TrueProject exposes the missing pieces of inaccurate project status by gathering feedback from all project stakeholders. By pointing out potential causes of project failure, TrueProject can eliminate late or troubled projects and avoid surprises. It also highlights the lack of adherence to best practices or standard processes. Ultimately, TrueProject paves the way for higher levels of Project success.

TrueProject utilizes a unique process to collect and analyze project data and return critical insights to project managers, PMO leaders, and executives. The TrueProject process starts with collecting quantitative project data and stakeholder feedback from assessments. Once the data is collected, the system analyzes it and compares it to the best practices selected for the project. The system measures compliance against the best practices and identifies the analysis results through multiple KPIs, reports, and real-time dashboard visuals. The resulting insight predicts the project’s future course, allowing managers to make strategic and tactical adjustments to ensure project success.

Unlike a task management system, TrueProject compares the feedback from project stakeholders to well-established industry best practices - something that no PM system in the world does. If you ran into project stakeholders in the hallway, you would ask, “How is the project going?” In this manner, TrueProject utilizes a unique assessment process to collect and analyze project data and return critical insights to project managers, PMO leaders, and executives. Without this, you are left with determining health and status from a task-based system where when you see “red,” the issue has already occurred. 
The TrueProject process starts with collecting quantitative project data and stakeholder feedback from assessments. TrueProject compares responses against best practices and identifies the analysis results through multiple KPIs, reports, and real-time dashboard visuals. The resulting insight predicts the future course of the project, allowing managers to make the proper strategic and tactical adjustments to ensure project success. TrueProject looks for “observable behavior,” not simply or purely subjective questions. In other words, we would not ask, “Do you feel the sponsor supports your project?” Instead, we would ask, “Does the sponsor participate in your meetings?”

TrueProject resides in a different category than products such as MS Project and Jira, as they focus primarily on time and task management. TrueProject is a management control and oversight solution designed to monitor all your projects all the time and is complementary to traditional time and task management project systems. TrueProject protects the investment in your time and task systems by incorporating data elements of those systems into TrueProject’s analytics engine for a complete view of your projects. TrueProject combines discipline and best practices with your projects’ ongoing monitoring and governance, providing stakeholders with the insight required to run successful projects. No time and task management system does this. TrueProject exposes potential problems to reduce project surprises and failures substantially. Addressing project issues while there is still time to act saves your organization valuable time and money, reduces overall project costs, and allows your organization to realize the benefit of each project sooner.

TrueProject does not replace traditional “time and task management” solutions such as MS Project and Jira. Instead, TrueProject uses data from your existing PM and financial management systems while implementing a management discipline that supports project governance and monitoring. Traditional project portfolio management applications function as a mirror of what has already occurred. In contrast, TrueProject becomes the heads-up display for the future performance of your projects.

Yes. TrueProject helps avoid problems before you know you have them, expose potential problems, and substantially reduce project surprises and failures. Addressing project issues while there is still time to act will save your organization valuable time and money, reduce overall project costs, and allow your organization to realize each project’s benefit sooner.

Any organization that runs projects can benefit from TrueProject. Organizations of any size or industry will experience improved project efficiencies using TrueProject. Organizations that deliver professional services and consulting can see enhanced customer engagement, staff utilization, customer satisfaction, and overall project performance. In addition, organizations that have experienced the following situations are most likely to have an urgent need for TrueProject:

• C-level executives are frustrated with late or failed projects
• A large and complex project is commencing, and it cannot fail
• The overall workload of the project management office is increasing
• There is a need to improve project delivery

Clients include government, high-tech, and software integrators.

As the cost of failure is typically many times more extensive than the investment in TrueProject, a return on the TrueProject investment can typically be realized with the deployment of the very first project.

• Protect Projects - Provide continuous oversight to reduce project failure
• Protect Careers and Eliminate Failure - Early Warning for Troubled Projects Weeks or Months in Advance
• Ensure Success - Decrease project costs (up to 30%) and increase project realized value (by up to 25%)

The ability to predict troubled or failed projects weeks or months ahead of time can make the difference between business success and failure.

TrueProject utilizes quantitative project data that is readily available to project managers. A listing is provided below:

Required Data:

• Actual and projected start/end dates for a project
• Type of project
• Project phase, starting phase
• Project budget

Operational Data:

• Earned value
• Actual cost
• Planned value
• Estimate at completion
• Expected finish date

The frequency of the assessments can be adjusted based on the client’s discretion, but we recommend weekly assessments for most situations. Most assessments can be completed within 3-5 minutes.

