Deltek Cobra Implementation Consulting
Congratulations on winning that major contract and for selecting Deltek software applications like Cobra and Acumen to help you meet all of the earned value reporting requirements.
Now it’s time to get up and running fast so you can focus on delivering project solutions for your client. Because buying the right tools for the job is a great start, but it’s only part of the solution.
You’ll need a project team that is trained in Earned Value Management (EVM) and the software tools to support it.
If this is your first venture into the world of EVM, you’ll need some help from experienced people who have rolled out EVM countless times before. You’re in the right place. That’s exactly what we do, here at Ten Six.
Earned Value Management is much more than a reporting requirement; it is a cultural shift for most organizations. There are strict guidelines to follow, best practices to adopt, new tools to work with, a raft of new skills to absorb and a lot of extra details to address. And you will only have about 90 to 180 days to get all of this up and running in a typical EVM program.
It’s all manageable. With the right partner, you can get Deltek’s application suite working perfectly for you. That gives you more time to do what you do best: providing your specialist skills to fix your clients’ problems.
What we do
We can help with:
- Deltek application consulting
- Deltek training
- Deltek Cobra integration
- Knowledge transfer, coaching and mentoring
- Staff augmentation
Deltek Application Consulting
Our experienced consultants bring decades of real-world skills to the table and have helped dozens of companies implement high-value Earned Value Management Systems (EVMS) supported by Deltek products such as Cobra and Acumen.
Leveraging your current investment in Deltek project and financial management software tools means getting your people up and running quickly and effectively.
Ten Six Consulting specializes in building your Earned Value Management System (EVMS) around the Deltek Cobra application. Our SMEs know it inside and out. They can build you a project, integrate it with your scheduling, financial and reporting systems, and design, build and run your monthly reporting processes. Not only that, they will teach your team how to do it as well.
Our EVMS implementation experience makes it easy for you to deliver results to your customer quickly and smoothly.
Save time
Save money
Avoid expensive ‘rookie’ mistakes
Get it right first time
Skip over the frustration and get your system working the way you want
Ten Six worked with the Wood Group to improve their existing Deltek Cobra implementation. We suggested improvements that improved efficiency and allowed the project team to reduce monthly recurring costs.
Deltek Training
Need people to learn quickly? We’ve got you covered. We have a bank of high-quality training courses – and we’ve invested in making them a great solution for your developing team.
We have designed purpose-built courses for Deltek Cobra and Acumen Fuse, Risk, and 360. Each course has been developed from the ground up with your team’s success in mind. Detailed training materials and experienced instructors will accelerate your team to subject matter experts in just a couple of days.
Our effective, proven curriculum represents a big cost saving for most standard EV implementations. There’s no training development cost to you or major downtime while critical resources are traveling to attend outside classes.
Of course, we can also tailor the existing syllabus to your organization’s systems and processes as well as include standard EV practices. Either way, we can educate your team cost effectively and quickly.
Learn more about Deltek training
“This was an excellent class with an excellent instructor who not only showed how the system worked, but also was able to provide real world examples, which was extremely helpful. I can only say that this was one of the best training classes I have ever taken and it feels so good to walk away truly understanding the material!” ~ Loretta Chance, L3
Deltek Cobra Integration
From a technical standpoint, integration can be one of the more challenging areas of any EVMS implementation.
Your legacy systems, such as scheduling and financial tools will need to regularly feed data to your Deltek Cobra implementation. Each reporting period requires updates from the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) and financial system. These updates must be easy to perform and robust; the quality and accuracy of your performance data depends on this.
As well as the technical challenge of making this work, there’s also a mindset shift for schedulers and sometimes the financial team as well. It’s a different way of working for the whole team, perhaps with new business processes too.
Ten Six EVMS product consultants are experienced in the integration of most leading project scheduling tools and financial systems. Whether you have SAP, Oracle Financials, Costpoint, Primavera, Open Plan or Microsoft Project, the chances are we’ve integrated some combination of these before using Deltek Cobra’s powerful integration technology.
Our deep domain experience means we can quickly assess and assemble the integration components for the EVMS and be ready to go as soon as the project data is in place. We do all this in close collaboration with your EVMS administrators and team members so that everyone understands the tools and are ready to start work as soon as the system goes live.
Because the EVMS cycle waits for no one, we thoroughly and clearly document every step with text and screenshots so that you are always able to execute, even if a key person is unavailable.
Integrated systems need far more discipline and control to keep the process smooth and effective. Ten Six will help you navigate this complex area of earned value compliance and educate all the project stakeholders in their new responsibilities.
Knowledge Transfer, Coaching and Mentoring
Our implementation team will be there to support you from the beginning, coaching you, teaching you and helping you build a robust and fully compliant EVMS that will stand up to DCMA, DCAA and/or DoE scrutiny.
As your earned value management team grows stronger and more independent, we step back into a supporting role to help with any unexpected situations, events or additional training and education requirements. We help you achieve a smooth transition that fits your organizational culture, processes, procedures and technical challenges to ensure total EVMS success.
Learn more about knowledge transfer, coaching and mentoring.
