Why Power BI Supercharges Project Management Success

Tracking project progress and adhering to budget and schedule is essential to project management success.

We all track our project’s health in one way or another. Sometimes, it’s checking in with team members to see where they’re up to on a task, using a collaborative working platform to see which files have been uploaded and which haven’t, or manually updating financial documentation to see how closely you’re sticking to a budget.

However, there are few ways to get as much insight into your project as with Power BI, a business intelligence tool that allows project managers to make better-informed, data-driven decisions that increase project success.

What is Power BI?

Power BI is a Microsoft-built business intelligence tool that enables businesses to aggregate their data and present it as visualizations such as charts and graphs in intuitive dashboards.

These business intelligence dashboards can collect data from multiple sources – Excel, CSV files, databases, and more – and display the data as visualizations that share at-a-glance insights into project health in areas such as budget, schedule, resource capacity, risk, change management, and more.

As well as an overview, project managers can click on visualizations to dig deeper into the data. For example, if you’re tracking the project timeline and notice that the project has fallen behind schedule, you can click into the dashboard and see the activity causing the hold-up. You can also view the raw data behind the visualizations if you choose to.

How Power BI Supercharges Project Management

1. Insight into KPIs

In a previous article, we talked about the importance of tracking your KPIs to measure, monitor, and improve your project management processes.

Power BI dashboards are the ultimate tools for gaining at-a-glance insight into all your KPIs within seconds. You can create multiple dashboards that focus on specific areas—such as cost, schedule, and resource capacity—displaying all the relevant KPIs for that aspect of project management in the appropriate dashboard.

Power BI dashboards take raw, inscrutable data and transform it into visualizations that paint a picture of the health of each of your KPIs.

2. Automatic real-time updates

Instead of waiting for your team members to manually gather, analyze, and format data into reports, Power BI enables all this to be done instantly and automatically.

Power BI pulls data from your connected data sources in real-time. It then updates the visualizations in your dashboards with the data, with the dashboards functioning as real-time project reports.

This reduces the delay between a problem occurring and project managers noticing it, allowing them to make better-informed choices based on what’s happening right now.

3. Enhanced project efficiency

There are several ways that Power BI can boost the efficiency of your project management processes.

For one, with real-time insight into project progress, you can see when a project has fallen behind schedule and dive into the data to see which tasks are causing problems. This up-to-date insight means any issues can be resolved as soon as possible.

You can also view which resources are available so that they can be assigned to new tasks more quickly.

Moreover, once you’ve gotten the hang of Power BI, it’ll save time with manual data entry for reporting and documentation. Once set up, Power BI retrieves data automatically and doubles as a reporting and documentation method. This frees up time to do more high-value project work.

4. Improved cost-effectiveness

Like the ability to determine what’s making a project behind schedule, Power BI makes it easy to check how well you’re sticking to budget.

You can click into the data to see which tasks are over budget, determine the causes, and make changes to reduce costs. With Power BI, you can also use predictive analytics to forecast future project costs.

With visualizations that are easy to compare between projects, you can easily observe which projects are your most profitable and come to data-backed conclusions about why this is.

Project managers can use all this data to reduce project costs and actively seek out clients that offer the most profitable projects.

5. Better communication and clarity

 Which do you think is more likely to get everyone on the same page about where the company/project is: dashboards with visualizations that take a few seconds to ‘get the picture’ or long, wordy reports that take an age to interpret?

Power BI dashboards are the ultimate method to communicate project progress to stakeholders. You can create dashboards designed for a specific end user to meet their needs, including executives, team members, or clients.

Dashboard visualizations make data digestible and make progress easy for everyone to interpret. As mentioned in a previous article, stellar communication is the key to project success.

6. Comprehensive insight into project health

Because Power BI integrates multiple sources of data to create its dashboard visualizations, these dashboards provide the most comprehensive overview of project health by considering every factor.

Visualizations based on all the relevant data show insights that consider all data-producing sources, giving project managers the most accurate insight into all aspects of project management health, at a glance.

5 Steps to Assemble a Dynamic Team Primed for Peak Performance

At the heart of any successful project is a dynamic, unified team, formed from two vital components: the people and their environment.

But how do you make sure that both are primed for peak performance when completing projects, with a dynamic, efficient team that delivers punctual, high-quality work?

Here are the steps you can take.

1. Outline the project scope

To assemble your team, you need to outline the roles and responsibilities required for your project.

For this, you need a clear project scope, so you know exactly what deliverables you need to produce – and, therefore, the people required to bring about their completion.

2. Identify roles and responsibilities

Look at the project scope and determine which team members you need. Of course, you need a project manager and other integral project roles.

 Beyond this, however, what subject matter specialists does the project need? Does this project need an analyst to keep track of the project’s progress and analyze data? Does it require a communications specialist to disseminate key messages to stakeholders?

Look through the project scope and note down each role you need filled to ensure the project’s completion. Don’t be afraid to outsource and get the contractors necessary to complete the project if you don’t have the right person in your in-house team.

3. Select the candidates

Now you’re aware of the roles needed for the project, you can select some appropriate candidates. Different projects will be suited to different skillsets and qualities.

You’ll want to consider:

• Past project experience
• Individuals’ interests and passions
• Readiness to learn new skills (if the project requires them)
• Adaptability
• Familiarity with necessary tools

Another thing to keep in mind is the chemistry of the group as a whole. If you know a particular subset of people work well together on certain types of projects, then reusing this group – or a part of the group – can help to ensure things go smoothly.

4. Facilitate a communicative atmosphere

A successful team is underpinned by stellar communication, which doesn’t happen by magic. You need to make sure that the tools and processes are in place to make it happen.

Depending on how your team best communicates, it might be a good idea to onboard them onto a collaborative working tool for the project and/or have regular in-person meetings. Make sure to set expectations for when, how often, and where the team should communicate.

It’s a good idea to set ground rules for communication, setting a precedence for respect and collaboration. Developing a comprehensive communication plan can help you to accomplish this, too, enabling the team to navigate conflict smoothly.

5. Foster strong workplace relationships

Whether it’s team building exercises in work hours, or opportunities for bonding outside of work, creating a comfortable atmosphere where everyone feels able to share their ideas and feel heard is key to building a dynamic team primed for peak performance.

Cultivating strong workplace relationships is pivotal to project success. By focusing on developing these critical bonds, you’ll create a team that’s stronger, and make projects which are even better.