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P4W: One Board is not enough. We need Multiple Boards and different Task types

Copper Contributor

One Board is simply not enough to run a project, as you are dealing with different Teams and Task types. Every project team and task types might have different stages/buckets. For example: The Marketing Team and Logistics Team has a completely different project delivery workflow but I must manage them together in one project plan. 

 

All of a sudden: there are no different task types in Project. I use categories or write letters in the title, which is very difficult to handle, as the categories are mixed with so many others (like countries for example). So: I need different task types and different boards in one project to manage everything.

 

While thinking how to stick into Ms Project as an alternative to other Task management Systems. This is one big dealbreaker for me. One Idea to solve it: Forget the main tasks in the board and show the checklist points only. So you would be indepentent of the planned tasks (I guess thats your main problem when thinking of multiple boards)

7 Replies
Excellent observation about any PPM/Task Management application. It's taken years to realize that my Microsoft Project schedule is built on the foundation of
1. Deliverables - What are we building? 90% of the time I'll create an "Initial" or "Draft" deliverable or a specific name to break up my deliverable to make Progress (%) earlier and identify problems earlier
*Note: Deliverables in the schedules should NOT be tasks lists or punch lists that can be done interchangeably
2. Deliverable Dependencies - If I can't identify dependencies between deliverables due to how the work is done or how the Resources are tied to them, then I'll rethink what they are or if I'm too granular
3 - Resource Modeling - Going along with 2, its important to identify the deliverables in a way that we can model the work of the resources. If you don't resource load your schedules, you're not able to answer the questions of: "Can we do this?", "Is it achievable?"
To answer your overall dilemma, I highly recommend using Microsoft Project Online for your Deliverables, Issues/Risks, Variances. If you have a schedule already, it will import directly into Project Online. And the huge win is that you can surface it in Microsoft Teams to your Team Members to push updates to you versus the traditional, go get progress updates from them.
Then the BIG key and gamechanger is that your schedule uses the foundations of 1-3 above, which is agnostic to phases, methodologies, processes AND the lower level details, punch lists, task lists can be maintained anywhere in ANY app. Using Project Online/Power BI and surfacing within MS Teams gives your Team Members, One-Stop-Shop for the schedule and You and leadership have full visibility of ALL projects, departments and work type.

Hi @TonyProctor , thank you for the extended reply. While I agree to your explanation about project theories, I'm totally confused about your recommendation for "project online".

 

I would say, that I'm very experienced project online, but I was expecting that P4W is the new world. Thats what many Microsoft pages say: a "Transition from Project Online to P4W" is recommended (e.g. "Project for the web and Project Online" in support.microft.com). Also our Microsoft Partners said this.

 

Besides - I can't see how my inital problem will be solved with Project Online, as it does not support multiple boards or different task types also. There are other solutions in the market that do.

Can you clarify about whether or not you have or had Project Online? If you did, were you using the Tasks Update or Timesheet features? If not, I would have your MS Partner demo the use and benefits of using it those features to solve your dilemma.
We have Project Online and we're using it long time now. It's an outdated product based on sharepoint classic and will be replaced with Project for the Web. Why should I consider to invest time and money to build a solution with it, when its oficially discontinued?
Interesting, we have multiple DoD and government agencies that have just upgraded from Project Server 2010/16 to Project Online/O365 with rave reviews. And all of the new customers in 2022 that have moved from other apps to Project Online/O365 love it. Sorry to hear it's not working for your situation. I'm sure your MS Partner can help you navigate these challenges you're having. Sorry I wasn't able to help.
best response confirmed by YayYay (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hey @YayYay ,

Great suggestions / observations. Yes Project for the web is the latest PPM tool from Microsoft and should be the solution you look to use if you are using Microsoft for Project / Tasks Management. For the product suggestions, best to post / vote here: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/40792262-301c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472 

Paul 

Thanks Paul, I wrote the feedback suggestion. Hope it finds it way to the product roadmap.
1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by YayYay (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hey @YayYay ,

Great suggestions / observations. Yes Project for the web is the latest PPM tool from Microsoft and should be the solution you look to use if you are using Microsoft for Project / Tasks Management. For the product suggestions, best to post / vote here: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/forum/40792262-301c-ec11-b6e7-0022481f8472 

Paul 

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