Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization

View your task management, project management, and project portfolio management options through the lens of M365.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Microsoft Project is an enigma

Microsoft Project has dominated its market since being introduced in the 1980s, yet the level of adoption and usage per license is incredibly low.

The software is ubiquitous, mostly considered to represent its category for “Project Management.” Yet, the software is conflated with its “Portfolio Management” offerings as organizations make platform decisions with Microsoft Project as the incorrectly identified incumbent.

And incredibly, Microsoft has dominated the next era of productivity software with the “365” offerings. Yet, it froze the “Project” family of offerings and introduced the not-yet-functional “Project for the web.”

Having a difficult time understanding what to do with, and about, Microsoft Project? You’re hardly alone. It’s not simply a question of tolerating, embracing, or rejecting the product: many who choose a competitor find they’re still paying for Microsoft Project-related licensing for years to come.

If you’re in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, use this research to understand your rapidly shifting landscape of options.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

You use Microsoft (MS) tools to manage your work, projects, and/or project portfolio.

Their latest offering, Project for the web, is new and you’re not sure what to make of it. Microsoft says it will soon replace Microsoft Project and Project Online, but the new software doesn’t seem to do what the old software did.

The organization has adopted M365 for collaboration and work management. Meetings happen on Teams, projects are scoped a bit with Planner, and the operations group uses Azure Boards to keep track of what they need to get done.

Despite your reservations about the new project management software, Microsoft software has become even more ubiquitous.

Common Obstacles

M365 provides the basic components for managing tasks, projects, and project portfolios, but there is no instruction manual for making those parts work together.

M365 isn’t the only set of tools at play. Business units and teams across the organization have procured other non-Microsoft tools for work management without involving IT.

Microsoft’s latest project offering, Project for the web, is still evolving and you’re never sure if it is stable or ready for prime time. The missing function seems to involve the more sophisticated project planning disciplines, which are still important to larger, longer, and costlier projects.

Common Obstacles

Follow Info-Tech’s path in this blueprint to:

• Perform a tool audit to trim your work management tool landscape.
• Navigate the MS Project and M365 licensing landscape.
• Make sense of what to do with Project for the web and take the right approach to rolling it out (i.e. DIY or MS Gold Partner driven) for your needs.
• Create an action plan to inform next steps.

After following the program in this blueprint, you will be prepared to advise the organization on how to best leverage the rapidly shifting work management options within M365 and the place of MS Project within it.

M365 and, within it, O365 are taking over

Accelerated partly by the pandemic and the move to remote work, Microsoft’s market share in the work productivity space has grown exponentially in the last two years.

70% of Fortune 500 companies purchased 365 from Sept. 2019 to Sept. 2020. (Thexyz blog, 2020)

In its FY21 Q2 report, Microsoft reported 47.5 million M365 consumer subscribers – an 11.2% increase from its FY20 Q4 reporting. (Office 365 for IT Pros, 2021)

As of September 2020, there were 258,000,000 licensed O365 users. (Thexyz blog, 2020)

In this blueprint, we’ll look at what the what the phenomenal growth of M365 means for PMOs and project portfolio practitioners who identify as Microsoft shops

The market share of M365 warrants a fresh look at Microsoft’s suite of project offerings

For many PMO and project portfolio practitioners, the footprint of M365 in their organizations’ work management cultures is forcing a renewed look at Microsoft’s suite of project offerings.

The complicating factor is this renewed look comes at a transitional time in Microsoft’s suite of project and portfolio offerings.

• The market dominance of MS Project Server and Project Online are wanning, with Microsoft promising the end-of-life for Online sometime in the coming years.
• Project Online’s replacement, Project for the web, is a viable task management and lightweight project management tool, but its viability as a replacement for the rigor of Project Online is at present largely a question mark.
• Related to the uncertainty and promise around Project for the web, the Dataverse and the Power Platform offer a glimpse into a democratized future of work management tools but anything specific about that future has yet to solidify.

Microsoft Project has 66% market share in the project management tool space. (Celoxis, 2018)

A copy of MS project is sold or licensed every 20 seconds. (Integent, 2013)

MS Project is evolving to meet new work management realities

It also evolved to not meet the old project management realities.

• The lines between traditional project management and operational task management solutions are blurring as organizations struggle to keep up with demands.
• To make the software easier to use, modern work management doesn’t involve the complexities from days past. You won’t find anywhere to introduce complex predecessor-successor relationships, unbalanced assignments with front-loading or back-loading, early-start/late-finish, critical path, etc.
• “Work management” is among the latest buzzwords in IT consulting. With Project for the web (PFTW), Azure Boards, and Planner, Microsoft is attempting to compete with lighter and better-adopted tools like Trello, Basecamp, Asana, Wrike, and Monday.com.
• Buyers of project and work management software have struggled to understand how PFTW will still be usable if it gets the missing project management function from MS Project.

Info-Tech Insight

Beware of the Software Granularity Paradox.

