Category: PPO Tips

You have probably noticed that whenever you update items such as Health Indicators, Comments Risks and Issues in PPO, the “Action / Response” is cleared of the previous comments in that field. This can be frustrating to a user who maybe just forgot to update another field like the Risk Owner or Follow-up date when previously editing. This auto clear function is a setting that can be changed, but before making this change, the pros and cons of doing so should be weighed.

A recent discovery was to realise that many project managers – some of which work for me – underestimate the importance of an “estimate to complete” which is key to project cost management . Having worked with senior project executives across various industries, they all have one thing in common, and that is the concern … Continue reading "Why forecasts in PPO are important for project cost management"

It’s one of the most common questions we get from our PPO users. Therefore, the idea of this post is to introduce some high-level best practices when producing your PPO Project Manager Dashboard. But before we get into the detail, there are a couple of factors that influence a good PPO Project Manager Dashboard, so … Continue reading "What does a good PPO Project Manager Dashboard look like?"

As discussed in our first blog post (Part I) on this topic, we’re often asked when the best time is to add projects to PPO. The fact of the matter is that there is no “cut and dried” answer to this question, as it mostly depends on the origin of the project; something that is … Continue reading "When should projects be added to PPO? (Part II)"

Clients often ask us when the best time is to add projects to PPO. Should it be when they are approved? When the initial idea is conceived? When the need or demand for the project is first raised? Or perhaps when the proposal is submitted or approved? To answer this, it is necessary to look … Continue reading "When should projects be added to PPO? (Part I)"

In part one of this five-part series, we will discuss the topic of collaboration, with the aim of supporting project managers and their teams to become more effective in the use of PPO, and thus complete more successful projects. Best Practice #1: Collaboration In order to keep a project moving towards successful completion, project managers, … Continue reading "Top five PPO best practices, part one"

A PPO functionality that’s widely misunderstood (and misused) is the health indicators feature. The health indicators (also referred to as RAG, or red-amber-green indicators) are manually updated by the project manager and used primarily for project status reporting, aimed at measuring progress, identifying the need for corrective action, and for managing stakeholder expectations. If health … Continue reading "Demystifying the PPO health indicators"