It’s been quite a while since I’ve been impressed with a Microsoft product, but I will say that Project Server 2007 has impressed me. In addition to Project Server 2007, the entire Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution is impressive as well. The EPM Solution, which contains Project Server 2007, Project Professional 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007, is, according to Microsoft:

an end-to-end collaborative project and portfolio environment. The Office EPM Solution helps your organization gain visibility, insight, and control across all work, enhancing decision-making, improving alignment with business strategy, maximizing resource utilization, and measuring and helping to increase operational efficiency.

What impressed me so much about Project Server 2007 and the MS EPM Solution? Glad you asked.

1. First and foremost…the ease of install, configuration and ‘time to first usage’ was great. Unlike a lot of other products on the market, installing Project Server 2007 look less 30 minutes and the system was ready to use in less than an hour. Project Server piggybacks on top of Sharepoint Server so configuration was a breeze using the web interface in the single server environment that I have at home. I’m sure if this product is installed for an enterprise, the install and configuration would be slightly more time consuming but I can’t imagine it being much more difficult for a properly trained person.
2. Integration with Project Professionl 2007 is seamless. Once I had Project Server 2007 configured, I opened Project Pro, pointed to the server and was able to immediately begin interacting with projects that were stored in the server as well as upload projects from my local machine.
3. The product is highly customizable. Since the system sits on top of Sharepoint, the web interface can easily be customized to meet an organization requirements.

The EPM solution from Microsoft is the first integrated, enterprise level strategic project management solution that I’ve seen. Unlike other solutions that are built in a piece-meal fashion, the MS EPM solution is completely integrated and provides an interface for Project Manager’s to manage their projects and resources (Project Professional 2007) as well as for Senior Executive to review and approve projects (Project Web Access coupled with Project Server and Portfolio Server).

I’m really interested in looking at Project Portfolio Server 2007 but Microsoft hasn’t released a trial yet…hopefully they will do so soon so I take a test drive of it. It looks like a great product for project portfolio management. The demo that Microsoft has created shows that this product has a lot of promise. Can’t wait to test drive it.

[tags] Project Server 2007, Project, Project Management, Enterprise Project Management, Portfolio Server, Information Technology [/tags]