Full Sail Partners Blog | Project Management (9)

At the core of a project-based firm’s business is the need to monitor the progress of your projects. As Project Manager’s we are busy and we need quick, real-time information to help us steer our projects. Just as a dashboard in a boat identifies and provides feedback regarding the status of our voyage – the speed, the wind angle, the wind force, and the navigational direction – a dashboard can provide the same information about your project.

Specifically, a project KPI dashboard can examine some simple indicators that allow a project manager to gauge which project(s) need more attention.  They should be examined on a regular basis. 

What Project KPIs should I be looking at?

• Accounts Receivable - Overdue AR can be a warning sign for many problems including:  client dissatisfaction, overall project communication issues, and client insolvency (they can’t pay us if they have no money. . . should we be loaning them more money?).  Make sure your AR is in line with a Summary AR Dashboard Part and one for each individual project.  We recommend examining this Project KPI at least twice every billing cycle.

 Tip to Think About:  What is my outstanding AR?  Not only the amount, but how many days out is it? 

• Unbilled Labor – A large amount of unbilled labor is a serious risk not only to the project, but to general firm cash flow.  The company cannot get paid for it if it doesn’t get billed.  A Project Manager should monitor this Project KPI closely all the time, but especially after invoicing.  Make sure to avoid carrying large amounts of unbilled labor from billing cycle to billing cycle.

Tip to Think About:  How much labor is sitting on my project that has not been marked as billed?  In other words, have I been billing my project progress correctly?  

• Estimated to Complete (ETC) and/or Estimate at Completion (EAC) – These schedule based measures will help you determine not only if you are on budget, but if you will finish the project within the overall budget as well.  Compare the EAC to the overall budget and if it is greater, you may decide to either reduce future expenditures or accept the fact that you going to be over budget. 

 Tip to Think About:  How much more do I need to finish this Project?
 When over  budget, confirm that you didn’t forget to send out additional services  contracts. 

• Summary Key Performance Indicators - Above the project level, the measures are usually about Net Revenue, Utilization and Backlog.  By putting these Project KPIs on your Dashboard, you can improve your performance and make your boss look good too.

Tip to Think About:  What is your Boss being measured on?  How can you manage your   projects better with the use of Project KPIs to improve those Summary Key Performance   Indicators?

There may be other metrics your firm utilizes.  Share with us what you have on your project KPI dashboard.  Also, be sure to check out our past webinar: Get the Work Done.

Many of us are familiar with the idea of measurement improving outcome. Whether it’s Karl Pearson’s Law: “That which is measured improves” or the concept of losing weight by counting calories, we understand that measuring results is crucial to understanding how to improve results. 

But it’s not just the act of measuring – it’s measuring the RIGHT things and then utilizing what was learned from the results. When trying to improve the performance and evaluation of your team or team members, what should be measured (and how) become critical questions. 

Professional services organizations are beginning to follow the lead of other industries and explore areas such as Voice of the Customer (VOC), Client Experience Management (CEM), and Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM). And while 86% of organizations across all industries employ some form of customer/client feedback as part of their performance and evaluation strategy, only 5% of professional services firms do so. 

If you are planning to implement a feedback process, consider these three key steps to creating an effective performance and evaluation strategy powered by client feedback. 

1. Any measurement strategy should promote desired employee performance. Therefore, it’s important to measure things employees can control or greatly influence. If employees feel they are being held accountable for measurements beyond their sphere of control, they may reject the system, game the system, or lose hope. So when capturing client-centered metrics like feedback, don’t focus on the scores provided by clients. If you focus on feedback scores, rather than what employees do with scores, they may avoid feedback in the most critical situations. Instead, measure, monitor, and promote the successes of those who gather the most feedback, maintain the highest response rates, and follow-up most effectively to challenging feedback. 
    