Common opinion 1: “Plans and estimates that are granular enough to be believable are too detailed to manage and maintain.”

Common opinion 2: “Plans simple enough to publish aren’t detailed enough to produce believable estimates.”

In other words, software simple enough to get widely adopted doesn’t produce believable plans. Software that can produce believable plans is too complex to use at scale.

A viable task and project management option must walk the line between these dichotomies.

M365 gives you the pieces, but it’s on PMO users to piece them together in a viable way

With the new MS Project and M365, it’s on PMOs to avoid the granularity paradox and produce a functioning solution that fits with the organization’s ways of working.

Common perception still sees Microsoft Project as a rich software tool. Thus, when we consider the next generation of Microsoft Project, it’s easy to expect a newer and friendlier version of what we knew before.

In truth, the new solution is a collection of partially integrated but largely disparate tools that each satisfy a portion of the market’s needs. While it looks like a rich collection of function when viewed through high-level requirements, users will find:

• Overlaps, where multiple tools satisfy the same functional requirement (e.g. “assign a task”)
• Gaps, where a tool doesn’t quite do enough and you’re forced to incorporate another tool (e.g. reverting back to Microsoft Project for advanced resource planning)
• Islands, where tools don’t fluently talk to each other (e.g. Planner data integrated in real-time with portfolio data, which requires clunky, unstable, decentralized end-user integrations with Microsoft Power Automate)

Info-Tech's approach

Use our framework to best leverage the right MS Project offerings and M365 components for your organization’s work management needs.

The Info-Tech difference:

1. A simple to follow framework to help you make sense of a chaotic landscape.
2. Practical and tactical tools that will help you save time.
3. Leverage industry best practices and practitioner-based insights.

Determine the Future of Microsoft Project in Your Organization

View your task, project, and portfolio management options through the lens of Microsoft 365.

1. Background

• Analyze Content
• Assess Constraints
• Determine Goals and Needs

2. Approaches

• DIY – Are you ready to do it yourself?
• Info-Tech – Can our analysts help?
• MS Gold Partner – Are you better off with a third party?

3. Deployments

Task Management

• Personal Task Management
  • Who does it? Knowledge workers
  • What is it? To-do lists
  • Common Approaches
    • Paper list and sticky notes
    • Light task tools
  • Applications
    • Planner
    • To Do
  • Level of Rigor 1/5
  • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Person
• Team Task Management
  • Who does it? Groups of knowledge workers
  • What is it? Collaborative to-do lists
  • Common Approaches
    • Kanban boards
    • Spreadsheets
    • Light task tools
  • Applications
    • Planner
    • Azure Boards
    • Teams
  • Level of Rigor 2/5
  • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Team

Project Management

• Project Portfolio Management
  • Who does it? PMO Directors, Portfolio Managers
  • What is it?
    • Centralized list of projects
    • Request and intake handling
    • Aggregating reporting
  • Common Approaches
    • Spreadsheets
    • PPM software
    • Roadmaps
  • Applications
    • Project for the Web
    • Power Platform
  • Level of Rigor 3/5
  • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Isolated to One Project
• Project Management
  • Who does it? Project Managers
  • What is it? Deterministic scheduling of related tasks
  • Common Approaches
    • Spreadsheets
    • Lists
    • PM software
    • PPM software
  • Applications
    • Project Desktop Client
  • Level of Rigor 4/5
  • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Functionally Incomplete

Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management

• Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management
  • Who does it? PMO and ePMO Directors, Portfolio Managers, Project Managers
  • What is it?
    • Centralized request and intake handling
    • Resource capacity management
    • Deterministic scheduling of related tasks
  • Common Approaches
    • PPM software
  • Applications
    • Project Online
    • Project Desktop Client
    • Project Server
  • Level of Rigor 5/5
  • Barriers to Portfolio Outcomes: Underadopted

4. Portfolio Outcomes

• Informed Steering Committee
• Increased Project Throughput
• Improved Portfolio Responsiveness
• Optimized Resource Utilization
• Reduced Monetary Waste

Info-Tech's methodology for Determine the Future of MS Project for Your Organization

Insight Summary

Overarching blueprint insight: Microsoft Parts Sold Separately. Assembly required.

The various MS Project offerings (but most notably the latest, Project for the web) hold the promise of integrating with the rest of M365 into a unified work management solution. However, out of the box, Project for the web and the various platforms within M365 are all disparate utilities that need to be pieced together in a purpose-built manner to make use of them for holistic work management purposes.

If you’re looking for a cohesive product out of the box, look elsewhere. If you’re looking to assemble a wide array of work, project, and portfolio management functions across different functions and departments, you may have found what you seek

Phase 1 insight: Align your tool choice to your process maturity level.

Rather than choosing tools based on your gaps, make sure to assess your current maturity level so that you optimize your investment in the Microsoft landscape.

Phase 2 insight: Weigh your options before jumping into Microsoft’s new tech.

