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New P3e/c for Construction!

13 replies [Last post]
Fri, 2002-10-25 11:16
Mohamed Gebriel
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Cheer up everyone!

Primavera has announced its latest P3e/c, a new version of P3e for construction projects.

I havent had the time to throughly look at all its capabilities, but initially its bringing most of the things weve missed from the original P3 plus a heavily customized sw dedicated for construction projects. This could be a serious turnover for all planners which the majority of them do work for construction.
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Wed, 2005-05-04 16:21
#1
Niek Zonneveld
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As Alex already pointed out, the world moves on, so comparing P3e/TeamPlay/P3c/IT Project Office (all the same product suite) with a single windows scheduling package developed in the 80’s, is not making a lot if sense.

In terms of raw scheduling capabilities you’ll probably still find some features in P3 that are now yet available in the Project Management module but that is comparing one area of one product with just one module out of an entire product suite.

The enterprise product suite targets a much bigger spectrum than ’just’ scheduling, like: resource management, risk management, issue management, document management, time tracking, collaboration, workflow, portfolio management, methodology management, integration with SAP and HR systems, etc. etc. etc. Basically, this is a project management information system and that should not be confused with a scheduling package.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against P3, I still love it, and it took me quite some time to define a Gantt layout in TeamPlay PM that looks like a ’classic’ P3 layout.

As for the MS Project 2003 capabilities in the portfolio and enterprise space: Microsoft is relying on a combination of MS Project, SQL Server, SharePoint Portal Server, Project (central) Server, Exchange, Active Directory, Outlook and OLAP cubes to do what Primavera is offering since 1998.

If you assign a resource to a summary task it will show up in your project budget but not in your resources’ timesheet. If you open a project, it locks the entire project file. It still relies on the same feeble mechanism to create project interdependencies. I.e. this is a good attempt to bring a single user desktop product to the workgroup but it needs a drastic architectural redesign to be of any use in an enterprise.

Again, don’t get me wrong; the turnover of MS Project alone would bring Microsoft in the top 10 software vendors.

Hope this help to place things into (my) perspective.

Niek.

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Sun, 2005-05-01 20:26
#2
Alex Wong
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Brennan and planners

As I mentioned that the need to have planners for major project still valid... However, is major projects are forever? Do you find more competition in the market? Do planner do want to move on to a higher position and skill?

At the end of the day, in average my guess is only 10%-30% of projects consider as major project and have planner in place for project management and that means 70% - 90% of projects are not managed properly. What the company usually do is group a similar projects together and employ someone look after it (That is portfolio management) because not many company uses portfolio management to manage its little projects and the opportunity is Hugh for schedulers, project manager to further their career.

To effectively manage a portfolio requires an additional set of skill on top of project management. That concept endorsed by PMI’s PM Structure
Project Director
Portfolio Manager
Program Manager
Project Manager
To move up the ladder PM have to learn these skill - I guess its same for planner. Of course I know that in a major project environment you will argue that its a multi-project environment, but all of the little components contribute to a same outcome and goal.

But in a portfolio, each project and program might have a very different driver and goals, how to balance between all these factors, making decision, schedule portfolio is the key to portfolio management success.

Remember P3e is only a tool, people and knowledge is more important, however, if more and more company move to portfolio management to manage their smaller projects, and deploying P3e or MSP as the tool, can we survive (most likely we can) can we improve our skill, move to higher position (properly very limited). I am not talking about individual, but the profession.

I am not pro P3e, but its a tools that help us manage portfolio, thats why I endorse it. There might be other tools that help manage portfolio, who care as long as I know what to look for when I need a tool to manage, schedule, and analysis a whole set of portfolios.

Good luck and keep planning!

Alex

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Fri, 2005-04-29 02:37
#3
Brennan Westworth
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Yes a good response indeed Alex,

Don’t get me wrong, I can see the benefits of P3e and portfolio management.

But I also think your view that single project focused planners being obsolete in the future is not true.

On a large project you have a single lead planner and sometimes many planners working for him/her to keep the project on track. True, from an enterprise point of view this project will be one of many and a system that can report uniformly across them all is invaluable.

