What you need

Duplicate Project

Active / Inactive project

Simulation

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Portfolio Timeline

Analyse Tab

 

Details

Project Portfolio - Simulation 

Project simulation is a frequently used means of "What if? questions and to play through planning variants.

The more factors that can be considered for such a simulation, the better and more realistic the simulation will be.

Typically, simulations are used in the following project situations:

• Project changes - how do changes affect the project and the entire portfolio (deadlines, costs, resources, etc.)?
• New projects - can we do more projects with the same "team"? If so, which ones?
• Strategic planning - which projects bring the most added value?
• Rescheduling - which projects can we postpone?

To run a simulation in smenso Cloud we mainly use the functions "Duplicate Project" and "Active / Inactive Projects".

Duplicate Project

With the function "Duplicate Project" you can copy an existing project as often as you like.

In the portfolio view click on the 3-point menu in the project you want to use for the simulation and click on the menu item "Duplicate project". It is especially important that you check "Set project status to inactive" in the following dialog. By setting the simulation project to inactive, the changes will not show up on the user's screen and you can run the simulation "under the radar".

However, we recommend to select all other options for the simulation as well, so that you can be sure that as many topics as possible are available for the simulation.

Simulate project

After the project has been duplicated, we recommend that you name the project [Simulation] and assign a label to it so that everyone involved can see that it is a simulation.  

👉 Tip: If you don't want anyone else to see your simulation, set your simulation to "private" in the project properties, then only you have access to this simulation project.

This simulation project can now be completely changed and the effects in the project, as well as on the portfolio level in interaction with other projects can be considered.

e.g. portfolio timeline to analyze time and resource effects, or in portfolio analysis to consider monetary and strategic aspects.

It is important to filter exactly those projects that are important for the view. The easiest way to do this is via labels and flavors, but you can also select the projects manually via the project filter. 

Continue simulated project as active

If a simulated project has become exactly the way you want it to be and now you want this project to become "the new active", you can easily do this as follows:

• In the "old" active project in the project portfolio, goto the project properties via the 3-point menu.
  In the Settings tab, switch the project to "Inactive" and exit the dialog.
• The project goes even further "out of sight" when you archive it. Then all activities of the project will be displayed in grey and the users will recognize even faster that this project is no longer valid. 
• In the new "Simulation Project" remove all references (labels, flavors, textual identifiers, etc.) to the simulation and set the switch to "Active" in the project properties on the settings tab.

So the simulation project becomes the new active project and all participants can continue working on the new project.