1. Place resources at the center of your planning process

Reduce costs by optimizing the workforce

Recruiting, training, motivating and rewarding your staff are certainly key processes of your management.

That's why our planning software places your resources at the center of your planning process and implements the following methodology to help you achieve this key objective: "Benefit from the most suitable resources at the right price and keep them happy and productive!"

• Qualify and quantify the optimal workforce in light of the project portfolio;
• Compare this optimum with the existing workforce (both internal and external);
• Imagine and test scenarios that match task requirements and resource offers through simple HR techniques: recruitment, dismissal, training, use of contractors and temporary workers;
• Set the optimal cost based on estimated realistic productivity and adapt the salary package accordingly.

2. Concentrate on the most profitable projects

Give more importance to the marginal effect of a project

Planning is a concurrent process: new projects compete with existing ones for the use of (limited) resources.

As a consequence, a particular project doesn't necessarily have a positive effect on the entire portfolio, even if its expected income seems very attractive.

That's why we give more importance to the 'marginal effect' of a project than to its income or its theoretical profit.

So, before adding a new project to an existing project portfolio, we use the following methodology that helps us answer this crucial question: 'Is the real added-value of this additional project positive?'

• Calculate the expected cash-flows (CF) generated by our existing project portfolio
• Imagine and test several planning simulations incorporating this additional project
• Compare the CF forecasts of each of these simulations to the initial CF forecasts
• Reject this project if, at the end of the project, the cumulated CF has not been increased

As a result, we concentrate solely on the most profitable projects

3. Anticipate the incidence of recurring problems

Limit risks and produce reliable plans

In PlanningForce, we will anticipate the incidence of recurring problems by using the concept of risk coefficients.

Indeed, risks, such as illnesses, days off, unplanned tasks, longer tasks, changes, and interruptions are frequent throughout the life of the plan.
These events are so frequent that we often have statistics on their occurrence.

That's why we will model their occurrence and incorporate their effect into our plans.

By doing so, we'll improve the reliability of the delivery dates, and certainly the cohesion of the team, the quality of the work and therefore the profits.

Use the concept of risk coefficient.

4. Win the TTM battle with a strategic planning software

Technology Leaders know how crucial mastering time to market (TTM) is to succeed in a volatile and competitive environment.

However, improving TTM is often linked to compromising quality and thus losing credibility and market share.

That's why preparation and anticipation are the key words in this battle in which we can assist you.

Preparation

Preparation is about using PlanningForce tools and features to achieve the best plan.

Tools and features such as WBS, task requirements, competences, efficiencies, risks, retro-planning, goals, priorities, resource leveling, concurrent planning, simulations, KPIs, scorecards, etc.

Anticipation

Anticipation means imagining the scenarios or contingency plans, be they positive or negative, which might modify the course of the initial plan.

In PlanningForce, you will be able to conceive as many scenarios as you wish and test them in a few seconds.
This will help you prepare to face the possibility that one of these scenarios has to be played out.

Your flexibility will become the best insurance for winning the TTM battle. Our strategic planning software will help you making strategic decisions.

5. Save time to concentrate on your strategic tasks

Build an optimized plan in seconds

Because your time is precious, quick responses from your planning system are priceless.

In which areas does PlanningForce help you save time?

1. By using PlanningForce engine

• Scalability: manage dozens or thousands of tasks and resources with the same ease
• Scheduling: build an optimized schedule in seconds from short to long-term
• Re-planning: take account of progress and changes and re-plan on the spot
• Reports: generate and read intelligent reports as clear summaries, not novels

2. While working

• Project creation: use our project and task group templates
• Encodings: experiment our innovative ergonomics to speed up your encodings
• Navigation: find, sort, read or edit any data in just one or two clicks
• Exports: save any kind of data in a click and use it in other programs

6. Better understand your organization and its environment

Keep track of history

The final state of a plan is the result of events throughout its life:

• the initial construction of the plan
• the scenarios you assessed
• the simulations you tested
• the successive progress statuses
• the events that forced you to change course

All these different stages are a piece of the history PlanningForce keeps to help you better understand your organization and its environment and feed your learning curve.

This material is priceless when you have to share your planning expertise or when you re-visit a specific moment of the plan and test the relevancy of alternative working configurations.

Feed your learning curve.

7. Retain and disseminate the best practices

Encourage 'Project Darwnism'

Among the reasons that explain why so many projects fail, one of the most important is certainly the lack of memory and/or transmission of previous experience.

We propose you use our tools to encourage what could be seen as 'Project Darwinism', but is nothing else than using all available data to learn, test, retain and diffuse the best practices.

• Create project templates and task group templates
• Create standard resource profiles
• Use a competence matrix and define levels of efficiency
• Use historical data to estimate risks (staff absences, project delays – task difficulty, ...)
• Review your project lifecycle after completion and understand the reasons for divergence
• Create benchmarks between similar projects and retain the best planned / achieved
• Don't consider projects in isolation from others, but calculate their marginal effect

8.Profit from the information your plan holds

Increase your turnover and your profits

Planning is much more than allocating resources to tasks or predicting project ending dates.

Actually, planning can be seen as one of the most powerful methodologies for performing SWOT analyses.

From such SWOT analyses, you can start elaborating and implementing strategies not just to reduce costs, but also to increase your turnover and your profits.

What you learn from your planning system will thus help you set up a large variety of strategies:

Increase turnover (or activity)

• Create or find buffer activities
• Use buffer resources
• Anticipate and counter declines in activity
• Anticipate and counter disruptions

Increase profits

• Specialize your activities
• Specialize your resources
• Adapt your pricing dynamically
• Adapt third-party agreements