Case Study Summary: Marquette University

University Identifies IT Project Priorities, Delivers Results to CIO and VP of Finance

Posted 5/12/2010

***content provided below is extracted from a Microsoft case study
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Software and Services
Project Server 2010
Exchange Server Enterprise 2010
SharePoint Server 2010
Outlook 2010
Project Professional 2010

Vertical Industry
Universities

Marquette University wanted a means to include and prioritize both active and potential projects, provide tools for more effective resource management, and expand and automate project business intelligence across the university.

Marquette deployed Project Server 2010 in a virtual environment on an HP ProLiant BL460c G1 blade server computer and used the features of Project Server 2010 to expand project and portfolio management practices.  And because Project Server 2010 is built on SharePoint Server 2010, interoperation is seamless. For example, a SharePoint Server 2010 workflow automatically routes change orders to the appropriate approval authorities.

Approximately 370 team members (people working on projects, inside or outside the IT Services department) and upper-management staff access information in Project Server 2010 through the Microsoft Project Web App technology. “They can view their tasks, look at their projects, or go to project workspaces to update their issues—all through a Web browser".

The Marquette IT Services department uses Project Server 2010 to rank its potential projects. “For the first time, this year we were able to send the Office of Finance a list of projects prioritized using a methodology in Project Server 2010, rather than using our best guess of what the priority should be. We can show Finance a ranked list of the projects we want to see funded.”

"With the new business intelligence features of Project Server 2010, you can get more information out more easily than you could before.  The dashboards will automate some of the reporting steps that we take right now, freeing up a few hours per month. But more importantly, the information will be timely and available.”  From dashboards, users will be able to drill down to find out more about what they’re interested in.

Smith measures his department’s performance partly by the satisfaction of IT and non-IT project sponsors and their demand for project management services. “People keep coming to ask us to run projects for them. They say, ‘You did a good job last time and we want you to do so again.’ That’s very gratifying for us.” He says that the number of projects his office is managing has increased by 5–7 over the last year—and they’ve increased in size and importance as well.

Dan Smith
Senior Director of IT Services, Marquette University