During the MS Project Conference, January 17-19, in Seattle, Washington, conference attendees were privy to the new features and functions that will be included in the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution 2007 release.

Excitement bounded through the general session and the detail demonstrations in the individual breakout sessions. This release is not just an upgrade but a significant development of enhanced functionality and additional features in both Project desktop and Project Server. The list of changes is too numerous to detail in this article, but here are a few of the things to expect in Project desktop (Project Professional / Standard)

• Multi-Level Undo - Microsoft has removed the single undo constraint in Project to be consistent with other Microsoft applications.
• Change Highlighting - any change made to a task will highlight the downstream tasks that are changed or impacted by the upstream task. This will help beginners understand MS Project by revealing the impact of the scheduling engine. Also will highlight all changes from macros and extensions.
• Cell Background Formatting - Project will now allow the user to control the background formatting of cells. This will help users identify tasks of interest. Cell background formatting works in all tables and can be controlled manually, with filters, and via macros.
• Enhanced Reporting - includes custom reporting via Excel and Visio, view enhancements, budget tracking, and visual reports.
• Budgeting - MS Project will have the capability to now have separate budgets for human resources (work), materials, and costs.
• Deliverables - MS Project allows a project manager to define the deliverables for any given task.

Other enhancements include improved performance, unlimited custom fields, and a preview feature prior to accepting task updates.

More than 1,500 business managers, technology professionals and developers gathered in Seattle June 17 - 19 for the sold out Microsoft Office Project and Visio conferences, where Microsoft Corporation CEO Steve Ballmer detailed advances in the upcoming releases of Microsoft Office Project and Microsoft Office Visio.

In addition, Ballmer announced the completion of the acquisition of software and intellectual property assets from UMT, a leading project and portfolio management and consulting firm. The acquisition will provide Microsoft with new technology and talent that will complement and expand upon the existing Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution.

“We’re excited because acquiring UMT will help us meet customers’ needs for deep portfolio management capabilities,” said Ballmer. “By combining our software and expertise, we’ll also create a new range of solution development opportunities for customers and partners.”

Portfolio management software helps organizations strategically create, manage and optimize project, application, product and process portfolios. Although traditionally used in the information technology (IT) industry, portfolio management capabilities are broadly applicable and growing in importance to any company for which work takes the form of individual projects, complex programs or enterprise portfolios.

The UMT acquisition will help Microsoft address these scenarios through an end-to-end, integrated project and portfolio management solution that helps enable both excellence in project execution and better decision-making in prioritizing and funding those projects.

Key members of the UMT executive team and a number of UMT product development employees will join the Microsoft Office Project team.

Well you asked for it and Microsoft is listening. The 2006 Microsoft Project Conference was held in rainy Seattle. However, the rain was not limited to the sky. Microsoft was raining down a flood of new features in the much anticipated Office 12 release of Project Professional and Server.

The conference was packed with content ranging from management techniques, Project Professional tips and tricks, to the star attraction, demonstrations of the Office 12 Project, which will be released as Project 2007.

After the information flood waters receded, the essential improvements to Project are:

• Tighter integration with Sharepoint and Infopath providing improved project collaboration and simplifying process automation from project conception through closing. This integration includes leveraging the new workflow engine in Sharepoint and providing a home for maintenance items that are just too small for the formality of a full project.
• Want to get to your project data? Add Sharepoint Portal and you get even closer to your data by using the embedded SQL 2005 report engine. This provides easy report creation, customization, organization and distribution in Sharepoint.
• For those of you that live in Outlook, Project is getting up close and personal. Tasks can now be displayed and managed along-side Outlook tasks. Another nice feature is the ability to view tasks in the Outlook calendar.
• Project Professional also gets some attention with many new enhancements. The two I like best are multi-level undo; and after changes are made, impacted tasks are highlighted. 

Project 2007 is filling the gaps in Project 2003 in a big way. With all these improvements raining down you better start building that Arc and loading up those projects two-by-two.

Troy Wheeler, Vice President of Technology, EPM2e, can be reached at 800-878-0385.

Are you leading a new project and don’t know the team members very well?  How do you determine if your team has the skills to complete your project successfully?

Projects require a unique set of skills to get the job done.  These skills often include subject matter expertise, quality improvement, business flow development, and information technology skills. 

Project leaders should :

1. Determine what skills are needed to execute the tasks - the skill requirements,
2. What skills the team members have - a skill inventory, and
3. Determine what the gap is between the skill requirements and the skill inventory.  The result is called a skill assessment. 

Determining the skills of your project team members can be challenging. A skill inventory form can be helpful to determine what skills an individual possesses and what training they may need. 

My early skill inventory form simply asked two questions: what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? I found that the second question was perceived as negative and often team members did not answer forthright.

Later versions of the skill inventory asked the following two questions: What skills do you have and what training would you like?

Problems quickly came with this form. I  found that team members came to a project with a preconceived idea why they were asked to participate on a project and would only list skills they deemed important.  Also, the second question was often a wish-list of training programs.

My current skill inventory form asks three questions. 

1. What skills do you bring to this project? - This identifies those skills the team member believes is important to the project.
2. What additional skills to you have? - This will bring to light other skills that may be useful for the project leader.
3. What skills and knowledge would you like to develop during this project? - Comparing these responses with the skill requirements will help you identify the skill gap. You can then provide the necessary training or bring in the required talent.

The last question also sends a powerful message to the team that they will benefit from this project and, as a project leader, you care about their professional growth.