Assessments are role-based, and the questions asked will vary based on the role or roles everyone is assigned within a project. Changing the roles has a direct effect on the assessments themselves. The primary roles that can be assigned are project sponsor, project manager, business analyst, project office, and project team member. Each user is assigned an appropriate role. Each role has an association with assessment questions. Roles can also be customized based on the client’s request. Should the client require a custom assessment, a corresponding set of custom roles can be added.

Some assessments, such as a phase gate, are event-based and are issued once. Other assessments may be issued periodically to predict project performance at a given time. TrueProject’s unique and extensive configurability allows assessment questioning to be structured to accommodate virtually any project situation.

TrueProject does not limit the number of assessment takers connected to a particular project or the portfolio of projects. TrueProject incorporates an unlimited user licensing model.

TrueProject provides sample correspondences to convey the importance of completing assessments and encourages our clients to set clear expectations of team members receiving assessment questionnaires. TrueProject automatically reminds assessment takers if they have not completed their assigned assessment questionnaires. The application also tracks assessment completions so team members who fail to take assessments can be easily identified.

TrueProject is a management control and oversight SaaS solution designed to monitor all your projects all the time. TrueProject gathers information from all project team members, allowing enforcement and measurement against best practices. The analytics provide insight weeks or even months in advance to avoid challenged or failing projects. TrueProject excels with large projects, long durations, and geographically disbursed teams. However, it also works well with smaller projects as it guides project managers and team members. TrueProject also shows systemic issues and trends across the entire portfolio of projects. For small projects or work requests that are just a week or two or that only have two or three people, TrueProject may not apply. It is important to note that TrueProject does adjust the level of governance and effort needed to use TrueProject based on project size and scope.

There are 27 best practice repositories, 150 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and over 1,000 questions that can be configured in TrueProject. In addition, customers can also have their KPIs and questions configured in their implementation of the system.

Yes, PMI management methodologies are incorporated into the best practices featured in TrueProject.

TrueProject leverages a sophisticated knowledge-based systems approach, seamlessly integrating decision trees, domain-specific rules, and expert knowledge into a robust framework. This framework is meticulously crafted based on industry experts’ insights and best practices. TrueProject operates on a static model, which means it undergoes offline training—a one-time training process, after which the model remains used for a while.
The future roadmap focuses on a dynamic model that is trained, maintained, and updated by the AI tool frameworks under the supervision of data scientists, prompt engineers, and trainers.
To ensure the system’s relevance and efficacy, the TrueProject team regularly reviews and updates these rules, incorporating the latest industry findings and research. Additionally, our dedicated TrueProject Customer Success team or the customers' TrueProject administrators can customize rule configurations for individual clients, allowing for tailored solutions that meet specific needs.

The funnel depicts how TrueProject collects project information and uses AI/Analytics to predict project risks.

This can be further expanded upon below.

We were awarded two US patents, one for the overall TrueProject solution (Patent #: US 9,269,087 B2) and one specifically for the “Control Room” AI functionality (Patent #: US 8,041,647 B2). TrueProject does this through the following functions and capabilities:

Assessment Engine

• An expert consultant would walk around interviewing all project stakeholders.
• Like an expert, TrueProject asks appropriate questions based on a person’s role, project type, project phase, project status, and previous answers. TrueProject’s “Reflexive Questioning” Assessments vary in real-time based on the assessment taker’s responses to previous questions.

Scheduling Rules

• An expert consultant would also review the results of the collected data triggering additional drill-down and questioning.
• Like an expert, TrueProject distributes questionnaires based on a state or data change.

Best Practice Benchmarking

• An expert consultant would base their analysis on other project successes and failures.
• Like an expert, TrueProject can predict whether a project will succeed based on these benchmark comparisons.

On the TrueProject Roadmap is machine learning, and correlation analysis based upon project success or challenges that will automatically drive the configuration. AI tools include TensorFlow, Keras, AWS Bedrock, and AWS Sagemaker.

The TrueProject roadmap contains the following features:

• Incorporate sentiment analysis to provide a view of user involvement’s emotional and strategic dimensions, giving a holistic approach to enhance communication, understanding, and alignment among stakeholders.
• Machine learning using data science techniques and models for classification (supervised machine learning) to gain new insight and predictions to improve leadtime and needed responses to get on or remain on track in a project and portfolio.
• Deep learning to identify complex patterns and rules that human analysis cannot derive alone. (Providing deeper insights than the supervised models).

TrueProject engineers, analysts, and data scientists utilize generative AI, such as ChatGPT, in an offline manner (there is no direct integration with the product or data access). Generative AI improves insights and analytics by providing generic information on conditions, observations, and behavior to provide periodic and necessary updates to the product’s insight and prediction engine. These refinements pass through additional scrutiny and review from project management experts to ensure conformance with best practices.

