Assigning Responsible Managers for Oracle Primavera P6

The Oracle Primavera P6 Project Management (PM) module is comprehensive, multi-project planning and control software that has been designed to support organization-wide project management or portfolio management.

Oracle Primavera P6 should be set up as per the following sequence:

1. Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)- the hierarchical arrangement of a company’s management structure, which can be presented either as roles or named individuals.
2. Enterprise Project Structure (EPS), the hierarchical structure that identifies the company-wide projects and enables organization and management of those projects within an organization. The EPS can be subdivided into as many levels or nodes as needed to parallel work within an organization. Nodes at the highest or root level might represent divisions within a company, project phases, site locations, or other major groupings. Projects represent the lowest level of the hierarchy. 
3. Resource hierarchy, an organization’s resource structure that supports the assignment of resources to activities.
4. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), the hierarchical structure that decomposes the project into identifiable deliverables in respect of cost, scope and schedule using the 100% rule, whereby each level of the WBS is the sum total of the sub-levels or elements of that particular level.

The OBS is set up first in order to enable the association of the responsible managers with allocated nodes or projects of the EPS once the EPS is structured. When a responsible manager is associated with an EPS node, he/she will automatically be assigned in P6 by default to any projects added to that branch of the EPS and the WBS levels within each of the projects.

It is important therefore that the Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS) is interfaced with specific projects and the WBS structures within a project as defined by a detailed Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) .The RAM identifies single-point responsibilities and interfaces within a project and related WBS such that specific responsible managers are assigned appropriately and as is necessary.

Allocating responsible managers within the OBS to nodes and projects within the EPS hierarchy is required in P6 in order to establish security profiles that give user access and privileges as well as monitor data access by project participants.

Structuring a project portfolio in this way allows responsible mangers to access and review project data quickly and accurately at the appropriate level for their role and responsibility.