2. Craft questions that measure improvable actions. Keep personalities out of your surveys. People don’t change quickly or easily. When faced with personal criticism, most people will reject the information. Instead, focus on the processes and practices of delivering the service. Processes are more easily documented, adjusted, and customized to a client. 
    
3. Measure early, measure often. Monitoring client expectations-the real source of success as a professional service organization-is just as critical as managing your income statement and balance sheet. You look at your financial reports every month, and carefully track progress over time – but when was the last time you looked at metrics from your clients’ perspective? How well are you doing for them? To maximize performance with clients, feedback cannot be a once a year (or once every five years) activity. Track constantly, during projects, when you have time to create better outcomes for your clients.

The most important way to measure staff performance in a professional service firm is from the clients’ perspective. It’s really the client’s perception of reality that matters most. To summarize, to best measure performance and evaluate it from the client’s perspective:  make it easy and comfortable for the client to offer their feedback, have questions focus how well the process worked for them, and ask them often throughout a project, not just at the end.

One of the most essential tools in project management is a Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS. The primary function of a WBS is to subdivide a project into more manageable components in terms of size, duration, and responsibility. By breaking a project down into smaller pieces it’s also easier to:

• Set measurable milestones for the project, and identify deliverables at the end of each phase that match up to the scope
• Allocate resources, complete scheduling and budgeting, manage procurement, maintain quality control, and manage risk
• Increase accountability by assigning individual responsibilities for each phase and task
• Know where you stand in terms of the total project (for example, are you 10% through the whole project, but 50% through the first phase?)

In short, the Work Breakdown Structure defines how you estimate, manage, and bill the project — and as a result, creating one should be priority one for every project.

Key design principles for an effective WBS

1. Account for 100% (no more, no less). One of the most important principles is that the WBS must include 100% of the work as defined by the project scope. It must also capture all internal, external, and interim deliverables, including project management, among the work to be completed. The rule applies at all levels within the hierarchy: the sum of the work at the most detailed level must equal 100% of the work represented by the combined total of the categories at the highest level. Another aspect of the rule is that the WBS should not include any work that is outside the actual scope of the project. 

2. Be mutually exclusive. There should be no overlap between two elements of a WBS in scope definition. Such an overlap could not only result in duplicated work or misunderstanding about responsibility and/or authority, but could also cause confusion in project cost accounting. One technique for avoiding this problem is to develop a WBS dictionary to clarify the differences between WBS elements and describe each in terms of milestones, deliverables, activities, scope, and other factors. 

3. Focus on outcomes, not actions. The best way to stick to the 100% rule is to define Work Breakdown Structure elements in terms of outcomes, as opposed to actions. This strategy ensures that the WBS is not overly prescriptive in terms of method, and therefore allows for more flexibility and creative thinking on the part of team members. In addition, a WBS that subdivides work by project phases (e.g. preliminary design phase, critical design phase, etc.) must clearly separate the phases by deliverables that define the entry and exit criteria (e.g. an approved preliminary or critical design review). 

4. Be detailed, but not too detailed. As useful as it is to divide work into smaller and more manageable elements, you also need to know when to stop. There are several ‘rules of thumb’ for determining appropriate activities or group of activities needed to produce a specific deliverable as defined by the WBS. The first is the “80 hour rule,” which cautions that no one activity or group of activities to produce a single deliverable should require more than 80 hours of effort. A second guideline is that no single activity or series of activities should take longer to complete than a reporting period. So, if your project team reports on its progress monthly, then no single activity or series of activities should be longer than one month long. 

5. Keep it simple. Creating three levels in your WBS hierarchy (e.g., Project, Phase and Task) should be enough. Avoid identifying labor or activity codes as WBS elements, even if you use them to describe labor detail on billing invoices or backup reports. In addition, it’s not necessary to make every phase balanced; just because one phase has a task doesn’t mean that all should.