TrueProject is designed to manage agile and waterfall projects and contains appropriate best practices that can be applied to either approach. Whether your organization refers to the initiatives upon which they work as “projects” or “sprints” or a collection of sprints that make up a project, it is the overall process of performing the work and the overall business benefits realization where TrueProject focuses its oversight and governance. TrueProject provides the overall governance and not individual task assignment, time reporting, or sprint retrospectives.

A sprint in Scrum is a short period wherein a development team works to complete specific tasks, milestones, or deliverables. Sprints, also called “iterations,” essentially break the project schedule into digestible blocks of time in which smaller goals can be accomplished. TrueProject does not manage the backlog, task prioritization, assignment, or tracking of these tasks. There are many great tools available to do so. TrueProject looks at the overall agile and project management best practices instead of individual tasks and deliverables.

TrueProject is a SaaS solution that is deployed in the cloud. TrueProject is hosted by AWS and exceeds rigorous security and availability standards.

TrueProject can be utilized for a single or hundreds of projects. The unique unlimited user and the tiered number of project pricing models allow for a “utility” type of investment for our clients. You will work with your dedicated Customer Success Manager to customize your instance of TrueProject.

External suppliers and vendors can be incorporated into TrueProject. Team members external to your organization will receive the appropriate project assessment so their critical feedback can be captured and incorporated into the system-generated insight provided to management. Clients have complete control over system security, so all external team members will interact with the system only as intended.

TrueProject integrates Workato, a leading integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), to provide integrations with other tools and data sources. The iPaaS solution makes 600K+ pre-built integrations available across more than 1,000 applications. Its recipe authoring tools provide the ability to create connectors to additional applications. Applications imported into the TrueProject library are live in 20-30 minutes. Other application integrations may require professional services.

TrueProject is configurable. The solution is built to handle many different applications, so the configuration capability is built into the system. You can configure everything from your assessments and reports to KPIs and project types. We even allow you to utilize your logo!

An organization may incorporate internal best practices into TrueProject as the application configures additional proprietary client best practices. Clients may consult the TrueProject professional services team to implement custom or proprietary best practices.

TrueProject clients can create their best practices and assessment questions if required.

Customizing the reporting and dashboard tool can incorporate additional data into the TrueProject dashboards. This work will require the engagement of the TrueProject professional services team, but we can configure KPIs and customize dashboards per the client’s request.

TrueProject provides KPIs, dashboards, and reporting at project and portfolio levels. TrueProject applies insight to specific projects for individual project governance and insight into the health of the entire project portfolio. Users may drill into particular projects and utilize the portfolio view to identify trends and issues across all projects at the portfolio level.

TrueProject is not a task management system such as MS Project, etc. However, some data is advantageous to bring into TrueProject to enable advanced analytics. That data can be key-entered or TrueProject’s integration of Workato’s iPaaS (internet platform as a service) platform provides capabilities to create additional integrations with tools like MS Project and SmartSheet.

TrueProject offers extensive reporting capabilities in the form of dashboard visualizations and PDF reports that are accessed within the application. PDF reports can be downloaded and e-mailed. The product roadmap includes a subscription and a push feature in the 2nd quarter of 2024 that will automate the distribution of reports via a configured e-mail. The dashboards include an analysis of KPIs, a portfolio (or project collection) heath, a project health, a KPI analysis, a participation analysis, and a project data overview. TrueProject supports both single and portfolio-style reports. In addition, TrueProject provides an “Instant Insight” capability to have specific project data “find you” instead of searching for it – through ANY browser-based application! Custom reports can be created in consultation with the TrueProject professional services team.

TrueProject displays project and portfolio insight through dashboard KPIs and reports. Executives and Project Managers can use the provided insight to perform corrective actions required to optimize project success. The TrueProject professional services team provides clients with the knowledge required to expertly interpret the provided project insight through our Virtual Project Office (VPO) services.

Analytics are realized in TrueProject through dashboards and reports. Each KPI and chart displayed breaks down your data to visualize it most effectively. TrueProject’s patented algorithms analyze your data to provide the most valuable representations. Different findings and recommendations are presented based on the metrics being tracked to help you get your projects back on track.

