Many organizations experience fluctuations in their staffing requirements due to changes in workload attributable to: market conditions, rapid growth, project implementation, facility maintenance and turn around, employee attrition, regulatory requirements and a variety of other factors.  Staff Augmentation is an effective strategy which can address these fluctuations in 6 key areas.

Time– The time saved by not having to recruit, screen, interview, hire and then train additional highly skilled and specialized resources can be substantial

Cost–There are significant savings realized by contracting at hourly rates for specified periods of time. Included in these savings are the avoidance of costs associated with having to provide a competitive full-time benefits package and training for a traditional full-time employee.

Risk– Targeted staff augmentation helps reduce the likelihood of costly project over-runs by having the right resources in the right places for critical time periods.

Flexibility– Agility is critical to any organizations success in responding effectively to market conditions and regulatory changes.  Staff augmentation provides additional flexibility in prioritizing resource and workload challenges by quickly addressing unanticipated staffing needs.

Control– One of the trade-offs for outsourcing certain functions can be a loss of control.  Staff augmentation enables you to maintain more organizational control and oversight of your projects and initiatives

Expertise– The best staffing providers have access to many highly skilled and specialized candidates for particular and unique needs.  These candidates will enhance the “tribal knowledge” of your organization stepping in to fill leadership and supervisory roles and train your staff in the process.  Often these individuals are open to staying on as full- time staff when there is an especially good fit.

These are some of the reasons why many organizations are turning to staff augmentation providers for expert and timely support in response to fluctuating conditions.  Many of you may have had experiences as contractors or clients which will shed light on staff augmentation as a viable solution. We would welcome your comments and experiences.

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At the time PCM 14.0 BIPE was released many in the PCM community were excited to hear of the retirement of InfoMaker, but at the same time dismayed to hear there was no ‘upgrade’ or ‘conversion’ from their extensively customized libraries. I have started my own personal journey to being equally comfortable with BI Publisher. And it looks like it will be a long journey.

Aligning with the Oracle Toolset — With the acquisition of Primavera by Oracle in 2009, many of Oracle’s other products are being introduced into the applications Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management and Primavera Contract Management. The default database server, application server, content repository and reporting tool have been replaced with Oracle owned products such as Oracle Server, WebLogic, Enterprise Content Management and BI Publisher. Additionally, the introduction of Business Process Management, User Productivity Kit, Fusion Middleware and BI Enterprise Edition into the Primavera applications further extends the power and availability of your work product.

BI Publisher Resources — Many great resources are available for BI Publisher. The most important resources are the product documentation and Oracle’s support team. This will help with the proper installation and integration of BI Publisher with Primavera Contract Management. Failure to get this fundamental step completed accurately will make this journey all the more frustrating. Additional resources I have found valuable include the Oracle Blogs and Community pages, as well as content found on the BI Publisher YouTube channel. Although not geared to Primavera applications specifically, the BI Publisher Fundamentals training from Oracle University gives you a glimpse into the possibilities while giving some comfort with the tool.

“Practice makes Perfect” — With all the resources available, using the tool will be the best way to learn. Rebuilding the stock reports and forms gave me the comfort of using the tool and validation of how the pieces work together. I am not venturing into rebuilding some custom content that I have previously created in InfoMaker. In the near future I see working with the new template and output options available and seeing how they fit into Primavera Contract Management.

Conclusion — While sad to see my trusted friend InfoMaker disappear after a 15 year love-hate relationship, I see the power of BI Publisher being a great reason to embrace the future and this this tool. While this journey is nowhere near the end, I do see that I will continue to use the resources I have mentioned to make the travels a little less uncomfortable, even if that means circling back many times. Hope to see you on the road…

Collaborate12 — I will be presenting on this topic at Collaborate 12 in Las Vegas, NV. My presentation will be one of several on the topic of BI Publisher. Be sure to check out this conference.

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Working as a Primavera Contract Management consultant for the last six years has provided me the opportunity to sample the food of many regions and cities. One particular favorite food of mine is pizza. This isn’t an effect of my traveling over the last few years, but has been a weakness of mine over the last 30+ years.

Everybody has their favorite. Local or chain? Regular, thin or deep dish crust? Heavy or light on the sauce? Carnivore’s delight or vegetarian feast? Mushrooms? Anchovies?   I prefer deep dish, light sauce, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms (canned) and baked a little longer than normal.

So by now you may be asking why is this guy making me hungry when I should be getting information about how to manage my projects better? Because your project management system should afford you the same flexibility!

What documents do you want to manage in your system? Just submittals and RFI’s, or all project communications? Contracts and Changes, with or without Change Management? Fixed price or Unit Price method? Is the system just a log, or do you want to use it to generate functional documents?  I could go on forever!

On a regular basis, I will endeavor to post some handy information regarding Primavera Contract Management system and some real-world success regarding how different companies are making the system work for them, not just adapting their way to the stock system. I would love to say check back each week, or twice a month, but I might be too busy trying out a new pizza to post. The keys don’t work well with cheese in them!

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