Project Tools Overview
PD-Trak™ offers a full range of tools to help project teams to plan and manage projects from
idea to completion. The Project File may be configured as a comprehensive
collection of tools including Microsoft ProjectTM or a simple set of worksheets depending on the needs of your organization and the type of project being managed. Different projects may use different phase-gate process models with different toolkits, each optimized for the particular type of project.
PD-Trak's modular design allows companies to
configure a project toolkit that is optimized for a given application.
The following options are available at the project level (click
here for pricing details):
The Standard Project Toolkit
includes a basic set of worksheets and document templates for
managing a project to a defined stage / phase-gate process.
Optional Modules
The Extended Project Toolkit adds tools for managing risk, measuring
project success and enhanced financial management features.
The Resource Management Option adds features for capturing resource
demand profiles for the projects and management reporting functions for
analyzing overall resource demand vs. availability.
The Product Development Toolkit
provides additional tools that are specific to product development
projects.
The Project Home Page
Regardless of which options are chosen, all projects in PD-Trak will
have a home page with a common format designed to provide intuitive
navigation to project tools and information.
The standard layout of the project file home page is described below.
Note that blue links indicate that data has been added; gray links point
at tools that have not yet been used by the team. For a detailed
description of the various tools, see one or more of the following:
Standard Project Toolkit,
Extended Project Toolkit,
Resource Management
Option, Product Development Toolkit.
Project Summary
This section captures high level
information about the project. All fields shown are standard except the
six fields in the bottom right corner. These fields can be customized
and are used to filter management reports based on the selections made
for each project (e.g. show data for all projects targeting the USA
market).
Project Management
This column contains links to project management
related tools.
Many of these tools are structured according to the phases and gates of
the stage / phase-gate process. Primary Documents
This column would be populated with any standard/primary
document templates that you intend your project teams to use to document
the project. Pre-defined
Phase-Gate Templates are available from PD-Trak Solutions, (optimized to a particular stage / phase-gate
process) which can be adjusted to meet the specific needs of your
company, or you can add your own document templates.
Document Storage
This column provides links to navigational
pages that are part of the Document
Management system within the project file. Tools
This column would contain any additional, optional tools that
are to be made available to the project teams to use. The
Product Development Toolkit
option includes a set of tools that would appear in this column.
You can add your own optional tools to this column.
This table summarizes the tools that are added at the project level with
the available options. Note that the resource management tools are
used in conjunction with management reports that extract the resource data
and build tables and charts showing resource demand vs. availability for the
projects in the portfolio.
|
Category |
Tool |
Standard
Toolkit |
Extended
Toolkit |
Resource
Management Option |
Product
Development Toolkit |
| Definition |
Project brief |
ü |
|
|
|
| |
Budget & schedule |
ü |
|
üNote 1 |
|
| Financial |
Financial justification |
ü |
|
|
|
| |
Expense allocation |
|
ü |
|
|
| |
Financial summary |
|
ü |
|
|
| Tasks |
Task plans |
ü |
|
|
|
| |
Schedule (MS Project) |
|
ü |
Note 2 |
|
| |
Risk management |
|
ü |
|
|
| |
Action items |
ü |
|
|
|
| People |
Team members |
ü |
|
|
|
| |
Resource allocation |
|
|
ü |
|
| |
Stakeholder analysis |
|
ü |
|
|
| Tracking |
Decision log |
ü |
|
|
|
| |
Gate archives |
ü |
|
|
|
| |
Metrics dashboard |
|
ü |
|
|
| |
Project cost by phase |
|
ü |
|
|
| |
Project milestones |
ü |
|
|
|
| |
Project scoring |
|
ü |
|
|
| |
Slip chart |
|
ü |
|
|
| Tools |
Bill of materials and supplier plan |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Control plan |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Design for manufacturability and assy eval |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Design for manufacturability guidelines |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Failure modes and effects analysis |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Product map |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Quality function deployment |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Radar chart |
|
|
|
ü |
| |
Target costing |
|
|
|
ü |
Note 1: Adds a resource table by skill set that is used for assigning
resources by type and to drive resource cost as a component of the project
budget.
Note 2: Resource data may be imported from the MS Project
file into the resource allocation and budget & schedule worksheets.
| 
