Multi-project management

Projektron BCS multi-project management software - technology and tactics for your project success

Do you have several internal and external projects running in parallel? Focus on the right projects, plan and manage across projects and use synergies: With portfolio graphics, resource planning for project groups and programs and multi-project controlling functions, Projektron BCS provides you with the basis for your strategic and operational multi-project management (MPM).

Multi-project management with Projektron BCS: Effective prioritization, planning and control

Your multi-project management software should...

➤ enable comprehensive project planning for parallel projects?

➤ clearly display cross-project resource and capacity planning?

➤ make the project progress of all projects traceable in real time?

➤ allow projects and programs to be evaluated, selected, and prioritized?

➤ map the multi-dimensional dependencies between projects of an entire project landscape?

➤ help to identify and exploit synergies between projects?

➤ enable comprehensive benefit management and benefit controlling for all projects?

Graphical multi-project evaluation in Projektron BCS

According to DIN 69901-5, 3.38, multiproject management is the organizational and procedural framework for the management of several individual projects. Multiproject management can be organized in the form of programs or portfolios. This includes, in particular, the coordination of multiple projects with regard to the allocation of common resources to the individual projects.

The more extensive the project landscape of an organization, the greater the challenges for project management: project planning, resource management, project steering and project controlling become more complex. Therefore, a powerful system for multi-project management is needed to maintain an overview and control.

With Projektron BCS, you get multi-project management software that not only maps your entire organizational structure and processes, but also your entire project landscape centrally and clearly.

Multi-project management and multi-project controlling in Projektron BCS

Graphical multi-project evaluation in Projektron BCS in dark mode

With Projektron BCS, managers have an overview of all the projects relevant to them, their most important key figures, and any schedule overruns. Thus, the cross-project evaluations not only show planned and actual values (plan-actual comparison, earned value analysis), but also the remaining effort estimated by the individual project teams. Projektron BCS enables a detailed evaluation of the costs incurred in the cost accounting section. Here, multi-project controllers can evaluate personnel costs, material costs and total costs according to cost units, cost centers, cost types and employee cost centers.

The project controller keeps track of the expenses posted to projects in the Expenses/Project view. If necessary, he can export all bookings made within a certain period of time as a CSV file. If the planned end date or the planned effort for tasks has been exceeded, the project controller detects this in the Critical tasks view.

Projektron BCS visualizes project runtimes and project phases with timelines. The daily marker allows multi-project managers to see at a glance where their projects currently stand.

Critical project statuses can be quickly identified in the graphical multi-project evaluation. A total cost diagram per project as well as colored areas for profit, expenditure, total costs, personnel costs and material costs indicate which projects require action on the part of the management. BCS makes it easy for you to reach your goal in project controlling: according to a traffic light scheme, you evaluate the respective project status and show both actual values and the percentage deviation from plan.

Multi-project board: All projects at a glance

An overview of all projects in your company is provided by the multi-project board. In the view, projects are sorted by their status and displayed as cards in Kanban format. You can see which projects are "Planned", "Commissioned" or "Open" and adjust the status and priority by dragging the individual projects into the respective column or row.

The Multi-Project Board shows your projects either by status or additionally by priority or project category. The open projects also show you the most important key figures for effort, costs and profit in relation to the planned values. If you filter the tool according to the project manager, only those projects are displayed in which the selected employee acts directly as project manager.

Project groups and project categories: Structure flexibly

You can combine the individual projects of your company into project groups in Projektron BCS.

You can create the project groups flexibly and nest them as you wish. Thanks to the transparent tree structure, the various structure levels can be conveniently shown and hidden. This enables multi-project managers to quickly analyze the causes of deviations from the plan.

In addition, you can use project categories to group your projects according to further criteria and evaluate them as required in the context of reporting. With project categories, you can evaluate the workload of your employees at different levels according to a categorization you create yourself. You can see how heavily which projects are utilizing your team.

Portrait of Nathalie Buser, Head of Data Management & Statistics, Lindenhof Group Research Center

Nathalie Buser
Head of Data Management & Statistics, Lindenhof Research Center, Bern, Switzerland

“With over 70 research projects, project controlling is almost impossible without specialized software. The training and setup of the software went very smoothly and could be adapted to our processes and requirements. We save a lot of time in controlling because we no longer have to compile figures. Resource planning will also be very important for us in order to be able to distribute new projects better and avoid overloads. The new software was accepted by employees quickly and without complications.”

