EPM Team

The Catapult EPM team is responsible for delivering Microsoft project and portfolio management solutions. Their blog reflects team insights and real-world experiences developing world-class EPM solutions.
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Jul11

Project Server At Houston Techfest 2010

Looks like I’ll be speaking on Project Server at the Houston Techfest on October 9, 2010.  (More Information)  We’ll see if that MVP designation makes everyone think I am smarter – or if it just unreasonably raises their expectations.  The event is free, so I can definitely guarantee that if you attend my presentation, you will at least get what you paid for. Hope to see some of you there…...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Sunday, 11 Jul 2010 10:01.
0 Comments | Categories: Gratuitous Self-Reference, Project Server 2010

 
Jul11

Portfolio Analysis Under the Hood: Developing the Scatter Chart

This is the next post in a series describing how the Portfolio Analysis pieces of Project Server 2010 work under the hood.  This post will discuss how the Scatter Chart is calculated and provide an Excel model for assessing how it works.  I wrote this post as part of an exercise to make sure that I understand what’s going on in Project Server – as well as making an initial attempt to lay the pi...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Sunday, 11 Jul 2010 09:49.
0 Comments | Categories: Portfolio Management, Project Server 2010

 
Jul7

Portfolio Analysis Under the Hood: Calculating Strategic Alignment

This is the next post in a series describing how the Portfolio Analysis pieces of Project Server 2010 work under the hood.  This post will discuss how the Strategic Alignment chart is calculated and provide an Excel model for assessing how it works.  I wrote this post as part of an exercise to make sure that I understand what’s going on in Project Server – as well as making an initial attempt t...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Wednesday, 7 Jul 2010 08:05.
0 Comments | Categories: Portfolio Management, Project Server 2010

 
Jul2

Portfolio Analysis Under the Hood: Calculating the Efficient Frontier

This is the next post in a series describing how the Portfolio Analysis pieces of Project Server 2010 work under the hood.  This post will discuss how the Efficient Frontier is calculated for a portfolio of projects.  I wrote this post as part of an exercise to make sure that I understand what’s going on in Project Server – as well as making an initial attempt to lay the pieces out in a way tha...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Friday, 2 Jul 2010 08:57.
1 Comment | Categories: Portfolio Management, Project Server 2010

 
Jul1

We Interrupt Your Normal Programming….

Well, a very pleasant surprise this afternoon when the plane landed and I checked my e-mail.  Lo-and-behold, it would appear as though I now can add three more letters to the IT alphabet soup already on my name card.  I am very excited about this.  To keep things in perspective, my kids couldn’t care less & my wife suggested I celebrate by mowing the lawn. Thank you everyone for the ongo...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Thursday, 1 Jul 2010 08:18.
3 Comments | Categories: Project Management, Project Server 2010, Gratuitous Self-Reference

 
Jun19

Pairwise Analysis Revisited

In my previous post, I gave an example of how Pairwise Analysis works, and presented a conceptual model in Excel of the driver and project prioritization engine within Microsoft Project Server 2010.  That model worked well with simple driver prioritization scenarios, but seemed to display a wide variance with Project Server calculations in more complex scenarios.  This left me unsatisfied, and ...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Saturday, 19 Jun 2010 09:04.
1 Comment | Categories: Portfolio Management, Project Server 2010

 
Jun1

Portfolio Prioritization Under the Hood: Pairwise Analysis Demystified

I’ve seen a couple of questions posted to the online forums of late asking about how the Portfolio Management heuristics work in Project Server 2010.  Since I know that I will have to explain this to my own clients, I figured that I would take an initial stab at demystifying how the portfolio optimization calculations work.  As a disclaimer, note that I refer to this process as “Pairwise Analys...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Tuesday, 1 Jun 2010 10:02.
2 Comments | Categories: Portfolio Management, Project Server 2010

 
May20

1 Year & 100 Posts – You’d Think We Almost Planned That

Yep, our little ol’ blog was officially 1 year old last month.  That means we’re ready to graduate from the baby cereal stuff to something with substance.  I hope you’re all getting half as much out of reading this blog as we get out of writing it. Here’s a self-selected best of listing of some of the posts that we’ve published…. Category Post Deployment Epistemological Challe...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Thursday, 20 May 2010 10:36.
1 Comment | Categories: Administration, Business Intelligence, Project Server 2010, SharePoint, Reporting

 
May12

Houston, We Have Launch…

Follow today’s Project Launch events here, and check out all the great content that just got unveiled here. ...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Wednesday, 12 May 2010 02:27.
0 Comments | Categories: Project Server 2010, SharePoint

 
May11

The Newsgroups Are Dead. Long Live the Newsgroups.

Well, we knew it was coming, but at long last the Microsoft Project newsgroups will be gone in the nearish future, to be replaced by a whole selection of sleek, new feature-ridden Web-based forums.  For more information, please check out Brian Smith’s post Newsgroups Are So Yesterday.  Forums Are the Future. Just wait a second.  You mean that Microsoft has provided all sorts of useful function...
Posted by Andrew Lavinsky on Tuesday, 11 May 2010 03:07.
1 Comment | Categories: Operations, Project Server 2010