TRACKING TIME OUTSIDE YOUR

PPM SYSTEM?
WHAT YOU'RE MISSING NOW — AND HOW
IT COULD LIMIT YOU IN THE FUTURE
D O N E C I M P E R D I E T P U R U S
 CONTENTS

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION

1 THE 5 "W"S OF TIME TRACKING

2 WHY TRACK TIME IN YOUR PPM TOOL?

3 MORE BENEFITS OF TIME TRACKING + PPM

4 APPLICATION SPOTLIGHT

5 THE FUTURE OF FORECASTING:

PPM INTEGRATION TODAY, AI TOMORROW

6 GETTING STARTED
 INTRO

WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?

In the world of project management, what you don't know can hurt you.
Do you know how much time your activities really take? If you don't keep track,
chances are you can't see:

• Repeated overallocations, which tie up valuable resources

• Habitual underallocations, which create opportunities for overspend and delay

• Real task and project status: are inaccurate estimates putting delivery deadlines or
budget at risk?

Identifying these situations could improve project outcomes significantly, and that only
scratches the surface of the benefits that accurate time tracking can bring to your organization.

However, reporting time is often viewed as a time sink in its own right: a poor choice of tool or inefficient placement
with respect to other systems can create unnecessary overhead for users, leading to poor compliance and data quality.
So, how do you capture time without losing it in the process — and put that data to work?

Read on to discover how tracking time in your PPM system leverages positive feedback loops that make it easy for
users to report time, refine project forecasts, and improve visibility for everyone involved.
 1. Time tracking is the process of recording the actual amount of time
taken to complete planned activities; these are called actual hours.
THE 5 "W"S
Time can be tracked at any level of the project plan, and at any level

What: Time Tracking

of your resource, structure (though commonly performed at the
individual resource level).

The Project Management Institute defines Time Management as the

3rd major function of project management.

WHY WHO WHEN WHERE

Tracking time provides PPM-oriented Project and portfolio managers track The frequency of time capture varies Herein lies the key to operational
organizations with extremely planned vs actual hours to understand by organization, but generally higher efficiency:
valuable datapoints that can be used progress and refine estimates. frequency means higher accuracy.
Because it is used by many departments,
to achieve optimal operational
Finance teams need actual hours to This is not surprising - after all, time is often tracked in HR, finance, or
effiency:
budget accurately, prove R&D tax credits, research shows that most people standalone systems. However, the best
• Track incurred cost against budget
justify product pricing with regulators, forget 40% of new information after (and most often overlooked) place to
• Gauge time required for tasks and update resource burden rates. 20 minutes, and 77% of information track time is your PPM tool.
• Identify planning or execution is lost after 6 days (ie, a weekly
anomalies HR uses actual time for administrative Tracking time directly in your planning
timecard).
purposes and to justify headcount tool capitalizes on the natural relationship
growth or attrition. Enabling users to record time in the between planning and realization,
same system they use to perform work building forecast insights, informing
reduces the overhead required for project progress, and providing a central
SPOTLIGHT: time entry, increasing granularity and repository for data flow to other systems.
WATCH THE INTERVIEW
Alcon was able to boosting accuracy in reported actuals -
cut development so that you can use them to track and
time f rom >1000 days refine processes.
to ~350 days by using
actual hours to ref ine
estimates in their
project templates
Tracking time in external systems creates layers of data
To illustrate how connecting time tracking to PPM creates 2.
better data for both systems via positive feedback,
transfer between actual hours and the PPM system, which WHY TRACK
consider this scenario: TIME IN
can create misalignment in the data itself, perpetuate
YOUR PPM
inconsistencies in metadata (e.g., project names), or cause An employee completes work, but can't find the activity to report
TOOL?
information to become out-of-date in one or more systems. her time. She asks her timecard administrator for help. What
happens next?

Without PPM:
POSSIBILITY 1:
The administrator opens the activity for time entry manually. The
THE TASK employee continues to spend time on unapproved work.
IS NOT YET
APPROVED With PPM:
FOR WORK The employee is redirected to work on an approved task.

Without PPM:
The administrator updates the task's dates in the time tracking tool
only. The project planner is unaware; the mistake remains in the plan,
POSSIBILITY 2:
potentially impacting scheduling and budgeting.
THE TASK IS
SCHEDULED With PPM:
INCORRECTLY The PM has to update the activity directly in the plan. The cause of the
mistake is investigated, possibly revealing a real planning issue that
the PM can address before it derails the project.

Without PPM:
The administrator adds the activity manually in the tracking tool.
If the work is out of scope, the employee remains unaware. If it's the
POSSIBILITY 3:
Integrating time tracking with the PPM system directly project plan that is wrong, the planner does not know to fix it.
THE TASK
creates richer, more consistent data, and reduces complexity IS NOT With PPM:
in data transfer. It also allows actual time to be captured at SCHEDULED The employee is notified that the work she is doing is unnecessary,
the level of detail needed to inform planning - something AT ALL saving time both now and in future projects. Alternatively, the query
that is often hampered by interface requirements. reveals a deficiency in the plan; the planner adds the task, improving
accuracy in both the project and its underlying template.
 3.
MORE BENEFITS OF 1. RICH DATA EXCHANGE BETWEEN TIMECARD AND PPM
TIME TRACKING + PPM
A direct link between
Separating PPM activities
and timeand actual tools
tracking time allows
limitsfor detailed
data quality