Work Breakdown Structure: a blueprint for project management

When finished, a well-organized WBS resembles a flowchart in which every element is logically connected to another. The primary requirement or objective appears at the top, with increasingly specific elements appearing beneath it. The elements at the bottom of the diagram represent tasks and activities small enough to be easily understood and carried out. An effective WBS avoids redundancy, but at the same time, leaves out no critical elements. 

The bottom line is that a Work Breakdown Structure divides your project into distinct, manageable work elements. A WBS is useful to various groups within a company, including marketing, business development, accounting, and project management. A well-planned WBS is integral to successful project proposals, planning, scheduling, budgeting, and reporting.

Ready to learn more? Discover how an ERP system can benefit your firm by downloading our whitepaper.

Photo credit: http://virtualpminabox.com/

If your business designs and produces projects for external clients, you’re in what is referred to as a project-based firm. This category can include architecture, engineering and construction companies, consulting firms, advertising agencies and many others.

As different as these industries may be from one another, they share a core challenge of completing projects in ways that meet the client’s goals within existing constraints, while at the same time, delivering the desired profitability to their organizations.

There are many tools and methodologies that can help project managers at project-based firms track how successfully they deliver projects. But before managers can benefit from such tools and methodologies, it’s essential for them to understand four basic project management concepts, and how they interrelate.

1. Resources – The most critical resources that your organization manages are its human capital, which, depending on your needs and preferences, you might track as individuals, teams or both. Resources can also include equipment, services, supplies, and funds. A central goal in managing resources is ensuring the suitability of the specific resources, as well as availability, internal costs, etc.

2. Time – Managing time involves organizing and tracking tasks, activities, and schedules. It’s critical in helping to establish a workable plan and schedule, monitoring and reporting on progress, and ultimately, ensuring the profitability of the project. Key aspects include defining and sequencing activities, estimating needed resources and time requirements, and developing and managing to a defined schedule.

3. Cost – Effective cost management begins before the project even gets underway, by planning a budget with as much accuracy and specificity as possible. Cost management also requires developing contingencies for costs that are anticipated, but cannot yet be quantified with certainty. As the project moves forward, the manager tracks estimated vs. actual costs and the overall profitability of the project.

4. Scope – Managing a project’s scope begins with assessing its size, complexity, goals, and requirements. By having a clear understanding of the scope, the project manager is better able to create a viable estimate and schedule, assemble the appropriate resources, and ensure that the team meets its deadlines. Without a good handle on scope, the project can experience scope creep, which can lead to missed deadlines, cost overruns, and decreased profitability.

Taking a holistic view

It’s important to appreciate how each of these project management concepts affects, and is affected by, the others. The skillful project manager addresses them holistically, and makes adjustments in each as the project moves forward. To manage risk and ensure a quality project, managers need to not only understand these concepts, but also have in place the right tools and processes to control them — along with great organization and communication skills. 

Of course, it’s the rare project that goes exactly according to plan… which is why understanding these four project management concepts is so essential. When variances or setbacks arise in any one area, the effective project manager has mechanisms in place to recognize problems in time to make adjustments, and yet still meet the project goals for both the client and the firm.

Checkout more Project Management related articles.

A successful project doesn’t come easy, but it isn’t exactly rocket surgery. Below we’ve outlined six keys to project success to help your staff know where to focus their energy.

1. Plan

Clearly identify and confirm the objectives of the project with your client before you start. A plan will keep you from veering off track and save you from many problems if and when scope creep occurs.  Effective planning enables you to meet the client’s schedule and budget requirements, or work through them together for a win-win outcome.

2. Engage

Both staff and clients have to be engaged in the process in order maximize project success. According to Ed Boyle, Global Practice Leader at Gallup, engagement increases performance-related business outcomes by 240%.

3. Measure

The concept of measuring in order to improve is not just a management catch phrase, it’s scientifically validated. The only way you’ll know how a project is going (or know how to make it go better) is to measure. We’re not suggesting you measure EVERYTHING, but do review your goals and start looking at metrics that can help you meet those goals.  Measuring your clients perception of the project success, during the project, is critical to promoting their goals.