Deltek Cobra Staff Augmentation
The bottom line is: earned value management software applications are not as straightforward to implement as is, perhaps, a mainstream database, or financial or data warehousing systems. The implementation process for EVM software tools requires a peculiar mix of technical, financial, project and earned value expertise; a mix rarely found in the general workplace.
Ten Six consultants are experts in plugging this short-term knowledge gap. We will work closely with your program team to help get tools integrated and your people working under their own initiative. Our hands-on training, coaching and mentoring approach to implementation is the Ten Six cornerstone principal that ensures your success.
When assisting in the EVM certification of your first project, our focus on skills transfer will secure your future technical and process independence as new contracts are won.
As well as full-service Deltek consulting services and training for earned value systems, Ten Six can also help you with staffing specialist roles. We can help find and fill the positions of:
- Deltek Cobra administrators
- EVM cost analysts
- EVM-savvy Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project schedulers
And more.
If you have a short term or longer term need for these skills, Ten Six can help you fill these roles.
Learn more about Deltek Cobra staff augmentation.
Your roadmap for implementing Deltek Cobra
Here are just some of the steps involved in your roadmap to an effective Deltek Cobra implementation.
- Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the project
- Develop an Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)
- Determine the correct levels for control accounts and work packages
- Develop an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) that is mapped correctly for Cobra integration and aligns with the WBS and OBS
- Create a project calendar that aligns with the financial periods of the organization
- Develop calendar sets to support specific management reporting needs
- Build additional ancillary files in Cobra to support the WBS, OBS, Codes, rates and resources
- Prepare correctly formatted spreadsheet files and use the integration wizard to load the ancillary file data from these spreadsheets
- Establish thresholds against the WBS for variance reporting as required in the IPMR CPR Format reports
- Develop rate files for direct and indirect rates used for internal and external people, materials, travel, ODC and Full Time Equivalent (FTE) values
- Develop resource calculations that correctly model the financial burdening process
- Establish direct and indirect result categories for correct burdening calculations
- Build a project file that is ready for integration with the master schedule
- Develop integration configurations for loading the IMS into the Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB)
- Build a project that contains the control accounts and work packages required to complete the entire scope of the required deliverables
- Create resource assignments in a time-phased configuration to build your profile of planned values for the project
- Correctly initialize a baseline of the final approved project plan
- Setup all the distributed, undistributed, contract ceiling, CBB and Management Reserve budget accounts
- Determine the forecasting requirements for the project (statistical and manual forecasts)
- Initialize forecast classes for ETC (Estimate to Complete) management
- Define required cost classes for the various cost tracking requirements
- Determine your approach for handling accruals/estimated actual costs
- Build cost classes for additional cost tracking as required
- Develop code files for unique and specialized reporting requirements
- Troubleshoot integration issues throughout the project setup process
- Validate ancillary data and run end to end tests on the initial system
- And more!
So are you ready?
Our clients often come to us after thinking about implementing a Deltek Cobra system on their own… and then realizing that a little help goes a long way to getting them started.
Our team has decades of experience and they are ready to save you a lot of time, headaches and frustration.
Tailored Deltek Cobra implementation support
The system is ready…
Your team has completed the training…
But it still feels like everything is too new to be confidently executing it all on your own.
Don’t worry. Lots of our clients feel like that, and the answer is to take advantage of our implementation support until you know you are ready to go it alone.
As your partner, we can start managing the monthly processes of entering status in the IMS, advancing status dates and calendars, integrating with Deltek Cobra, calculating the earned value, loading actual costs from the accounting systems, reporting, exporting, backing up, and so on.
5 Benefits of using Deltek experts
Ten Six truly is a one-stop-shop for delivering complete Deltek-based Earned Value Management solutions. Here’s an overview of the capabilities and benefits that the Ten Six team brings to your Deltek Cobra implementation:
1. Full lifecycle implementation planning
You’ll get the support you need to plan your project and Earned Value gap analysis and implementation planning. Learn where you are today, the roadmap of where you need to be and how to get there.
2. Professional training to suit your needs
You’ll get tool training in Deltek Cobra, Deltek Acumen Fuse, Risk and 360. More than that, your team will get detailed process training to support their education in EVM process development. Your team will feel comfortable using Earned Value Management techniques and confident completing an Integrated Baseline Review (IBR). And Control Account Managers get specific training tailored to their unique role.
3. Better risk mitigation
You’ll work in partnership with our team who have been there, done that! Get mitigation plans for technical, process and performance concerns that are proven to work.
4. Improved user adoption
You’ll benefit from our proven strategies and shortcuts. Manage the cultural shift and address user adoption issue with targeted change management and user training.
5. Adjustable levels of support
As your team grows stronger and more independent, tailor the support you need.
In short, Ten Six application consulting isn’t just about plugging in tools. It’s about empowering our customers to grow with the right technology as they also grow their EVM contract portfolio.
Ready to get going with Deltek Cobra?
The most successful Oracle Primavera P6 enterprise implementations are delivered by experienced consultants utilizing a proven structured approach.
We have all the bases covered. If you are considering implementing an EVMS together with Deltek’s EVM tools or need additional assistance with an existing implementation, we can help. Contact us to discuss how we can help make a Deltek-based earned value system work for you.
