Seeing The Bigger Picture: Enterprise Project Management With MS Project

Project management in the twenty first century is one of the cornerstones of corporate life yet it has not always been thus. As recently as a couple of decades ago the slower pace of dramatic technical change meant that individual projects would be considered on their own terms with no interrelation to other demands that the business may encounter. In other words, companies took one project at a time and were able to do so because of the comparative lack of resources then open to them and the absence of the mass communication devices that we take for granted these days.

Nowadays the goalposts have shifted radically and any company worth their salt is expected to multitask with numerous projects in progress at any given time which all have a greater or lesser impact on both each other and the business as a whole. To this end Enterprise Project Management has been devised as a means of providing a solid foundation for supporting business with a portfolio of multiple projects on the go. This technique views the company's projects as a unified organism at the same time as breaking down the entire company lifecycle into more manageable segments.

With its years of established success and accessibility Microsoft's Project software is the default tool to utilise alongside Enterprise Project Management. Only Microsoft Project 2010 contains all of the disparate elements required to forge successful Enterprise Project Management.

The heart of the operation is of course Project itself, in particular Project Professional. The upgraded version of this iconic software provides everything you need to create, monitor and rigorously plan your project from resource planning to project reporting and now, with the streamlined, dynamic Ribbon interface, more comprehensive than ever before.

But where Microsoft Project 2010 really supports full Enterprise Project Management is in both Share Point and Project Server. Share Point's biggest asset lies in its collaborative work ethic with colleagues able to share and edit documents in real time within a vast workspace. The capability and collaboration possibilities are huge with Microsoft Share Point thus facilitating work on multiple projects at one time with clarity and precision.

Microsoft Project Server 2010 effectively brings Project Professional and Share Point together unifying the organisational and technical plans, schedules and briefs with the practical, collaborative working process. The efficient melding of the two is invaluable in monitoring theoretical schedules with real time developments and, again, allows for this clearly delineated and detailed operation to be carried out on a number of projects at once, thus truly embracing the ethos of Enterprise Project Management.

The demands of a fast paced, high stakes business environment ensure that Enterprise Project Management is here to stay and that keeping hold of the bigger picture within your organisation is paramount to success. For this reason a working knowledge of Microsoft Project Professional 2010, as well as Share Point and Project Server, is vital in effectively managing your portfolio of projects and projecting a professional and forward thinking image to your clients.