Manage recurring activities that deliver products with the govern projects business process area
Applies to: Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Project Operations
This article describes how you can use Dynamics 365 products to govern your projects.
Introduction to govern projects
The govern projects business process area encompasses the procedures, policies, and structures that are used to manage recurring activities that deliver a particular product or service. Effective management of these processes is crucial for maintaining efficiency, improving productivity, and driving growth. In this context, Dynamics 365 plays a pivotal role. As a comprehensive business solution, it provides robust tools for project governance, so that businesses can streamline their processes, enhance collaboration, and make data-driven decisions.
The process of defining, scoping, and implementing this business process area in an overall implementation with business apps is a strategic endeavor. Ideally, it should occur during the initial stages of system planning. In this way, you gain a holistic view of the organization's processes and increase the likelihood that the solution is tailored to meet the organization's unique needs.
Important
Project governance is an iterative process. As the organization evolves, so should its use of Dynamics 365. Conduct regular reviews and updates to ensure that the implementation continues to provide value and meet the changing needs of the business.
Stakeholders
Many people across the organization should contribute to the decision-making process and design of the project. The list includes but isn't limited to the following roles:
- Project sponsors
- Project managers
- Resource managers
- Project team
- Executive leadership
- Steering committee
- End users
Govern projects process flow
The Project Management Institute (PMI) created a five-phase model that groups different activities throughout the project management lifecycle. The five phases are project initiation, project planning, project execution, project monitoring & control, and project closure.
Each phase of the project lifecycle consists of specific project objectives and defines results, deliverables, and milestones. Project lifecycle management gives the project team a shared vocabulary for communicating project progress. As a result, they have better control over the projects that they govern. Although the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) recommends assigning project phases according to a project's lifecycle, organizations can follow their own system, depending on their industry, policies, and other relevant factors.
The govern projects business process area is aligned with the five-phase project management lifecycle. It's included in other business processes under the project to profit end-to-end business process.
The following diagram shows the high-level business process flow for govern projects.
Each solid gray rectangle on the diagram represents an end-to-end business process. The solid blue rectangle represents the business process area. The diagram shows the subprocesses for the business process area. The arrows on the diagram show the flow of the business process in an organization. If a subprocess can lead to more than one other subprocess, the parallel subprocesses are shown as branches.
The following steps are illustrated in the govern projects business process flow diagram.
Start
Prospect to quote end-to-end process
Create project quote business process area
Project to profit end-to-end process
Govern projects business process area
- Develop project charter
- Develop project management plan
- Manage project communications
- Manage project quality
- Manage project risks
- Manage project stakeholders
- Direct and manage project work
- Manage project knowledge and documents
- Close project or phase
End
The manage project communications, manage project quality, manage project risk, and manage project stakeholders business processes are repeated as appropriate during the project.
There is a parallel branch to g. Direct and manage project work from another project, because the govern projects business process area effectively includes the following business process areas:
- Manage project contracts
- Manage project resources and schedules
- Manage project delivery
- Manage project financials
- Monitor and analyze project performance
Govern projects benefits
There are many key benefits that can be used to monitor and measure the success of implementing technology to support the govern projects business process area. The following sections outline the key benefits that an organization might monitor and measure for govern projects.
Make it easier for finance to manage project accounting
Dynamics 365 Project Operations offers a comprehensive suite of tools for project accounting. You can use these tools to monitor financial commitments that are related to each project. As part of this monitoring, you can track all costs, such as labor, materials, and overhead. Dynamics 365 Project Operations supports flexible billing structures. Therefore, you can invoice customers based on parameters such as time and materials, fixed price, and milestone billing. In this way, you get accurate and timely billing and, by extension, improve cash flow.
Dynamics 365 Project Operations also provides robust reporting capabilities. You can generate detailed project profitability reports that offer insights into the financial performance of your projects. These reports can help you make informed decisions about future projects. Additionally, you can record transactions by tracking expenses and revenue against any project contract with a customer. In this way, you can get a clear picture of the project's financial status at any given time.
Enable the organization to track different project types
Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides robust functionality for tracking multiple project types to support a wide range of business needs. Dynamics 365 Project Operations supports six types of projects:
- Time and Material
- Fixed Price
- Cost
- Investment
- Internal
- Time
Each project type is set up differently for costs and revenue recognition. The project type that you use depends on the purpose of the project. This flexibility helps organizations effectively manage diverse projects, from professional services and construction projects to internal cost tracking and investment projects. Regardless of whether you're billing an external customer or tracking internal costs, Dynamics 365 Project Operations provides the tools that you need to manage your projects efficiently and effectively.
Provide structure for project managers
Dynamics 365 Project Operations offers a comprehensive solution for tracking a project's work breakdown structures (WBSs). In Dynamics 365 Project Operations, a WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of the total scope of work that the project team must do to fulfill project objectives and create deliverables. It provides a detailed view of the project's tasks and their size, cost, and duration.
This functionality helps project managers get a clear understanding of the project's structure and progress. It also facilitates better resource scheduling and management, and enables WBS estimates to be transferred to project forecasts. These capabilities provide a comprehensive overview of project costs and timeline, and make Dynamics 365 Project Operations an invaluable tool for managing complex projects.
Next steps
If you want to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to assist with your govern projects business processes, you can use the following resources and steps to learn more. (Links are added, when the articles are ready.)
Govern projects (the article that you're currently reading)
Related information
You can use the following resources to learn more about the govern projects process in Dynamics 365.
Find definitions of terminology that is used in content for govern projects in the Glossary of terms in Dynamics 365 business processes article. For example, this glossary includes the following terms:
Contributors
This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors.
Principal author:
- Lifia Tamara | Consultant
Other contributors:
- Lalitha Chintamaneni | Fast Track Solution Architect