Know which project is late before the monthly meeting
I implement planning, weekly tracking and portfolio prioritisation, with a method the team can sustain and one common tool.
35questions, 8 minutes and your level across six dimensions at the end
Signs your portfolio needs order
- Projects are tracked in spreadsheets and emails
- Delays surface at the monthly meeting
- Tasks have no owner or date
- Several initiatives compete for the same people with no prioritisation
- Meeting minutes produce no recorded actions
- The sponsor has no view of progress
The cost of tracking projects by email
Late-found delays
A delay learned about at the monthly meeting leaves few weeks to recover.
People spread thin
Without a common priority, the same people split their time across too many projects and everything moves slowly.
Lost agreements
What is decided in a meeting but not turned into a task with an owner gets discussed again at the next one.
PPM: who it serves and when it does not fit
Who it serves
- Management teams with several improvement, systems or expansion projects competing for the same people
- Project offices (PMO) that consolidate progress by hand today
- Sponsors who want to see milestones and delays without asking for a report
- Companies already on Odoo that still track projects in spreadsheets
When it does not fit
- If projects are billed by the hour to customers: PSA fits better, adding rates, invoicing and margin.
- If they are construction jobs with a cost-item budget: construction control fits better.
- If there is one project at a time with a small team: a task board and a weekly meeting are enough.
How I assess PPM in four steps
Method comes before the tool: a single project list, priority criteria and a short weekly review. The deliverables are the prioritised portfolio, the plan template, the configured pilots and the minutes of the first review.
I build the full list
Every project and initiative with sponsor, status, people and budget.
I agree the method with the team
Plan template, task detail level, weekly rhythm and priority criteria.
I configure the tool
Projects, milestones, Gantt and dashboard in Odoo, with two pilot projects.
I set up the weekly review
Status per milestone, sponsor decisions and milestones met on time each month.
Inputs from your organisation for the portfolio
The full project list is usually longer than management thinks. That is why it is the first input.
- Data
- Tracking sheets, schedules and minutes of current projects, in whatever format they are.
- Master data
- Project list with sponsor, budget and assigned people, and the criteria used to approve them today.
- Access
- An Odoo administrator user, or one for the current tool if history is migrated.
- People
- A sponsor with authority to prioritise and two project managers for the pilots.
From an ordered portfolio to the weekly review
I implement this type of system
Portfolio review
Single list, priority criteria and a decision on which projects continue.
Project management implementation
Odoo Project with templates, milestones, Gantt, activities and dashboard, with a manual per role.
Tracking support
The first weekly reviews with the sponsor, until the rhythm sustains itself.
Diego Muñoz. I implement project management with Odoo Project: tasks, milestones, Gantt and activities. If your case calls for another tool, I compare options such as Microsoft Project, Jira, Asana or Smartsheet and help you choose.
Project and portfolio tools
Tools differ in portfolio view, workload per person and connection to actual costs. The list is in no order of preference.
Odoo Project
Odoo Project covers tasks, milestones, Gantt, activities and documents, and connects with time, purchasing and accounting on the same database. It is the option I implement when the company uses, or will use, Odoo.
Other project tools I assess
- Microsoft Project / Planner
- Jira
- Asana
- monday.com
- Smartsheet
- Planview
Limits of standard Odoo Project
- Odoo Project has no portfolio scoring; priority is handled with tags, stages and an agreed dashboard.
- It does not compute a critical path with float like Microsoft Project; it shows task dependencies on the Gantt.
- If the portfolio needs multi-year capacity scenarios, I assess a dedicated PPM tool.
Criteria for choosing the project tool
- Project type: internal, client or construction
- Portfolio view with priority and load per person
- Connection to actual costs in the ERP
- How easily each owner can update their task
- Cost per user and number of participants
Project portfolio integrations
Professional services automation
When the project is billed to a client, it adds hours, rates and billing.
See the systemConstruction budgeting and project control
Construction projects add budget by cost item and progress valuations to the plan.
See the systemEnterprise resource planning
Actual spend from purchasing and accounting appears next to progress.
See the systemBusiness intelligence and data warehouse
The portfolio dashboard combines progress, cost and expected benefit.
See the systemDocument and enterprise content management
Minutes, deliverables and approvals stay linked to the task or milestone.
See the system35 questions on your portfolio, in 8 minutes
The analysis measures how your projects are planned, tracked and prioritized, from baseline to progress billing. The questions describe observable practices of site managers, technical office and management.
Scored dimensions
- Schedule and baseline. Looks at whether each project has an approved schedule saved as baseline and whether progress on each activity is recorded against that version.
- Project portfolio and priority. Looks at whether there is a single list of projects with status, priority and sponsor, and whether start or suspension decisions are recorded.
- Cost, progress billing and documents. Looks at whether actual spend is compared with the budget per work item, whether progress billing comes from recorded progress and whether minutes and drawings are linked to the project.
- Milestones and deviation alerts. Looks at whether on-time milestone completion is measured and whether deviations requiring a decision reach management before the deadline is lost.
- Method and team workload. Looks at whether site and project managers follow a common method, whether tasks are kept up to date and whether each person's workload across projects is visible.
- Change orders and risks. Looks at how changes beyond the project manager's authority are approved, how additional and deductive change orders are recorded and whether risks have an owner and an action.
What you receive
When you finish you receive your level in six project management dimensions and the gaps ranked by weight. Each gap comes with a first action you can apply on the next project or at the next committee.
18 scored questions and 12 context questions (type of operation, size, current system). Context questions are not scored: they let us read the result against similar operations.
Free of charge. Only Diego Muñoz sees your answers.
Project management FAQ
A tool without a method gets abandoned: too many small tasks and no weekly review. That is why I start with the method, and sometimes the current tool is enough.
No. I use recognised practices (baselined plan, milestones, risk log, sponsor) to the extent your organisation can sustain.
The weekly review takes under an hour if each owner updates their task beforehand. Initial setup needs a few hours a week from project managers during the pilot.
The online assessment and the 30-minute review with me are free and carry no commitment.
Only I, Diego Muñoz, read them, to prepare the review. I do not share them with third parties or use them for bulk mailings.
Review your project portfolio with Diego
Twenty minutes with the list of current projects and who works on each. I reply in person, on Lima time.
WhatsApp +51 919 488 260 · damunoz@dmunozgroup.com