4. Adapt

To adapt means to make things fit, usually by modifying a process or way of thinking. Great project teams are skilled at adapting – having the ability to alter the way they practice or the way they think to increase the likelihood of project success. And these don’t have to be large or dramatic changes; they can be subtle changes, like checking voice mails more often. These small changes can affect the outcome of our projects in a big way, but require understanding the client in order to adapt appropriately.

5. Evaluate

Measuring throughout the project is crucial, just as important as creating a comprehensive evaluation at the end of the project. Taking time to evaluate may seem secondary compared to the primary efforts of executing the project, but don’t get too busy chopping wood that you never sharpen the ax.  Talk to your clients - every project can teach us valuable lessons about how to improve both now and on the next project.

6. Recognize

Our basic human need for meaning applies to work life.  We all feel our contributions are most meaningful when recognized for a job well done. If your staff feels they have a means to be recognized, they will work even more effectively, further contributing to project success. 

Achieving predicable outcomes can be easy if you take a moment to find out from the project team what’s working, what isn’t, and respond accordingly.  Obtaining feedback directly from clients is one of the easiest ways to assure project success.

Checkout more about the benefits of feedback.

Do you lose sleep at night wondering if you have the capacity to handle work coming in or even worse if you have too many people?  As a manager of a professional service firm, managing your human capital is a daily necessity to achieve firm growth and the anticipated performance expected from your employees.  As the market changes, your firm needs information readily available to make quick decisions about acquiring, training, and scheduling your talent.  Many firms rely on resource forecasting tools to handle the management of their employees.  Let’s take a further look at some of the challenges firms have with managing their resources: 

Challenge #1: What are my employees currently doing?  In the past, to see what an employee was working on, managers would go to the desk of their employees to check on the progress of their projects.  However, now resources aren’t always in the same office, state or even country.  Managers are finding they need to easily identify on a daily basis how their employees’ time is being used so they can plan for future work.

Solution - Collect and Measure Time.  As a professional service company – time is what we sell.  Sometimes there is a product that we deliver, but we still internally measure how valuable that product is based upon how much time we have spent creating it.  By capturing an employee’s actual time against a project your firm can now measure that time against what was forecasted to determine the variance. That variance provides you with data to use when projecting future projects.

Challenge #2: How do I match skills with available work?  Some firms are small enough that managers know everyone. However, for a larger firm or as a small firm grows, you don’t necessarily know the skills available within your firm.  Being able to match skills to the work you pursue and win becomes a juggling act.  Not all firms have the critical information available to predict when they need to hire an employee with specific skill sets.

Solution - Identify the Right Resource.  In an ERP, your firm identifies skills, training, role, and experience.  Having this information available allows project managers to identify the right resource based on real-time information.  An integrated solution provides your firm with the ability to search for similar past projects and determine how much experience (time data) they have working on this type of project.  The availability of this employee data allows project managers to make decisions about their collective skills and come up with a plan to increase / diversify their skills needed for the project.

Challenge #3: What predictions can I make about future work?  In order to make a well-informed decision on how to handle the future work, a firm needs historical data.  Without this information, you might as well turn over your resource forecasting to a psychic because your firm is just guessing.  Many firms don’t have the data available to make these decisions.

Solution - Availability.   Project schedules require managing all types of commitments – planned and unplanned. In addition to project commitments, employees take vacation, are on holiday leave, and have internal meetings and activities.  Developing a comprehensive plan for each employee provides accurate resource forecasting to handle future demands.  This helps identify capacity excess or shortage gaps.

The ultimate goal for any project is to end up with a loyal client that will use your firm again.  In order to do that, firms must finish the project on time and on budget.  Choosing a solution that integrates all of these data points allows your firm to report real-time information to make well-informed decisions about resource forecasting needs.  By optimizing your resources, project managers can shorten the decision cycle, increase profitability, and better plan for the future.  

