How accurate is your project backlog?

Getting a handle on your MSP’s unscheduled projects can help you make smarter business decisions 

The phone rings. One of your managed service clients has made an acquisition and will require a number of projects. You collect the details about the projects, which is outside the scope of their contract, and give them a heads up that you currently have a four-week project backlog. They are disappointed but understanding and tell you they will plan around that schedule.  

Is that four-week estimate correct, though? How often does a client you have given this warning to call four weeks later, wondering when the work will start, only to be told it will be another two weeks? Many MSPs guess at how many weeks or months of work they have in their backlog, based on a rough estimate or a feeling. Using that number as a script when clients ask has downsides for your business. 

Inaccurate backlog estimates make it hard for your clients to schedule around your services. It’s also hard on your staff: They are constantly faced with irritated clients and working long hours to keep promises. It also means that you aren’t planning for the work you have or making business decisions based on your real workload.  

Estimating your backlog is a math problem. Here’s how to get a handle on this important metric. 

Establish your project processes using templates 

Templatizing is the easiest way to standardize your project processes and avoid issues down the road. 

Decide on a base template format that all of your projects follow. Then, stitch smaller Execution phase templates into the base template. Once a client signs a quote on an opportunity, you follow your established conversion process, apply the appropriate project template, then classify the project as backlog or intake. Templates, when built correctly, map out estimates for how much time you’ll be spending on each task, phase, and project. This information comes in handy when deciphering how long each project will remain in your backlog. 

While it’s possible to create your own templates in spreadsheets, templates created in Perfect Project are a bit smarter. These templates know the dependencies, labor hours, type of necessary labor (what level engineer, how much project management time, etc.), work estimates and the duration of each task within a project. Giving your team a far more accurate picture of your project timeline.  

Once you know how many hours of projects you have backlogged, you can use that number to plan. Do you need to hire? Do you need to outsource work? When? What? And how much? Your backlog, if you calculate it precisely, can give you accurate answers to these important business questions. 

Once you establish your project process and calculate your project backlog, you’ll be prepared to give accurate estimates to clients.  Accurate estimates prevent those angry calls that are burning out your team, help you manage customer expectations, and improve your customer satisfaction. 

Schedule your backlog 

Each project in your backlog represents work you can’t bill for yet. The goal is to complete that work and invoice for it. Now you’re staring down the barrel of your project backlog. It’s time to establish a firm timeline and resource assignments for each project in the queue.  

Since you already established a firm project timeline using your standardized templates, the next step is to check on which resources are needed to kickstart this project. Could this be a Project Manager or a Professional Service Engineer? This is where the Project Manager starts to keep a consistent pulse on their workload for the next few weeks to give your clients a proper picture of when they can expect their project kickoff.

Is your Project Manager looking to avoid the wild goose chase that comes with stalking people’s calendars? It’s noteworthy to mention Perfect Project’s Resource Capacity Analysis tool lets you see every team member’s capacity at a glance, making this workload investigation quick and easy. It knows everyone’s capacity and allows you to add or remove work assigned to each resource. So, you can start planning work you won’t get to for weeks or potentially months. This will give you—and your team—a look into the future of when new projects can exit the backlog. 

That might go like this: You discuss the project with the client, decide which templates this work will require, open that template, and look for resources who have the skills and capacity to do the work. 

“It looks like we are nine weeks out on this kind of work,” you tell the client when you see—realistically—that your engineers start to free up then. “I know that’s longer than expected, and we are working on hiring to remedy this. Can I book you for that time? I will let you know if we can get to it sooner.” 

You schedule the work to occur in nine weeks. The client is now able to plan their own team around an accurate estimate. And your team won’t get an angry call from this client in four weeks. 

As you do this with every project in your backlog, you will quickly begin to see what skills you need to hire for and when you will need them. You will have insight into the types of work that represent an ongoing demand and projects that would be better handled through outsourcing. 

Capitalizing on timeline adjustments

Life happens. Let’s say a client calls to postpone a project that’s scheduled to happen next week. With inadequate planning tools and processes, this might mean a frustrating idle period for an expensive engineer or a big chore for whoever does your planning.   It’s time to capitalize on this opportunity and move a similar project out of your backlog. Check your backlog for a project that can be accomplished in the same timeframe with the same team. Let’s say you need work that’s about 40 hours, that uses a remote team, and that requires these specific skills.  

There are six or seven projects in your backlog that meet these criteria. So, you hunt for the one that’s been in the backlog longest or has the highest price tag. A few minutes after the cancellation, you’re able to call another client and offer an earlier start to their work. They are thrilled. Your team is not idle. And you can bill for an that job sooner. 

Managing a portfolio of projects can be overwhelming. Good thing there are intelligent tools that help you get a process in place while giving you the insights you need to help grow your business—including helping prioritize your backlog.  

There are many other ways Moovila’s intelligent, automated project and resource management tool can help your MSP thrive and stay ahead of the competition. Learn more about Perfect Project for MSPs by taking a virtual click-by-click tour.