Whether a project is successful or not depends on various factors such as company culture, experiences, teamwork, and leadership. The right technology also plays a decisive role when it comes to thorough planning and efficient execution of a project.

With Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Microsoft developed a comprehensive project management solution that supports companies of different industries during all kinds of projects from order to project delivery. In this article we will examine seven of the critical requirements that the solution can satisfy for a modern services organization.

1. Transparent planning

A well-structured project starts even before the customer signs any contract. As soon as sales is close to sealing a deal, project managers should be informed about the likelihood of receiving the order, the estimated start date of the project and its scope. Project Operations can be integrated with a sales solution to enable the sales department and the project management to collaborate transparently and ensure a clean handoff of both data and processes. That way, project managers can access the requirements, the offer, the order, and all other vital information, and start planning accordingly.

2. Finding the right people

A successful project requires an ideal team. Universal Resource Scheduler, the native scheduling tool for Project Operations, helps project managers find team members based on resource availability, skills, and costs. The project managers can pick the employees that are best suited for the respective project. This is a win-win situation: the customer gets the best team to realize their order, and the project team members can do what they are best at.

3. Always maintain control

From the customer perspective, the worst outcome when they commission a project is that it is not finished on time or exceeds the agreed budget. This is also bad for the services company: not just because they probably won’t be able to make it right with this customer, but also because a delay affects the projects that are up next in the pipeline. Therefore, it is crucial to always stay on top of project status to be able to intervene in a timely way if something starts to go south. Project Operations helps managers monitor all aspects of their current projects. Colored alerts on a dashboard indicate the status, giving decision makers early awareness of potential issues.