Learn more about Resource Management?  

Last week I was working on my plans for a few upcoming implementations (yes, I have to do plans just like you do).  As I was using the “Resource Search” feature, I thought it would be helpful to demonstrate some of the features of this powerful tool for fellow project managers.  So for those that are thinking about using Deltek Vision's Resource Planning tool and those that need a refresher, here are some great features of the tool.  

What Is Resource Search Option?
The Resource Search option allows you to see who is available to work and when they are available. It allows users to quickly assign resources and respond to client needs. This feature is accessed when working on the Labor Tab of the Planning module.  To search for resources, right click on the left side bar to search for a resource. Then select “Resource Search.”   

Who Has Skills?  
If you are like me, you are already familiar with your team’s skill set because we have a smaller team. Depending on the size of your firm, you may or may not need this feature. However, as your firm grows (that's the purpose of tool, right?) knowing the skills available can be very helpful. The resource search has the capability to search for resource skills. To take advantage of this feature, your organization must simply take the time to enter data within the Experience Tab. The skills feature is also used by marketing as a part of the government SF330 form. The skill and level of expertise is customizable to your firms needs.

Who is Available?  
In addition to searching for skills, the resource search allows you to identify resource availability and commitment. The commitment search allows me to search for over and under usage, as well as, a specific percentage of utilization for a specific date range. This feature in combination of the skills search allows me to narrow down the person that fits my criteria.

An Alternative to Resource Search
I noticed I kept switching back and forth from the Planning module to Resource Management.  Once I've narrowed down my search on the employees I'm looking for, I like to use the Resource Management module.  For me, the coloring provides a quick visual of those that are over, under, or on target for a specific time period.

To simplify this process, lets pull up the Resource Utilization screen in a separate window (Right Click on ‘Resource Utilization’, click ‘Open in New Window’).  Now by simply moving the plan to the left hand side and the Resource Utilization screen on the right hand side, I'm now able to show the available resources.  In the Deltek Vision ERP system, this side by side comparison provides a quick view of our team members availability next to our project plan. This is simple, easy and saves me at least 3 mouse clicks.

More Resources
Are your Project Managers using these tools?  Searching by skills, commitment, and availability are only a few of the features in Deltek Vision's project-based ERP.

Be sure to view our Resource Planning Demo to learn more.

For those using Deltek Vision Resource Planning, try out these tip and let me know how they work for you. If you have any tips and tricks you've learned, please add a comment.

Be sure to check other Project Management articles.

Of all the metrics that professional services firms can track, two of the most important are utilization and realization.  These are different, but related ways of measuring employee productivity and profitability. Both can be measured with a high degree of accuracy — and made visible to management — using software.

A quick jargon review

Utilization measures the hours charged to a client’s project compared to the total available hours (usually 40 hours per week). For example, if an employees’ expected work week is 40 hours and the employee achieves 35 hours of client chargeable work then their utilization rate is 87.5%.

Utilization is not necessarily within an employee’s control: for example, an employee might be working on an important internal project that can’t be billed. Because of the many variables that affect utilization, the longer the period over which it’s tracked — say, over the course of a year — the more useful it is in evaluating performance against employee and company goals.

The second metric, realization, refers to the actual revenue based on employees’ hours charged and billed to clients compared to what they should have generated from their utilization achieved. It’s a measure of their profitability, and a metric that provides valuable insight into how well a company is able to translate hours worked on projects into revenue. In a perfect world utilization and realization will be equal, but this is rarely the case.  Realization can also help in compensation and promotion reviews, staffing decisions, project and unit pricing and assessing the health of the company itself.

The impact of measuring employee productivity and profitability can be enhanced further by a commitment to Earned Value Management (EVM), a project management technique for objectively measuring project performance and progress. Together, these techniques help a firm gain a clear, objective view of employee and project performance, identify where resources are over- and under-utilized, and optimize workforce utilization and profitability.

