Author Archives: Andrew Lavinsky

About Andrew Lavinsky

I am a consultant with the UMT Consulting Group, one of the premiere project portfolio management consulting companies in the world, galaxy, or universe for all I know.

Revisiting the Retro Encabulator

Posted on May 23, 2013

Talking about this at work the other day and figured it was worth a post.  If you’re not familiar with the retro encabulator, or its predecessor, the turbo encabulator, then this is well worth a watch.  If you are familiar … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

When Chickens Become Pigs…or…Why Does It All Have To Be So Complicated?

Posted on May 20, 2013

There was a great comment from Mike Kaplan on my last blog post about integrating agile project methodologies into a project portfolio: “I am struggling to see the overall value, or benefit for the investment, especially considering the effort required … Continue reading →

Posted in PMO, Portfolio Management, TFS | 2 Comments

More UMT…More Conferences…We’ll Be At PMI Houston 2013!

Posted on May 10, 2013

In Texas and looking for great content and an opportunity to interact with the largest Microsoft PPM partner in North America?  Look no further than the PMI Houston blowout where UMT will be the Project Server torchbearer. http://www.pmihouston.org/content.php?page=Annual_Conference We’re planning … Continue reading →

Posted in Self Referential | Leave a comment

Integrating Agile into Your Portfolio Management Processes (Part 2)

Posted on May 9, 2013

In that last post, I talked briefly about how to perform a functional analysis as a prelude to integrating agile project methodologies into a mixed PPM environment.  In this post, I’d like take a closer look at some of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Management, TFS | 1 Comment

Integrating Agile into Your Portfolio Management Processes (Part 1)

Posted on May 6, 2013

Enjoying one of those rare confluences where my blogging, professional and speaking lives all converge at the same moment into the same topic.  As it looks like I’ll be presenting this at the upcoming Houston PMI blowout, I figured I’d … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Management, TFS | Leave a comment

TFS Integration and the Increasingly Misnamed Microsoft Project Server

Posted on April 29, 2013

The release this past week of the updated TFS 2012 – Project Server 2013 demo image underscored a point that we’ve been making in discussions with implementing organizations of late: Project Server is really no longer the appropriate name for … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Management, TFS | Leave a comment

The Consultant of La Mancha

Posted on April 22, 2013

One of my parenting lessons learned is to never take your kids to a performance of Spider Man: Turn off The Dark in New York.  After that, any show that doesn’t have a guy in colorful leotards swing out over … Continue reading →

Posted in Portfolio Management | 1 Comment

Financial Governance Made Simple

Posted on April 8, 2013

Readers of this blog are probably familiar in concept with UMT’s flagship product, Project Essentials.  You’ve probably heard the elevator pitch and are aware that it has something to do with financial governance.  Maybe you’ve seen the demos.  Maybe you’re … Continue reading →

Posted in Project Essentials | Leave a comment

Fixing SharePoint Sync Errors in Project Server 2010

Posted on April 1, 2013

Here’s a common issue I am finally getting around to blogging up: certain projects always seem to throw an error on Publish, specifically on the part of the Publish job where the Publish database data is pushed into the Reporting … Continue reading →

Posted in Admin, SharePoint | 5 Comments

More Timephased Reporting with OData

Posted on March 26, 2013

I realized that yesterday’s post may have given the incorrect impression that you need to go through all sorts of mind bending contortions to get timephased reporting out of Project Online.  The reality is that you’d only have to limber … Continue reading →

Posted in BI, Project Online, Reporting | 4 Comments