The benefits of the ‘Management by Projects’ methodology

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In the earlier post ‘Management by Projects – not just consolidated projects’ the concept of a business management approach, or methodology, of ‘Management by Projects’ was introduced. This earlier post defined what ‘Management by Projects is.

There must be significant and quantifiable benefits to warrant the implementation of the ‘Management by Projects’ approach in an organisation.

Following are some of these:

Information Availability

Few would dispute the benefits of Project Management. Especially when it comes to IT Projects. Most IT organisations practise Project Management for the larger software development projects or service projects. Project Management tools are not particularly cost effective for small projects and therefore tend to be used on projects of a particular level of complexity and scale. read more

Should employees only record billable time in timesheets?

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revise timesheets 2A lot of professional service organisations have timesheet systems. At the end of the day the primary stock in trade for professional service organisations is time. If you don’t record and understand how an organisation is using it’s available time then how can you manage it?

I am surprised however at how many organisations forego a powerful business management capability by only requiring employees to enter time for billable work. What are the implications of this?

Time spent on customer activities read more

Revenue Recognition – common methods used

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costingIn a previous article we went into detail about what Revenue Recognition is and why it is necessary.

At a practical level what are the common methods of recognising revenue and how can this be achieved from an administrative perspective?

In the previous article mentioned above we stated that:

“Revenue is to be recognised over the period in which the services were performed. This is fairly straightforward for services provided on a Time and Material basis.”

“When a project involves delivery of a product that has required services to develop the product, e.g. software, and the provision of services to the project can be estimated reliably, revenue associated with the project shall be recognised by reference to the stage of completion of the project at the end of the reporting period.” read more

Supercharged Invoices

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invoicecredit entryThe days of the plain old invoice are gone. Today’s customers can be very demanding when it comes to the invoices they receive. And let’s face it they have a reasonable amount of clout when it comes to getting their demands met. Delaying payment can be a great motivator to giving the customer what they want.

Ideally then vendors should agree with the customer up front as part of the sales process any specific requirements they have for invoicing. This will allow time for the vendor to ensure that the invoice process and more importantly payments are not held up due to problems meeting these requirements. read more

Revenue Recognition – Is it really necessary?

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We have all heard of Sales, Billings and Revenue but how much consideration has been given to how and where these are reported and what they are used to managed.

sales alert menu iconA brick and mortar retailer of shoes knows precisely when they have earned revenue and how much. Recording the sale in the cash register is the sale event and the amount of money in the register determines the sale value. For this retailer the sale event is also the time at which income or revenue has been earned.

For a professional services organisation however it is not quite so simple. A scenario for a Fixed Price services project may go something like this:- read more

Professional Services KPI’s – The Top Two

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time utilise graph

In an earlier post (see Revenue Recognition – is it really necessary?) we discussed the calculation and recognition of revenue.

In that posting the importance of calculating and reporting revenue by project and period were discussed. Equally as important however is being able to determine revenue by employee. But why?

Calculating and reporting revenue by employee is important because this is one of the key performance indicators that professional service organisations require to effectively manage the business. read more

Management by Projects – not just consolidated projects

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Most mature organisations have defined processes that they follow in order to function effectively.

But under project alert menu icon what methodology do these processes fall? How many organisations have taken the time to stand back and consider if these processes fall under a particular business management methodology?

Work that organisations perform can be categorised into two types: operations and projects.

They are the same in that they are both:-
• Performed by people
• Constrained by limited resources
• Planned, executed and controlled read more