Software solutions

There are a number of software solutions for measuring employee productivity and profitability. Some focus specifically on project and resource management, while others provide these functions as part of larger, more integrated solutions. 

For example, Deltek Vision can provide a firm with comprehensive visibility into its organization, efficient oversight of its projects and people, and efficient automation of processes. Most significantly, it allows the firm to be proactive rather than reactive in addressing resource management issues, thus increasing the probability of project success. On a more tactical level, the product’s Employee Realization feature allows a user to track and report on realization values, compare utilization vs. realization, optimize staff utilization, minimize scheduling conflict, and substantially reduce the potential for missed milestones. 

Whatever approach an organization uses in measuring employee productivity and profitability, doing so requires a sustained effort and commitment on the part of management. Handled correctly, however, the payoff is immense: instant visibility into resource commitments across an entire organization, and granular awareness of who is available (and when) with the skills needed to satisfy projects’ technical requirements.

Project delivery is all about taking an idea from concept through to production. Firms want their projects completed in the fastest and most cost-efficient manner possible, all without sacrificing quality. Incorporating feedback into a firm’s process helps the team perform at their best, while the very act of asking for feedback shows clients proactive and professional care. To help jumpstart your client feedback process, we’ve listed the top 10 feedback techniques to facilitate project delivery. 

1. Make it Comfortable.

When requesting feedback make sure the process is comfortable to use for all parties. The more comfortable the process, the more likely both parties are to participate. A comfortable process means clients will not feel put on the spot and concerned about a confrontation. Focus questions on processes, not personalities, and offer a flexible answer scale to capture subtle nuances of perceptions. 

2. Create Actionable Results.
An effective feedback technique requires data to enable follow-up. Be sure you are asking questions that allow you to retrieve measurable, actionable data. If the questions are too vague or too open ended, you won’t have the information that you need to take action.  

3. Process Focused.

The questions asked should be about process rather than people or products. We aren’t looking to find out how well the client “liked” us, but rather where our process is working great and where it might need some improvement.  

4. Go Beyond Satisfaction.

Ask your clients questions focused on their expectations, instead of their satisfaction, because satisfaction is the expected norm. The client’s perception of how you performed compared to their expectations is the key to knowing where to improve your project delivery process. Additionally, you’ll find 500% more exceptionally positive feedback than you will challenging feedback – and we all love to discover good news. 

5. Reduce Liability.

When asking for feedback, focus on questions that can reduce liability and encourage positive outcomes. Just by asking for feedback throughout a project, you are creating a record of the service perceptions all along the way, reducing the chance of a lawsuit and increasing your ability to meet their needs. Feedback helps keep you and your client aligned on a common goal - a successful project outcome. 

6. Don’t Wait.

Collect feedback throughout the project, not just at the end - when it’s too late to improve that project. Response rates are highest when the client senses his feedback might improve the project outcome. Once the project is over, the incentive to respond is gone. 

7. Make it Trackable.

Tracking feedback responses isn’t complicated, but making sure everyone on your team gets the feedback they need, reviews it, and takes appropriate action can be much more challenging. Deploy good tools to capture who is asking for feedback, who’s responding, and who takes what action on each critical response. 

8. Use Instant Alerts.

Collect feedback in a way that you can be instantly alerted to new feedback and drive real-time follow-up.  A good system will establish score thresholds that indicate, in real-time, when follow-up is required for exceptional circumstances. Make sure the right people are alerted so nothing falls through the cracks. 

9. Keep the Client First.

Structure your feedback techniques so that it is quick and easy for the client to give you feedback. Don’t waste their time with long surveys or questions with answers that only matter to you.  Response rates are higher with multiple short surveys over a period of time, than with one or two long surveys sent less frequently. 

