Portfolio level). Though, recently we have been encountering problems with our dashboards. Since we have been with Workfront almost 3 years & have increased our use across the organization, our data in the system has grown. Now our dashboards are having performance issues - slower & slower to pull up. I worked with Workfront & they relayed that it related to the number of reports on our dashboards & the way that Workfront pulls in data for the reports. Ex: Our Project level dashboard includes a task report which pulls in tasks scheduled to complete in the next 7 days, so we can see what is coming next. The way that Workfront currently pulls in the data is that it will first pull in ALL tasks in the system that are scheduled to be completed in the next 7 days AND THEN it narrows it down to the specific project. This initial pulling is what is causing our performance because we have many projects, and then so many tasks that may complete in the next 7 days. We are still trying to figure out how to make this work for us, we could make multiple dashboards but that really defeats our goal of the 'one-stop-shop' for our teams & leaders. Workfront has relayed that to change how it pulls data would be a major change in their application. (Ex: Narrow first to project & then tasks.) Marie Kelly The MetroHealth System

[lhedrick]

The templates also already have roles assigned and we can therefore go into "People" and swap out a role for a person which is awesome. Even with all of that, maintaining so many project plans on a daily basis can be time consuming. I guess the main reason is the allocations for resources on a project. We are a smaller agency and because of that, if one project moves, timing might conflict with another because our staff work on so many projects at the same time. So, someone having 8 hours today might only have 2 tomorrow and if the project schedule shifts by a day, we can't just always give them 8 hours the next day when they only have 2 so the project manager would have to go into the schedule and reduce their allocation to only allow for 2 hours and then the activity that was supposed to have a duration of 1 day might now have a duration of 4 days (2 hours each day). That then might conflict with other projects, people, etc... This is all in hopes of being able to truly use our bandwidth (utilization report) showing hours assigned to projects throughout the week to see who is light or who is heavy so other project work can be assigned. Does that make sense. As far as reports go, yes, everyone has a dashboard showing tasks today, tasks this week, tasks next week and tasks that are in trouble. thanks again. Layne Hedrick Somnio

[MarieKe1]

Rounds / Cycles: Our Creative Services team has projects with various cycles also. They may have a cycle from their team, to the vendor, to the customer & to a lead - and it repeats multiple times. They always need to know where they are in each cycle. The complexity of the project/initiative determines how many cycles. An organizational wide brochure may go through 5 cycles, but a repetitive, department specific brochure may need only 2 cycles. We tried a few different ways to handle this & the below is what works for us. We rely strongly on templates & have one for each type of project. For each project template, we have built in parent tasks for each cycle ,and each cycle has all the steps required. We include the most cycles that they expect. Once the Project Owner gets the project, based on their experience, they can usually determine how many cycles to expect. They then delete the parent task cycles that they don't need. The key is that we build the cycles & set up the predecessors so that even if one cycle is deleted, the project still flows properly - the PM does not have to adjust predecessors. (We have multiple predecessors at the task & parent level.) One of the reasons we do it this way is that most PM's find that copying/duplicating tasks within a project is not easy. It is much easier to 'delete' a parent cycle, than to duplicate or add an additional parent cycle. . Note: We also have Milestones assigned for each cycle, which allows us to track/compare project cycles with project length. We have a Milestone report on the Project Dashboard, so that our team/leaders can see progress at a Milestone level. Also, we do handle our Creative Services templates differently than others. Usually our templates have job role assignments and the PM adds the assigned user. Since in this instance, some tasks are always (or 90% of the time) assigned to the same person, we do have a named user assigned in the template. This saves our Creative Services PM time. I know they could bulk edit assignments, but anything I can do as an Admin to make their job easier - I do. Marie Kelly The MetroHealth System

[JenniferGu]

Layne, I saw your comment about swapping out people for roles under People tab if roles are assigned in the template. I tried that out, as we have roles assigned in our templates as well; however, no roles showed up under People. The only listings were actual people. What am I missing? It would absolutely make life easier if I could swap a person for a role once and not update every task assigned to that role. Thanks, Jen Jennifer Gulledge Elkay Manufacturing Company Inc

[VicAl]

FYI you can place that Dashboard under a custom tab in your project and it'll automatically filter to just look at that project. Just something I found pretty cool. Vic Alejandro, PMP, CSM | Senior IT Project Manager Denver Water | t: 303-628-7262 | c: 303-319-6473 Http://www.denverwater.org Sent via mobile phone

[melindal3825541]

When your Workfront processes start to feel like spaghetti, I strongly recommend getting a set of outside eyes to review your overall process and plans. As much as I love giving out quick advice to the community, I need to see the whole environment to make big changes. I've done several of these system analysis sessions and they have great net value to the business whether it's through dashboard and report redesign, template changes or introduction of new integrations. CapabilitySource has also built an application and integration platform for handling frequent issues that we've seen with our enterprise customers such as building out campaigns with numerous assets, resource assignments and sharing information with other systems. For more information please check out this video: https://www.screencast.com/t/CwJO9XzdTe -- Melinda Layten, Senior Consultant Work Management Improvement CapabilitySource Phone: (484) 505-6855 site: www.capabilitysource.com email: melinda.layten@capabilitysource.com - we simplify your work so you can run your business -

[lhedrick]

Hello Jennifer, First, please understand this is how we figure it out but there might be a better way. So, if we want to be able to swap a user for a role here is what we do. First, on the project itself, it seems the only person that can do this is the person listed as the resource manager. So you need to go into each project or set it up in your templates who this person will be. I have 1 person assigned in the templates but then also put the project manager's name in there once the project is assigned. So we have 2 names in the Resource Manager field on the project details page. By doing this, either person can do the swap. We have found that if you don't have anyone's name in there, the project will not allow you to make the swap. Then, I click on "People" along the top navigation bar and then on the sub bar, I click on Scheduling. Once there, you should see the Filter and Swap buttons just underneath the sub bar. I then click on Swap. If I am listed as the resource manager on the project details page (see above), I should see in my list of projects drop down the project I want to change. If you don't see it, you might not be listed as the resource manager. I then select the project and right underneath there are 3 choices (radio buttons), Assign User, Swap User, and Unassign User. If no assignments have yet been made and I want to trade out the assigned role, from the template, to a real user, I select assign user. If assignments have been made and I want to trade out one resource for another I will select swap user, and if I want to unassign a lot of tasks for one user I select unassign user. Once I select assign user, I move to the 2 drop down fields underneath the 3 radio buttons mentioned above. In the first drop down, I can select the role I want to assign. Once selected, I can move to the 2nd drop down field, "Select user to Assign." This field will be populated based on the role assigned to specific users in your system. If someone is not showing up, you can look to make sure they are assigned to that role. If they are assigned to that role and still are not showing up, it means they are already allocated fully to other projects. Anyway, once you select the role and then select the user you want to swap for the role, you click assign. After that, you should get a notice for how many tasks that user was just assigned throughout the project schedule. Pretty fast. Layne Hedrick Somnio