Project management involves organizing various aspects of a project, including workers and departments, budgets and resources, and forecasts and invoices. Tools and technology used to facilitate projects can be essential in completing projects on time and within budget. Dynamics AX project management offers the perfect mix of tools and applications to simplify and streamline the complex process of project management.
Why is Comprehensive Project Management Important?
Efficient project management ensures proper expectations are set around what can be delivered, by whom, in what time, and for how much. Comprehensive project management helps ensure that the project is being delivered as expected and is driving real value by:
- Bringing direction to projects
- Ensuring accurate goal setting
- Enabling proper project planning, resource estimation, allocation, budgeting, and implementation
- Helping companies put robust risk and change management practices in place
- Facilitating continuous oversight for tracking project progress
6 Key Challenges of Project Management
A large fraction of enterprise projects fail; not because of organizational or team incompetence, but due to the absence of robust project management. Since every project is comprised of several complex aspects, inefficient project management fails to address several of the challenges that are present, for instance:
1. Planning
The success of any project depends largely on how well it has been planned. Proper goal setting and task and resource planning are critical aspects; when goals are not clearly identified, there is possibility of scope creep that can cause the project to extend beyond its intended objectives, and eventually derail. Asking the right questions is important to establish and communicate clear goals from the start and minimize the possibility of scope creep.
2. Organization of All Elements Involved
Enterprise projects usually involve a variety of complex aspects such as planning, scheduling, resource allocation, communication and collaboration, and invoicing. Organizing each aspect while ensuring the project meets the expected quality standards within budget and time is a big challenge most organizations struggle with.
3. Collaboration Across Teams/Workers
Poor communication is one of the biggest challenges that gets in the way of project management. For any project to be a success, it requires constant communication between teams and workers to ensure that everyone is aware of project progress, as well as how each member is contributing. Setting proper communication flows and strategies is essential to keep everyone in the loop.
4. Resource Allocation and Utilization
The best way project goals can be reached is when resources are allocated and utilized in the most optimum manner. However, many project managers struggle with proper resource assignment and scheduling— in fact, 11% of global organizations rarely use resource management practices for resource estimation and allocation— which results in a lack of a clear picture of the work that needs to be done. They also fail to get insight into the project’s progress, which makes it difficult for teams to plan and prepare to achieve project goals. Assigning and scheduling available resources in the most effective and timely manner is also critical to projects success.
5. Budgeting
According to a report by KPMG, only 29% of organizations are likely to deliver projects under budget. No project can move forward without a well-planned and accurately-estimated budget. Since all project tasks are highly dependent on project budgets, the amount of available and planned cash dictates the duration of the project, as well as the number and type of resources to be used. Lack of budgeting experience and miscalculation can cause the entire project to derail. Therefore, understanding the associated costs, preventing unnecessary expenditures and allocating the right amount of budget to every task and resource is critical for project success.
6. Risk Management
Globally, only 26% of companies say they always use risk management practices for their projects. Although every project is vulnerable to a certain degree of risks, what’s challenging for most companies is to identify, assess, and prioritize risks before they become major roadblocks. Poor risk management is a major reason why most projects do not go as planned; understanding the possibility of risks and developing control measures are important when planning on how to deal with them appropriately.
How Dynamics AX Helps Address Project Management Challenges
With most enterprise projects running over budget and overshooting schedules, the need for a robust project management system is indispensable. Dynamics AX project management equips companies with the right tools that help them manage projects from start to finish. The various built-in capabilities help in optimizing processes while simultaneously meeting all project goals. From task prioritization to built-in intelligence, real-time insights to end-to-end visibility – here are 6 ways in which Dynamics AX helps address project management challenges:
1. Assign Tasks Based on Worker Skills and Experience
Most project issues are a result of improper resource allocation. Not anymore. With Dynamics AX, you can assign tasks based on worker skills and experience. Quickly identify the most appropriate resources from a pool and schedule them based on the requirements of the project and/or the skills they possess to ensure optimum deployment. You can set up many different types of attributes for resources and identify and schedule resources with specific skills, certifications, and project experience,
2. Allocate Resources Based on Availability
With Dynamics, you no longer have to worry about the availability of resources. You can search for available resources and assign them to projects where the skills and availability match the requirements and schedules of the projects. Resource-based scheduling allows you to deploy resources efficiently when they are needed; you can also review the capacity of each resource and see if the resource is being adequately scheduled and utilized.
3. Get Visibility into Project Resources
Dynamics AX provides a quick overview of the financial performance of internal and external projects; you can get end-to-end visibility into project resources, worker allocation, and department progress– all at once. Compare resources consumed and revenue earned for each project in real time. Project statements provide a quick snapshot of the progress of a project through a dashboard view. Get the project, activity, and task data you need to drive analysis and reporting.
4. Achieve Accurate and Timely Cost Analysis
Cost analysis is an integral aspect of any project. When it comes to project management, it’s all about costs: fixed costs, direct costs, indirect costs, resource costs, and asset costs. With Dynamics AX, you can get a complete picture of all the costs associated with your project. You can also track time, expense, and travel costs and gather all these costs together to arrive at a sum. Dynamics AX also allows you to calculate and include indirect costs that are usually overlooked – from rent and office supplies to telephone usage and IT support. You can assign indirect costs to your project and choose from a variety of methods for calculating the amount of indirect costs.
5. Define Several Billing Rules for Easy Invoicing
Dynamics AX allows you to define how and when you invoice a customer for the work done on a project. You can define several billing rules and calculate customer invoices based on the requirement: create an invoice before the project starts, when you complete a unit of delivery, when you complete a specified percentage of the project, when a project milestone is reached, with an administrative fee or invoice the customer for the time and materials used.
Achieve Project Goals
A successful project is the outcome of realistic planning and careful execution; it is only when proper expectations are set that you can deliver projects using the optimum number of resources, within the time and budget decided. Consider this: due to poor project performance, organizations are wasting an average of $97 million for every $1 billion invested. With organizations incurring such huge losses, it becomes imperative to adopt a system that helps you to efficiently carry out project tasks and achieve your project goals. Project management in Dynamics AX is built with a host of features and functionalities that address all your project needs, allowing you to manage projects across varied complexity, different company sizes, as well as industry verticals. With several project-related capabilities like assigning tasks based on worker skills and experience, search for workers based on availability, input project requirements as a search feature, visibility into project resources, cost analysis and invoicing – Dynamics AX is all you need to achieve your project goals.
Learn more about how your organization can improve your project management with Dynamics AX.
