Microsoft Case Study

Project 2013 CustomerSolution Case Study

n Case Study

Microsoft Team Gains Centralized Project Views from Any Location with Online Tool

OverviewCompany: MicrosoftCompany Website: www.microsoft.comCompany Size: 102,000 employeesCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: ManufacturingHigh tech and electronics

Company ProfileFounded in 1975, Microsoft is a worldwide leader in software, services, devices, and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft is based in Redmond, Washington.

Business SituationThe Microsoft Infrastructure and Collaboration Services Team needed a centralized project management tool.

SolutionIt deployed Microsoft Project Online to give project managers instant updates on their projects from any location or device.

BenefitsCentralized project managementMobile access to project dataReduced infrastructure maintenance tasks

With Project Online, our project managers have a comprehensive view of their projects and can see project status at a glance. They no longer need to hunt for data or hound people for status reports.Rod Bray, Principal IT Program Manager, Infrastructure and Collaboration Services Team, Microsoft

The Infrastructure and Collaboration Services Team at Microsoft ensures that phone systems, networks, and other technology services work perfectly for Microsoft employees around the world. It recently adopted Microsoft Project Online to give project managers instant updates on all their projects, from any location or device. The team gained more powerful project management capabilities and eliminated the expense of maintaining project management servers.

SituationWith more than 100,000 employees, Microsoft is as large as a midsize city, only its citizens are scattered all over the world. The Infrastructure and Collaboration Microsoft IT organization is responsible for providing infrastructure services such as computer networks and phone systems to hundreds of global offices. Its a huge job for a team of 200 people, who also manage 250 vendors and an annual budget of US$210 million.

The team has steadily advanced its project management capabilities and tools over the years, using Microsoft technologies whenever possible. However, just five years ago, the team struggled to organize and balance the hundreds of projects that it had underway at any one time. We had no centralized way to keep track of projects or to share information, says Rod Bray, Principal IT Program Manager in the Infrastructure and Collaboration Services Team at Microsoft. Employees stored information in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, in SharePoint lists, and in their heads. Our project managers needed to capture all that information and be able to look at their projects across the organization.

In 2010, the team deployed Microsoft Project Professional 2010 and Microsoft Project Server 2010, a sophisticated project and portfolio management tool that project managers used to improve status tracking, gain visibility into work tasks that spanned Microsoft and its vendors, and create consistent reports. However, project managers had to be logged on to the Microsoft corporate network to access their project data, and they also had to enter redundant project datastatus, scope, executive highlights, milestones, risks, and so forthinto a homegrown status tracking tool. Plus, Bray had to maintain the project management infrastructure, which was neither his area expertise nor the most strategic use of his time.

SolutionBetween January and June 2013, Brad Wilde, Principal IT Solution Manager in the Corporate Functions IT group, which provides technology solutions to Microsoft IT, oversaw a pilot program to evaluate Microsoft Project Online. Project Online is a flexible software-as-a-service solution for project portfolio management and everyday work thats delivered through the Microsoft Office 365 suite, a set of cloud-based communications and productivity services. This gives Project Online easy access and native connectivity to Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Lync Online (the Office 356 document sharing and conferencing services, respectively) to provide collaboration and real-time communications. Wildes team quickly and easily customized Project Online with workflows, fields, views, reports, and dashboards needed by the Infrastructure and Collaboration Services Team.

The pilot included a group of 12 employees, with representatives from each of the companys Microsoft IT business units. The pilot focused on participants performing basic project management tasks: creating a new project schedule in Project Online, uploading existing project schedules from Project Server 2010 and other sources, performing schedule management duties such as tracking tasks and resources, populating predefined fields, and generating status reports.

The Infrastructure and Collaboration Services Team was a lead participant in the pilot program. Not only was there a corporate directive to move to the cloud, we were eager to start using Project Online, Bray says. With it, we removed the limitation of having to log on to the corporate network to access project data, and we also eliminated the need to maintain a server infrastructure.

The pilot results were overwhelmingly positive. Employees with basic Microsoft Project Professional and Project Server experience quickly felt comfortable using Project Online, Wilde says. They really liked having all their project information stored in one place and being able to easily share it. They could get to their project data from any location using any deviceWindows Phone, Apple iPhone, anything. And they appreciated how closely Project Online worked with the other Office 365 services, which they were already using.

BenefitsBy embracing Project Online, the Infrastructure and Collaboration Services Team at Microsoft has gained a centralized view of projects, which the team uses to improve accountability and drive project management improvement. Project managers have mobile access to project data, and Bray can turn his attention from maintaining project management infrastructure to supporting project managers.

Centralized Project ManagementProject managers and management now have one place to view all their projects at a glance, whereas before this data was scattered among multiple tools. With Project Online, our project managers have a comprehensive view of their projects and can see project status at a glance, Bray says. They no longer need to hunt for data or hound people for status reports.

One pilot program participant says, I found Project Online to be convenient, collaborative, efficient, and meaningful. Its a one-stop-shop for all my project management activities. Everything I do in Project Online is portable and can be shared; it has a purpose and Im not just capturing data as busywork. Previously, project managers who managed projects in an Excel file had to reenter information into the status tracking tool so that the team could report on it. This involved double or triple data entry. The project site template in Project Online provides people with everything they need to work on projects together.

Another pilot participant adds, I am now able to manage my teams projects in respect to the larger enterprise, because I have access to a lot of information in one central location. By using Project Online, I can see the full picture of whats going onits connected, powerful, and valuable.

Project managers have more visibility into their projects, and with visibility comes greater responsibility. Project managers are able to encourage behaviors that they werent able to address before, such as storing project documents in the right place and updating schedules regularly, Bray says. Its really easy to see if these steps have been performed and that sets us up for greater project compliance rigor.

Access to Project Data from AnywhereAnother significant benefit of Project Online is the ability to access project data from any location or any device. Progress used to stall if a project ran into a problem outside of normal business hours or when a project manager was outside the office, Bray recalls. By moving to Project Online, project managers have continual access to all their project data right from their smartphones. They can now react faster and keep projects moving.

Reduced Infrastructure Maintenance TasksAfter adopting Project Online, the team could retire its homegrown status tracking tool and its on-premises Project Server infrastructure. Project managers have been able to recoup about 7 hours a month, and as an administrator, Ive recouped about 20 hours a month, which is time better spent helping project managers use Project Online even more effectively.

Microsoft Project 2013Project Online is designed to work with Lync, enabling real-time conversation and instant messaging (IM) from a project.

The new Project Server 2013 and Project Online offer flexible solutions for project portfolio management (PPM) and everyday work, delivered either on-premises or as an online service. Enable your workforce to effectively execute with the intended business value to achieve strategic priorities with Project Server 2013. For more flexibility, take your PPM capabilities into the cloud with Project Online subscriptions through Office 365 as an always-up-to-date service with simplified IT management. Project Online and Project Online with Project Pro for Office 365 help your team deliver value from virtually anywhere.

For more information go to:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project

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