TrueProject uses the statistical concept of “statistical significance.” In principle, a statistically significant result is a result that is not likely to be attributed to chance alone. We employ a 90% “confidence interval” to determine statistical significance. The 90% confidence interval defines a range of values that TrueProject can assert with 90% certainty that it contains the population mean. The mean is known with much more precision in larger samples as compared to than with smaller samples, resulting in a relatively narrow confidence interval when computed from a large sample. Thus, confidence in TrueProject’s data is based upon the observed data, how many people were asked a question, and how many people answered that question. It is NOT a percentage of people that responded but rather a statistical calculation based upon 90% confidence.

TrueProject is a software-as-a-service solution that provides unlimited user access and is licensed on an annual or monthly basis, dependent upon the number of active projects managed each month.

The implementation timeline for TrueProject varies based on the chosen approach. A standard, out-of-the-box implementation is completed in as little as three days. The process involves four key stages:

• Discovery (3 hours):
  This initial phase can be a single 3-hour session or split into several 1-hour sessions. It focuses on identifying basic configuration items like Best Practices, Users, Roles, Project Attributes, etc.
• Configuration (1-2 days):
  Following the discovery, the system is configured according to the specified requirements. Typically, an initial project is set up during this phase.
• Review:
  The configuration is thoroughly reviewed for completeness, and an initial training session is conducted to ensure proper system use.
• Go-Live:
  After these steps, TrueProject is ready for live operation.

The timeline may be longer for other configurations, but the process remains consistent. This includes configuration specific to your needs while following the same four-stage process.

Once the solution is fully deployed and configured, TrueProject can be operated with just one system administrator for a few hours per week. The admin is responsible for managing the overall instance and ensuring all questions/concerns are answered within your organization. Project Managers can review a project's complete status in only 2 hours per week and receive up to 10 hours savings per week in system-generated reporting. A typical project stakeholder only needs to spend a few minutes per week responding to assessments and reviewing reports.

Your investment in TrueProject includes configuration and product training services. For advanced configurations, additional professional service hours may be purchased. Most organizations benefit from the PM training module, which helps managers use TrueProject most effectively.
TrueProject Core offers a comprehensive 30-day customer success program dedicated to assisting you in seamlessly integrating and utilizing TrueProject. Our team will be on hand to address any queries and ensure a smooth implementation process. Additionally, during the same period, you’ll benefit from our expert Virtual Project Office (VPO) consulting services, designed to help you interpret TrueProject results effectively. For clients opting for TrueProject Professional and Enterprise packages, we extend our customer success and VPO support to an impressive 90 days, ensuring an even deeper engagement and understanding of our solutions.
If desired, the VPO service is available to purchase after the initial period as a professional service offering.

VPO, or “Virtual Project Office,” is a service that ensures that the TrueProject system is administered appropriately. VPO helps the client interpret and understand the TrueProject outputs. VPO is included with the initial implementation of TruProject. It can also be purchased on an ongoing basis. VPO provides administrative support of TrueProject, analysis of projects using TrueProject, weekly up to 1-hour presentations for management, Weekly executive presentations, and support and guidance for top X projects. “X” depends on how many Active projects a client is licensed for.

Each TrueProject Customer appoints a liaison. This liaison is the focal point for TrueProject support. Should they need to contact the TrueProject service and support personnel, they can do so via e-mail or call our 7X24 staffed service desk.

TrueProject is subscribed by the number of active projects. There are no bounds on the number of users a project can have. There are no technical bounds on the number of projects or users.

TrueProject is a SaaS solution hosted in the AWS cloud, and your data is protected first through AWS’s built-in security and firewall. Encrypted data volumes and encrypted backups protect your data at rest. All data is protected behind the Virtual Private Cloud with internet-facing access limited to the TrueProject web application’s authenticated front-end and secured APIs.

TrueProject’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) implementation utilizes OpenID Connect (OIDC) for authentication and authorization. All accesses are controlled via access tokens obtainable only for a properly authenticated user.

If desired, multifactor authentication is also available in addition to a username and password, utilizing a Time-based One Time Password (TOTP). Configurable by any user, it works with Google Authentication, Free OTP, Microsoft Authenticator, and Duo Mobile.

Data transmitted over the Internet to and from the browser is encrypted using the latest Transport Layer Security (TLS 1.3).

TrueProject data are segmented so that each customer has access to only their data. Only users in your organization will have access to your TrueProject instance.

TrueProject does not retain data any longer than reasonably necessary for the setup and use of the system, and in accordance with Customer record retention policies. Full details are found in the Data Privacy and Security Addendum of the Software Subscription Terms and Conditions.

TrueProject is hosted in Amazon’s secure cloud. We do not currently have a FedRAMP ATO certification, nor are we pursuing it. We do, however, have several government clients. Should we need this cert, we are open to doing so.