Innovative Management Solutions

Projects are getting larger and more complex. Consequently, it is becoming more important for executives and managers to manage the risks associated with their projects. While executing a project, executives encounter risks that present financial, technical, and schedule obstacles to their organizations’ success. The key to managing these risks and ensuring the successful completion of projects is establishing visibility into project performance.

Since their founding in 1993 Innovative Management Solutions (IMS), a Texas-based company has been instrumental in designing, building, implementing, operating and evolving Project Portfolio Management (PPM) systems for hundreds of customers across a broad spectrum of industries. They have provided clients with functional, technical and process expertise as well as highly qualified individuals to deliver project controls on their critical projects. Over that time, they have observed that many customers have not taken full advantage of the benefits afforded by having PPM systems. When IMS inquired Executive stakeholders regarding why they didn’t take advantage of the potential of these systems there was a pattern of responses:

• Lack of confidence in the information
• Insufficient visibility
• Accuracy and timeliness of reporting
• Reports weren’t engaging

These issues are compounded by several systematic issues driven by organizational factors:

• Silos of data sources
• Access to application and subject matter expertise
• Lack of process accountability
• Low system adoption

IMS looked for a solution to these issues and didn’t find one, so they decided to build it. The Solution is the Primavera Customer Success Subscription. The majority of their clients depend on Oracle Primavera P6 for project scheduling and resource management. Consequently, the solution is grounded on P6. The Customer Success Subscription includes:

• Application Hosting for P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM)
• Unlimited access to P6 Training & Help Desk Support
• ProjectInfoCenter – Dashboards
• ProjectInfoCenter Ad hoc reporting

One of IMS’ service offerings is to help organizations manage Oracle’s Primavera applications. The company is an Oracle Partner for services, training, and software sales. IMS hosts the Primavera applications on its optimized IMS Cloud. This offering takes the workload away from the Client’s IT department and provides the users with a seamless managed service. IMS’ on-demand training includes 496 micro modules of P6, a lab and testing. It helps clients learn the nuances of Oracle's PPM software, improving the overall competency of the user base.

The IMS help desk provides on-demand technical and functional professional assistance in support of Primavera P6. ProjectInfoCenter (PIC) dashboards provide a summary of all the projects in a company’s portfolio and utilize a drill down approach to quickly isolate problem areas of projects. The underlying idea of PIC Dashboards is simple management by exception. PIC makes the exceptions plainly visible to the management team. Besides, PIC Self-Service Reports and Dashboards allow a user to create their own reports and dashboards from within PIC, utilizing the same data sources as the PIC Dashboards. Established in 1993, IMS has carved a niche in the project management landscape by delivering new levels of efficiency, visibility, collaboration, and change control.

IMS is a full-service Project Controls Consultancy. Their offerings include the following Project Management related services:

• Systems Assessment (People, Process & Technology)
• System Implementations, including Business Process Improvement
• Training& Education
• Staff Augmentation& Outsourcing
• Claims Support
• Project Risk Assessments
• Application Hosting
• Data Integration, Automated Workflow, Reporting and Dashboarding
• Software

Many companies across multiple industries have been benefitted from IMS’ high-competency project management capabilities. Industries include Oil & Gas, Petro-Chemical, Automotive, Manufacturing, Energy, Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Insurance, and Retail. “We have a balanced combination of technical, functional, and process expertise to help our clients’ successfully deliver projects that improve the world,” concludes Collins.