The Project Management Office (PMO) is one of the main beneficiaries of PD-Trak’s project management, portfolio management and resource management functions. The system provides the PMO with a central, unified view of all planned and active projects, their status, and their resource requirements allowing project and resource overload predicted and managed.
Project Portfolio Planning tools enable the PMO to support the organization with evaluating and determining project priorities, plan a proposed portfolio, and then test the portfolio against planned resources.
Common Project Processes are defined in PD-Trak which enables a consistent approach to how Project Managers and project personnel execute projects. We provide best practices-based process templates that facilitate the development of an efficient process for various kinds of products and processes. A well-defined, standard process ensures consistent performance of key process steps and deliverables and enables rapid project start-up since personnel from each supporting functional department will know what is expected of them.
Resource Planning and Management or capacity planning capabilities allow a high-level project resource plan to be quickly developed in an early stage while a project is initially being investigated. Resource demand planning can be refined as the project plan is further developed either within PD-Trak or within Microsoft Project® which integrates with PD-Trak. A multi-project resource plan can then be readily assessed and project priorities, schedules, and resources adjusted as needed. This is key to preventing resources from becoming overloaded and, as a result, project schedules falling behind.
Microsoft Project® Integration with this popular project planning and scheduling tool enables project managers to work with a tool that they are familiar with while integrating with the additional project management and multi-project resource planning capabilities of PD-Trak.
Project Statusing is supported at the task level and at the project level. Task status can be updated within PD-Trak or within Microsoft Project® and notifications sent to task owners and Project Managers. Project status can be easily reported to provide visibility to the PMO, functional managers and executive management.
Expanded Project Management Tools include detailed project budgeting, risk management, and action item tracking. Risk management is an often overlook, but critical activity. PD-Trak facilitates this with a risk identification and risk management tool with common pre-defined risks which can be tailored to the organization and then easily used by a project team to identify and manage risks.
Pipeline Management functions enable the PMO to monitor resources and launch new projects only when resources become available thereby avoiding overloading the project pipeline. Pipeline monitoring enables the organization to initiate projects with a steady cadence avoiding rolling bottlenecks, a key practice of lean product development.