Thilo Grawert

Head of IT Operations/Head of DSO, uniVersa Lebensversicherung a.G.

“Multi-project management provides managers with a cross-project overview of all requirements and projects in terms of deployment planning and resource utilization, available capacities and project/task deadlines, including milestones.”

Thilo Menges

Head of Corporate Development, Medical University of Lausitz - Carl Thiem

"One of our core requirements for project management software was the multi-project management aspect. We need to be able to see whether a resource is involved both in a project from our IT department and simultaneously in a project from the research department. Only in this way is it possible to plan an economically sensible utilization of resources without overloading. Resources, especially in the technical environment, are limited. Different stakeholders and different activities are involved here: In addition to line activities in IT, strategic projects arise, but they rely on the same resources. This makes prioritization necessary. If certain resources are not available, BCS actively supports the assessment of which activities are important and which activities are urgent and facilitates the necessary reprioritization."

Gesine Chatfield

Head of Information Technology, IQTIG, Berlin

"We were looking for a multi-project management tool with multi-user mode. It should display all IQTIG projects at a glance as well as only specific projects for certain organizational units. For project planning and monitoring, a direct connection to personnel planning should be possible in order to be able to make reliable statements about the availability and utilization of employees at any time Projektron BCS is a reliable and indispensable management tool for us to manage our projects efficiently and to use our resources sensibly and purposefully."

Volker Weber

Project Management Office Strategic Developments and Communication, German National Library

At the end of 2007, we decided to use Projektron BCS. In addition to functions to support multi-project management, project planning and time recording as well as resource management and reporting, the web-based approach also played a role in our selection due to our multiple locations. Throughout the company, BCS supports e.g. multi-project management, project overview, creation of project statistics and call documentation.

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Resource planning for project groups and programs: Strategic deployment

Cross-project resource and capacity planning is crucial in multi-project management to ensure that projects do not compete for limited resources and interfere with each other. It is also important to avoid overloading experts and project staff, as this could cause individual projects to stall. With Projektron BCS, SIe can answer the following questions at a glance:

Capacity plan: Who will work on which task in which project when and to what extent?
Occupancy planning: Which resource (equipment, device, room, person) is used or occupied by which project at what time?

As a program manager or multi-project manager, you can determine how much manpower should be invested at project group or program level in the system. You can easily see whether your budget specification matches the project planning of your individual project managers: In resource planning, Projektron BCS visualizes in the Gantt chart with workload diagram how much of your resource budget for the project group or program is already planned in specific projects.

If you are working with contingent contracts, you will particularly benefit from this function of the tool: Even before you plan the concrete project, you can reserve a resource budget in Projektron BCS. This way, you ensure that the resources remain available for your area and are not scheduled for other projects or tasks.

Project portfolio assessments: For strategic decisions

Project portfolio diagram in Projektron BCS project portfolio management

Which projects are particularly important for your company? With Projektron BCS Portfolio Management (PPM), you record every project and every program centrally in one place and compare them based on their complexity as well as their benefit for your company. The graphical evaluation in the matrix illustrates the business value of your projects and supports you in making strategic decisions regarding your project portfolio.

In the Portfolio Overview view, you create your project portfolio and compare the projects and programs it contains according to various criteria. For example, you can easily make cost comparisons or determine which projects are feasible within a defined budget.

Cross-project milestones: For an efficient collaboration

In multi-project management, it is essential to monitor the risks in the individual projects. This enables timely intervention to prevent possible time and budget overruns. Cross-project risk management methods include cost trend analysis, earned value analysis, and milestone trend analysis.

When planning projects in our project management software, you link several closely interlocked and parallel projects with external milestones. The Gantt chart in Projektron BCS provides a good overview, in which you can display the external milestones of your projects right at the top project level.

The milestone history shows you how on-time selected milestones have been reached across all projects. This is of particular benefit to program managers and multi-project managers, who use milestones as important indicators for adherence to deadlines and project progress.