The sufficiency and effectiveness of business systems is an essential element in the project management ecosystem. Far beyond performance measurement of the actual effort, the sufficiency of the business systems to support the effort are essential in its success. If the systems in place do not properly track and record the transactions behind the work being performed, the credibility of the data is called into question. Furthermore, support and logistical systems, such as procurement, supply, and material management, contribute in a very real way, to work accomplishment. If that spare part isn’t in-house on time, the work stops.
(more…)automation of business systems
Doctor My Eyes — Excel is Not a Project Management Tool (and neither is PowerPoint)
This is not to disparage the utility of a good spreadsheet to take care of those transient requirements to take a bit of data from the reporting systems and to run some custom algorithms or trends to perform what-if or other one-off analysis. Probably most of us do this occasionally.
What I am referring to is the condition in many organizations in which data that consists of information essential to business operations is kept and analyzed using spreadsheets or other flat delimited storage or text methods. The issue here is the optimum use of information, which the use of Excel and PowerPoint does not achieve. Before anyone thinks that this is a contrarian’s post that is critical of Microsoft products, one need only read the technical advantages of true relational database management systems that are managed by specialized language like MS SQL. Each of these applications and products has their proper place.
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Life, Project Management, and Everything 