The benefits: a step

information exchange. Time entries
and sacrifices can include comments
opportunities for processto explain work
improvement
completed, highlight risks or issues, or note expected changes. Capture status,
Integrating
work location, and other metadatathe systems
directly creates aofmuch
as properties deeper
the actual time.data

beyond the obvious

connection, unlocking a plethora of benefits - including
2. REAL-TIME ACCESS some you may not have considered.
TO ACTUALS
Up-to-date information about actual spend helps project managers and finance teams
Separating PPM and time tracking creates barriers to forecast timeline and cost with a high degree of accuracy. Early indicators of overspend or
data quality and sacrifices opportunities for process delay allow project planners to adapt planning and mitigate longer-term risks.
improvement.
Integrating the systems creates a much deeper data 3. SIMPLIFIED TIME ENTRY = INCREASED USER COMPLIANCE
connection, unlocking a plethora of benefits - Direct access to project data makes time tracking effortless: timesheets can be populated
including some you may not have considered. automatically according to project plans. The system can notify users of relevant governance
decisions, risk plans, and other conditions that might require action or impact time entry.
Users can search for activities via any attribute used for planning.

4. TRUSTED, AUDITABLE DATA

Increased end user compliance combined with direct access to activity metadata means
higher-quality data. Finance, regulatory agencies, and intra- or inter- organizational
chargebacks can rely directly on actual data generated by time tracking without the need
for scrubbing. Specific data on actual work creates confidence in financials for tax write-
offs, or when justifying R&D spend.

5. TRANSPARENCY ACROSS TEAMS

Finance teams especially benefit from integrating time tracking with PPM. Visibility
into internal vs external resource usage along with overall actual allocation can
drive decisions about planned book of work, headcount, and re-allocation.
This transparency also enables accurate cross-charging between functions,
units, or even organizations on a shared project.
 4.
How can you put actual APPLICATION
SPOTLIGHT

time data to work? Parametric Estimation

Consider these examples. Many organizations use algorithms, or equations, to semi-automate project
forecasting. An algorithm takes a set of known variables, or drivers, and uses
them to compute an estimate via a defined formula.
As a simple example, consider a task to complete a piece of paperwork.
Earned Value Management
Earned Value Management (EVM) is a real-world technique
you can use to communicate the health of your project or task
using computations of planned versus actual data. To accurately
calculate EVM, the system must be able to provide a number of
project details, many of which are tied to actual costs.
Real, historical information about time required to complete tasks helps to
This calculation is often required if you are in a US government
refine these algorithms and generate more nuanced and accurate forecasts.
sector. It requires a great amount of effort to pull together the
correct data for an EVM calculation from different systems. WATCH THE CASE STUDY
SPOTLIGHT:
With your time tracker integrated in PPM, the burden of this Algorithms can be
highly sophisticated
computation is reduced: the system has actuals readily available
- Michigan DOT uses
and can automatically calculate the necessary data points. parametric estimation
to generate full project
schedules, including
allocations
 5.
THE FUTURE
OF FORECASTING

Tracking time in your PPM tool is the first step towards the future of forecasting: Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The dataset you build today lays the groundwork for predictive analytics and other cognitive tools.

What does time tracking look like in the future?

IA
• Cognitive analytics will refer to past project "experience"

BY
ME G
to create increasingly accurate forecast

OR IN
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RF ST
• With a strong base of "typical" data, AI can automatically
detect outliers and provide early warning of risks and issues

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AI is already in use in the PPM sphere. Start building your data

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today so that you don't get left behind.

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TODAY AI tomorrow
 6.
GETTING STARTED

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

STEP ONE STEP TWO
Model your system Evaluate your process
• Where do you track time now? • How do you prevent misalignment between
planned and actual work?
• Understand stakeholder needs across HR,
Finance, PMO, and leadership teams • How do you account for current progress with
future estimates?
• How does your PPM system's data integrate
with actuals? • How do you encourage frequent and accurate
time entry?

STEP FOUR STEP THREE

Set your long-term vision Define short-term goals
• Build your dataset to set the stage for augmented • Do you want to improve forecasting?
forecasting with predictive analytics. • Have a better idea of your current spend?
• AI is poised to revolutionize project and cost • Provide finance with more accurate and auditable data?
forecasting in the coming decade - plan ahead for
a competitive edge. • Improve time card compliance and accuracy?

STEP FIVE
Contact us to take your time tracking to the
next level with PPM integration
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DAVE PENNDORF CAITLIN HARRILL

VP Life Sciences PPM Practice Consultant
Planisware Planisware

Dave has been helping Life Science organizations Caitlin has 7+ years of experience in PPM, working primarily
achieve PPM success for over 15 years, with in analyst roles within supply chain technology, IT, and
experience ranging from enterprise-wide deployments insurance organizations. She has helped guide teams
at the largest companies in the world to 10-user through adopting Agile methodologies and adapting to
deployments at small biotechs. new ways of working through innovative trainings and
communication. Her work with strategy and engagement
His view across the industry gives him a unique
teams has provided insight into industry predictions,
perspective into what's working for Life Science
organizational needs, and effective practices to drive
organizations today - and what's coming next.
everyday efficiency in the workplace.
Read Dave's full bio and other articles he's authored.
Caitlin graduated with a dual B.S. in Electrical and
Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University.