TouchBase-PM, part of TouchBase-3PLM Solutions, is an enterprise wide Program/Project Management (PM) application. This can be used by any Product or services company. The following figure shows how PM spans the entire product or project lifecycle.
How TouchBase-PM Works
In any organization, there are three elements:
Organization: This includes organization structure, its different different business units or divisions, company policies and its culture.
User: This includes all employees of the company with their roles and functional responsibilities.
Projects/Products: This is the main business of the organization. Either they carry out custom projects or make products or both.
TouchBase-PM software is designed and developed keeping the above model of the organization. The first step in implementing the software is to map the organization structure, its employees, customers and partners and its policies into the software. All the employees are given certain roles and responsibilities mimicking the manual style.
Now the organization is ready to carry out its actual business of developing products or managing projects and programs. The Program Manager begins a new program based on the best practices templates based on a new enquiry from the marketing department. The program will have a project plan, schedules and the team. The Manager will start delegating and assigning tasks to the team members based on their skill sets and availability. The team will start executing various tasks and each member updates the status on a real time basis as per his/her progress. Overall % complete of the program is automatically calculated. The software will generate reminders and escalations for due and delayed tasks, notifications for new documents uploaded, alerts for any issues or risks and alarms for any budget overshoots. The Program Manager ensures that all corrective actions are taken and project is completed on time. The management representative can keep a watch on all programs and can do the necessary “what if” analysis to make strategic decisions.
Features and Capabilities
TouchBase-PM provides extensive project planning and execution capabilities. Multiple projects can be managed simultaneously, each one having its WBS structure, schedules, deliverables, issues, documents, team members and costs. All team members can update their status and project manager can track schedules and costs in real time.
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TouchBase-PM allows you to implement phases and gates within a program. Phase is corresponding to one stage in the development process like design phase or prototyping phase. Gate is like a high level review meeting after completing a phase. The review meeting decides if the project is on the right track and project should go into next phase. Otherwise some corrective actions are listed and progress into the next phase is subject to successful completion of those corrective action items. This brings in the discipline and quality required for the product development process. TouchBase-PM supports this methodology in a very elegant manner. Gantt Chart is a graphical representation of project WBS plan. TouchBase-PM has a extensive Gantt Chart feature for viewing and editing. Project Manager can use this tool to plan, schedule and analyze the complete project. The Gantt Chart shows the scheduled and actual dates as shown below.
During the course of project execution, there are several issues and risks. The Project Manager’s task is to identify these issues and risks ahead of time and resolve them at the earliest. Normally these issues and risks are not found until the very last moment due to lack of visibility. TouchBase-PM helps project team to capture these issues and track them until they are resolved through an action item.
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