Creating Larger Scale Scenarios

This article describes how to create broad scope scenarios either in terms of project or organization hierarchy.

Overview

There are cases where the scope of a scenario planning effort will be very broad, going well beyond single project planning. Examples include:

Major program phase gate reviews

A multi-project initiative is added to the current plan

Annual operating plans

Organization exception re-planning

Ad hoc re-planning by a single functional manager

The same decisions about the scenario are required in all of these cases:

Is it private or public?

Is the scenario an addition to the current plan or will it replace part or all of the current plan?

Which projects are included?

How To

Program Phase Review Scenario

If you have created a hierarchy structure for a program, Product ABC, using the project data Parent field, you can create a program scenario by selecting the Product ABC row on Project Data and checking the Include Children checkbox in the Create Scenario dialog.

If you haven’t created a hierarchy structure, all projects that are part of the program must be individually selected.

Step: 1. On the Project Data page select the selection checkbox at the left of the program row (in this example, Product ABC).

Step: 2. Click the Baselines & Scenarios icon in the top left toolbar icon group and select Create Scenario.

Step: 3. Enter scenario attributes in the dialog.

Make the scenario public – all functional managers/planners who have rights can participate separately in the planning.

Include children and assignments – all sub-projects and all asset, labor and financial assignments will be in the scenario.

Step: 4. Click the Create button in the dialog.

In this example, the only project selected on Project Data page is Product ABC, the program root project. But all projects are captured in the scenario because Include Children was selected.

Whole Organization Scenarios

The steps to create and plan a scenario for your entire functional organization are essentially the same whether high or low on the resource OBS.

The following steps create a scenario for an organization re-plan.

Step: 1. Click the data reload funnel icon in the upper right application toolbar icon group.

Step: 2. Select project OBS nodes that contain all projects that have, or are likely to have, assignments for your resource node(s) during scenario planning.

Step: 3. Select your resource OBS node(s).

Step: 4. Click the Reload Data button and go to the Project Data page.

Step: 5. Click the Select All checkbox at the upper left of the table.

Step: 6. Click the Baselines & Scenarios icon in the upper left toolbar icon group and click Create Scenario.

Step: 7. Fill out the dialog and click Create.