But for me, as a planner I get the greatest satisfaction out of being able to actively affect the outcome of a project and from being a valuable member of the project management team.

As you will know from our previous work together, I can think of nothing worse that becoming a "project reporter" that has little or no effect on the outcome of a project.

I think the key with portfolio management is good procedures, followed dutifully by ALL in the organisation. That way the enterprise system can sit almost invisibly behind the project planner to deliver the enterprise wide reporting.

(by the way Alex... I just noticed that when you reply to this you will clock up your 200th post!!! congratulations :D)
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Fri, 2005-04-29 02:02
#4
Puneet Gupta
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Thanks Alex
You have given us a wonderful explanation.

Regards
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Fri, 2005-04-29 01:09
#5
Alex Wong
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Dear Planners,

I can see, a lot of you are still sitting in the box and thinking the date when P3 is obsolete will never comes. Guess again, its closer and closer than you think. Companies now looking for not only Project Management but also Portfolio Management. P3 is a great tool for Project Management but now the world moves on, Portfolio management is getting the CEO’s attention. Even MSP can do Portfolio Management. If we all sit in our box and thinking who need Portfolio management, wrong again. PMI is very much focus on the development of Portfolio Management. What tools can help Portfolio Management ... P3e or MSP. So make your choice or make your switch... or waiting to be obsoleted.

We are the planners, we should be better than everyone else looking in to the future. Yes there are teething problem in P3e, but you also start to see company gaining so much more benefits from the concept of Portfolio Management. However, one down side I can see why scheduler is so opposed to the idea of Portfolio Management... because once you deploy the system to the lower level, where everyone can create, update and maintain their own little schedule, why do we still need Schedulers.

But the clever scheduler will move themself up and give expert advice on scheduling, analysis portfolio, create portfolio template, prepare portfolio report ... - then becomes a portfolio scheduler. And of course we still need scheduler for major projects.

So its all up to us to take this opporturnity and move to something bigger and better. Just a remark about P3e, Version 5 will be the best time to migrate ever with all the additional functions that we been looking for, even some of the function is not availiable in P3 like "undo"

All the best my dear planners

Regards

Alex
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Thu, 2005-04-28 06:07
#6
Mohamed Gebriel
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Hi Puneet,

The tracking layouts have been there since P3e was first introduced. For years now they have been used. It is unfair to question its functionality without really giving up on trying to work with them. At the end you shall be able to create and customize all the graphical reports you need. It just take stime for adaptation.

Cheers,
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Thu, 2005-04-28 02:03
#7
Puneet Gupta
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Ya all these features are available in Version 4 as claimed by Primavera but do they really work???

I faced these problems in 3.5.1 & also in 4.1....
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Thu, 2005-04-28 00:08
#8
Sameh Wagih
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Hi there,
I believe in a TRAKING module you will find the most usable graphic report to use, & also there is a period close out in P3ec.ver 4.x; find it in TOOLS menu bar
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Wed, 2005-04-27 22:03
#9
Brennan Westworth
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yeah i think the previous two posts have summed it up.

P3e is a good start, but there is a lot of work required to get it anywhere near good enough.

A lot of large companies are starting to migrate towards P3e (Woodside here in Oz being a recent convertee) lets let them fund the development of P3e
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Wed, 2005-04-27 08:38
#10
Puneet Gupta
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P3 e/c -> No graphical reports avalable.
No period close out....
Reporting is better in P3v3

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Wed, 2005-04-27 05:46
#11
Urva Sudhir Kumar
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Hi there!!

the good thing about p3ec is that it accomodates "intermediate splits in activity", and top down budgeting. also WBS has real meaning as compared to p3. multi project enviornement with resorce sharing is indeed a revolutionary change, and the software is cost effective too.

Sudhir Urva
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Wed, 2005-04-27 00:53
#12
Brennan Westworth
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Dont get too excited about it... despite the marketing primavera puts out there, IMHO P3 (3.1) is still a better tool for actual project planning and critical path analysis
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Wed, 2005-04-27 00:34
#13
Sameh Wagih
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Hi GODO,
It was a long time ,
Hope to here about you soon,
Sameh
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