When the roles are assigned and the meetings are scheduled, you can then configure the tool. Meisterplan comes pre-configured for Lean PPM™, so you can customize the tool to fit your organization's needs in just seven simple steps.

• Project Phases/Milestones
• Stage Gates
• Project Fields
• Organizational Structure (OBS)
• Roles
• Users
• (Sub-)Portfolios

Project Phases/Milestones

Customize the preconfigured project phases (under Manage > General Settings) to reflect the progress of projects from planning to execution to completion. How you structure your projects will affect how you work with milestones: If you later add milestones to your projects, they can start or end a project phase.

To learn more about project phases and milestones, please visit our Help Center.

Stage Gates

A smooth Lean PPM™ process depends on making explicit and transparent decisions. Stage gates support this goal because they can be used to clearly define which levels a project has already reached before approval. The following stage gates are already preconfigured in Meisterplan:

• Seeking Review
• Seeking Approval
• Approved
• Active
• On Hold
• Completed
• Rejected

To learn more about Project Field Configuration, please visit our Help Center.

Project Fields

When it comes to the question of what additional project information is needed to make informed portfolio decisions, less is usually more. It is better to have a small amount of cleanly maintained data than an abundance of incomplete information and outdated fields. Under Manage > Project Fields, you can edit the preconfigured fields, add additional fields or delete unused fields. Under Manage > Project Settings, you can define which project fields are displayed where in your projects.

To learn more about Project Fields, please visit our Help Center.

Organizational Structure (OBS)

With efficient project portfolio management, decisions are made where the most knowledge exists. For dividing the portfolio into sub-portfolios as well as for resource management in general, it is helpful to map the structure of your company or organization in the PPM tool. In Meisterplan, we call this the Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS). In the Resource Pool under Organization (OBS), you can edit the preconfigured structure and create your own departments, locations or teams.

Read more about the OBS structure in our Help Center.

Roles

Roles such as Senior Developer or Junior Consultant describe how people will contribute to a project. For Lean PPM™, the scheduled workload of projects is specified at the role level during the proposal and rough planning phase. It is only in the detailed planning phase, after the resolution of the new portfolio, that individual resources are staffed to the project. In Meisterplan (found in the Resource Pool under Roles), some roles are preconfigured, here you can also create your own roles .

More about using roles in Meisterplan can be found in our Help Center.

Users

In order for all those involved in your project portfolio management process to contribute to an optimal portfolio, each user needs to access Meisterplan with user’s rights suitable to his/her role. Create a user profile for each participant (go to Manage > Users). The access level as well as edit rights determine to which data a user should have write access. The access levels and edit rights for each role are:

Table: The user’s access level is dependent on the role they’ve been granted.

Learn more about user management in Meisterplan in our Help Center.

(Sub-)Portfolios

The bigger your organization is, the more you gain by dividing the entire portfolio into multiple sub-portfolios. First of all, decentralization reduces the complexity of the PPM process, making it more manageable. In addition, decentralization in the sense of "lean" is efficient because decisions and conflict resolutions can often already take place where the most detailed knowledge is available.

First, edit the preconfigured portfolios (via the Manage Portfolios option in the Portfolio menu on the top left in the header). To do this, configure the usage rights for the standard PPM portfolios (“Pipeline: New”, “Pipeline: Review”, “Planning: Active + Approved + Seeking Approval + On Hold”) so that the corresponding roles can work with them. Simply delete unnecessary preconfigured portfolios.

Depending on the size and structure of your company, you can create the following portfolios with matching filters and give access to the corresponding Meisterplan users (also via Manage Portfolios in the Portfolio menu):

Table: The management of portfolios is decentralized through sub-portfolios.

Learn more about creating and managing portfolios in our Help Center.