Cognitive Effort Changes with Project 2013 Reporting Presentation to PMI-SVC Scheduling Forum November 5 th, 2013

Agenda Introduction Kahneman’s System 1 and 2 Project Pro Reports Project Online oData Excel

Introduction 37 years working 27 years in IT 18 years as a PM 15 years as a consultant 10 years running Sequence

Kahneman’s System 1 and 2: How the brain processes information System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations

Sea slug experiments around memory 2 enzymes with different propagation characteristics simulations Repetition intervals for retention

Huh? The art and science of project management Can a PM have both communication skills AND scheduling skills? Left brained and right brained? Successful project managers always have a combination of vision and follow through that allows them to get shit done.

Cognitive Effort Changes

Avoid Narrow Decisions Too often project decisions are made with too little information substitution will occur if there isn’t enough information, or if it is in the wrong format, How can we connect the executive with the execution? Are we deciding on the project and sacrificing the portfolio?

Project 2013 Reports

Key Points Built in part of Project 2013 Whole new tab Examples: Overviews, Overallocation A few new fields Pivot table-like How do you read this?

Big News? Agile ready

Why Server? Data model Enterprise resource pool Portfolio management Time tracking Workflow & SharePoint Designer support SharePoint

Feature Project OnlinePrivate CloudOn Premise Version Available , 2010whatever Technical Responsibility MicrosoftProject Hosts, others Your IT department SQL Database Access NoPossibleYes OLAP Cube AccessNoPossibleIf you configure it Development Environment NoPossibleIf you build it ScalabilityOn AzureIf you payIf you build it AD IntegrationLikely Separate AD integration possible On your network Project Online vs. Private Cloud or On Premise

Other hosting options Project Hosts BEMO Others Make sure they provide the option for access to OLAP and SQL if you need that

Microsoft BI Stack Excel: Front End SharePoint: Middle Layer SQL Server: Back End

oData: plumbing The Open Data Protocol (OData) enables the creation of HTTP-based data services, which allow resources identified using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) and defined in an abstract data model, to be published and edited by Web clients using simple HTTP messages. OData is intended to be used to expose and access information from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, relational databases, file systems, content management systems, and traditional Web sites.

oData listener Excel 2013

Relationships Excel 2013

PowerView

Data Connection Refresh

Why care? Are projects considered a gain or a loss? Metrics are important if they drive behavior Different levels of management require higher levels of summarization Organizations need different metrics on the path to maturity Guardrails on the highway to hell Project telemetry

What are key metrics? MeasurementWhy do I care? Assignment Units approaching zero or 300% Are the right people contributing to the task? Am I asking too much of them? Monthly availabilityAre my teams ready for more? Excessive or negative slack Is my schedule going to warn me in time of the impact of change? Milestone slippage against baseline Can I optimize my process to get better, faster or cheaper next time? BurndownWill my team deliver? Earned valueWill my cash flow suffice later?

Conclusion Providing data in a recognizable format will help to bridge the cognitive gap and allow managers to make decisions on real data, not substitutions. The devil really IS in the details, but most of the time they are hidden or unintelligible.

Resources oData v3 PDF download Microsoft's Project Site Technet Project Server Forums Kahneman UBS Lecture