Become One with PS+ and Project Online

This blog series explains how PS+ helps people be effective as shown by Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The sixth habit, to Synergize, says we find strength when we learn to collaborate. Just as geese leverage the efforts of one leader for the easier flight of the flock, users of PS+ and Project Online, no matter the role, and with little effort or training, follow the path of someone with deep project management experience built-in to an easy-to-use solution designed to deliver very productive results.

Synergy consists of getting bigger and better results from combined efforts than could be accomplished by either party alone. PS+ takes advantage of the best project management functionality on the market in the form of Microsoft Project put in to the Cloud (or on-premises with Project Server) and enhances it with intuitive means of tracking project details easily.

Some ways Project Online and PS+ combine to produce better results together include:

• PS+ Reports: Each task and resource has hundreds of data fields associated with them and the built-in, out of the box PS+ Reports leverages those to produce Highlight Reports, S-curve Reports, Pie Charts, and several other report types.
• PS+ Navigator: Combine efficiency with knowledge of Project Online infrastructure and the result is the PS+ Navigator, an easy-to-use tool that helps users jump directly where they want to go inside PWA.
• PS+ Dependency and PS+ Sequencer: When working with related projects in a coordinated manner in order to achieve benefits not otherwise possible, use the PS+ Sequencer to create unique IDs for each project in the program. PS+ Dependency creates and manage links between tasks in separate project schedules. Never create a Master Project again unless you want to!
• PS+ Milestone Gantt: Simplify portfolio or program schedules to a single view that shows not only the overall duration of each included schedule, but also the significant events during each timeline relative to today!

A rising tide floats all boats and PS+ helps raise the water level for every role in your organization. Synergize today by signing up for a risk-free PS+ subscription now so you and your team can benefit from purposeful and powerful collaboration with PS+ without further delay!

Use PS+ to Put First Things First

This blog series explains how PS+ helps people be effective as shown by Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Effective people prioritize properly, something that Covey describes with the third habit, to Put First Things First, which he sums up by telling us “not to prioritize our schedules, but to schedule our priorities.” PS+ makes it easy to track our priorities and the progress made (or not) in accomplishing them.

Several functions in out-of-the-box Microsoft Project Online highlight priorities, such as with Portfolio Analyses at the macro level, and critical path analysis at the micro, but these are not the easiest to use or understand immediately. PS+ helps put first things first with additional tools that don’t come standard with Microsoft Project Online but do with PS+.

Some of these tools are:

• PS+ Resource Forecast Report – since you need people to do projects, people should be a top priority! Look into the future of a project, a program, or the whole portfolio and see not only the resources with the biggest workloads but also which ones cost the most or have the most available capacity over time.
• PS+ Risk Matrix – identify the number of riskiest risks with the biggest potential for trouble before they happen with the click of a button! Vivid color-coded charts show how many risks to address immediately to remedy the chance of catastrophe, the impact if it happens, or both…
• PS+ Project Dashboard – click one link and instantly see all project schedule and quality statuses in a Red-Amber-Green tabular metric. Look for the projects with red on both, look for the programs with the most troubled projects and get to those first!
• PS+ Dependency App – how freakin’ easy do you want someone to make it to create dependencies between projects? Pick what project and milestone comes first (and second), click one button (again with the one button – sensing a theme?) and set a relationship just like that! Literally put first things first, then see the results in the PS+ Dependency Report.

First things first means you don’t have to do everything – but you do have to pay attention to the most important and least urgent tasks like planning before doing. Put first things first, sign up for a risk-free PS+ subscription today, and get planning productively with ease today!