Microsoft’s new Project plans (P1, P3, and P5) suggest there is a meaningful connection out of the box between its old tech (Project desktop, Project Server, and Project Online) and its new tech (Project for the web).

However, the offerings are not always interoperable.

Phase 3 insight: Keep the iterations small as you move ahead with trials and implementations.

Organizations are changing as fast as the software we use to run them.

If you’re implementing parts of this platform, keep the changes small as you monitor the vendors for new software versions and integrations.

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Key deliverable: Microsoft Project & M365 Action Plan Template

The Action Plan will help culminate and present:

• Context and Constraints
• DIY Implementation Approach

• MS Partner Implementation Approach
• Future-State Vision and Goals

Tool Audit Workbook

Assess your organization's current work management tool landscape and determine what tools drive value for individual users and teams and which ones can be rationalized.

Force Field Analysis

Document the driving and resisting forces for making a change to your work management tools.

Maturity Assessments

Use these assessments to identify gaps in project management and project portfolio management processes. The results will help guide process improvement efforts and measure success and progress.

Microsoft Project & M365 Licensing Tool

Determine the best licensing options and approaches for your implementation of Microsoft Project.

Curate your work management tools to harness valuable portfolio outcomes

• Increase Project Throughput

  Do more projects by ensuring the right projects and the right amount of projects are approved and executed.

• Support an Informed Steering Committee

  Easily compare progress of projects across the portfolio and enable the leadership team to make decisions.

• Improve portfolio responsiveness

  Make the portfolio responsive to executive steering when new projects and changing priorities need rapid action.

• Optimize Resource Utilization

  Assign the right resources to approved projects and minimize the chronic over-allocation of resources that leads to burnout.

• Reduce Monetary Waste

  Terminate low-value projects early and avoid sinking additional funds into unsuccessful ventures.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is between 6 to 8 calls over the course of 3 to 4 months.

Introduction

• Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

Phase 1

• Call #2: Explore the M365 work management landscape.
• Call #3: Discuss Microsoft Project Plans and their capabilities.
• Call #4: Assess current-state maturity.

Phase 2

• Call #5: Get familiar with extending Project for the web using Power Apps.
• Call #6: Assess the MS Gold Partner Community.

Phase 3

• Call #7: Determine approach and deployment.
• Call #8: Discuss action plan.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Determine the Future of Microsoft Project for Your Organization

Phase 1: Determine Your Tool Needs

Phase Outcomes

• Tool Audit
• Microsoft Project Licensing Analysis
• Project Management Maturity Assessment
• Project Portfolio Management Maturity Assessments

Step 1.1

Survey the M365 Work Management Landscape

Activities

• 1.1.1 Distinguish between task, project, and portfolio capabilities
• 1.1.2 Review Microsoft’s offering for task, project, and portfolio management needs
• 1.1.4 Assess your organizational context and constraints
• 1.1.3 Explore typical deployment options

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Assessing your organization’s context for project and project portfolio management
• Documenting the organization’s constraints
• Establishing the organization’s goals and needs

This step involves the following participants:

• PMO Director
• Resource Managers
• Project Managers
• Knowledge Workers

Outcomes of Step

• Knowledge of the Microsoft ecosystem as it relates to task, project, and portfolio management
• Current organizational context and constraints

Don’t underestimate the value of interoperability

The whole Microsoft suite is worth more than the sum of its parts … if you know how to put it together.

38% of the worldwide office suite market belongs to Microsoft. (Source: Statistica, 2021)

1 in 3 small to mid-sized organizations moving to Microsoft Project say they are doing so because it integrates well with Office 365. (Source: CBT Nuggets, 2018)

There’s a gravity to the Microsoft ecosystem.

And while there is no argument that there are standalone task management tools, project management tools, or portfolio management tools that are likely more robust, feature-rich, and easier to adopt, it’s rare that you find an ecosystem that can do it all, to an acceptable level.

That is the value proposition of Microsoft: the ubiquity, familiarity, and versatility. It’s the Swiss army knife of software products.

The work management landscape is evolving

With M365, Microsoft is angling to become the industry leader, and your organization’s hub, for work management.

Workers lose up to 40% of their time multi-tasking and switching between applications. (Bluescape, 2018)

25 Context switches – On average, workers switch between 10 apps, 25 times a day. (Asana, 2021)

“Work management” is among the latest buzzwords in IT consulting.

What is work management? It was born of a blurring of the traditional lines between operational or day-to-day tasks and project management tasks, as organizations struggle to keep up with both operational and project demands.

To make the software easier to use, modern work management doesn’t involve the complexities from days past. You won’t find anywhere to introduce complex predecessor-successor relationships, unbalanced assignments with front-loading or back-loading, early-start/late-finish, critical path, etc.

Indeed, with Project for the web, Azure Boards, Planner, and other M365 utilities, Microsoft is attempting to compete with lighter and better-adopted tools (e.g. Trello, Wike, Monday.com).