10. Follow up.

Don’t neglect the follow up! A survey should always start a conversation, not replace one. Typically, follow-up is simply a personal acknowledgement that you saw and read the response. However, if any special situations were noted (either in scores or comments) be sure you open a dialogue to show how the feedback will change the process and project going forward. 

Each of these feedback techniques focus on a deliberate approach to your feedback collection efforts. Set your goals to collect actionable feedback in way that is easy for the client. Make understanding the results and following up easy for you too. See feedback as the opportunity that it is to improve your process, reduce your liability and become your client’s expert.

Interested in learning more about how you can start collecting client feedback?

SaaS, ERP, CRM, LOL blah, blah, blah. Today everything seems to be reduced down to acronyms, to fit into our fast paced instant message, text, and Twitter world.  However, many times we can be left out of the story because we don’t know what they mean.  So, what does ERP mean and what are some of the common related terms? To help you decipher this business jargon, let’s discuss what it is and how it can help firms.

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning is a system facilitating the flow of information between all business functions, from your Finance and Management Accounting to Project management, Client Relationship Management (CRM – see more below), Human Resources, Inventory and Purchasing. 

The benefit of an ERP is your business efficiency can improve dramatically as all your business processes are automatically synchronized.  The real-time functionality allows for upper management to react quickly to changing dynamics in the company and the economy. 

Some of the characteristics to look for in a “good” ERP solution are:

• Operates in “Real-Time”, reflecting what is going on with your business now
• Database that supports all applications and allows for minimal duplication of efforts
• Consistent interface throughout the system for ease in training staff

SaaS – Software as a Service is a software model where the software and data are centrally located on the “cloud” (see below).  SaaS solutions are typically accessed via a web browser allowing access from any location.  SaaS solutions have become popular over the last several years.

Some of the benefits of a SasS model are:

• Easier administration at the client level as all updates, and patches are handled by the provider on a timely basis
• Management of the data back-ups
• Subscription feel providing a lower up-front investment compared to traditional software models

CRM - Customer Relationship Management is a model for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers.  A typical CRM system will synchronize sales, marketing, customer service and technical support (if applicable).

Some benefits of a CRM system are:

• Identification of top clients allowing for better customer service focus
• Increasing information sharing between employees
• Allowing systems to track client contacts
• Providing visibility into sales and marketing efforts

SQL – Structured Query Language is a programming language that allows access to and management of large amounts of data. The data is stored in a relational database and offers the user the ability to manipulate and view the data in various ways. Efficiency is the main benefit of a relational database as the data can be easily formatted providing ease of grouping and comparison.

Cloud refers to using the internet to access programs and data.  Operating in the cloud has some real advantages in that you can access your data anywhere at any time and the cost of maintaining local hardware and operating systems are reduced (somewhat replaced by the cost of the cloud operations).  Some concerns are ensuring data integrity and security, reliability, limited customization and latency.  Be sure to check out this whitepaper for more information about the cloud.

Project-Based ERP is an ERP system built to meet the needs of project-based industries.  Project-based industries generate most of their business via individual projects (as opposed to producing widgets).  A project-based ERP will allow managers to track the life-cycle of individual projects from the initial proposal through project close-out.  This allows management analysis of the success (or challenges) of individual efforts, apply best practices and come up with a company policies and procedures.

Open Architecture refers to the ability to add-on, customize or upgrade components of existing system software.  Software that has open architecture publishes or makes available its structure allowing for developers to access and manipulate.  In some cases this allows direct access via an OBDC (yet another acronym meaning Open Database Connectivity) connection or information sharing via an API (Application Programming Interface). 

Of course this is only a snapshot of what you hear out there. Hopefully it will serve as a starting point so you expand your research ERP.  New terms are created daily (just check any 15 year olds text messages to see) so this may be obsolete by the time it is published.  However, it does help you get a handle on the terms you have heard on the news, business reports, and around the office.  And now when someone asks you ‘What does ERP mean,’ you’ll have the answer!