Meisterplan is a cloud-based project portfolio management and resource management tool. Businesses can easily see resource availability and capacity, gain visibility into projects, prioritize and align project portfolios to strategies, and generate real-time scenario simulations with Meisterplan.
With Meisterplan users will gain an understanding of the overall project portfolio and resource management across the organization. Meisterplan helps users find the optimal mix of projects with the right people and the best timing as well as ensuring that projects are aligned to strategy, so that businesses can be sure that their project portfolio is realistic and achievable.
Users will gain transparency into resource availability and capacity, so that they can match the most qualified resources to the right projects. With real-time scenario simulations, businesses will be able to quickly react to any changes or problems that arise.
Pros
Meisterplan filled a significant gap for us in understanding how we are utilizing our capacity. We now have a much better idea when we need to either say no to new projects or adjust timelines and team members assigned to projects. We use a couple of other project management tools, but nothing that gives us a high-level view of things like this. It brought our stress level down to manageable levels.
Cons
Meisterplan is a very complex, feature-packed tool. This steepens the learning curve on the user interface a little bit. However, I think it is the easiest to use of any of the tools I've been exposed to. At a fraction of the price of many enterprise-level tools, I'm not complaining.
Thanks to the simplicity of the product and its excellent usability the Project Portfolio Process PPM was wholistically optimized and strategic decisioning for projects ensured. Eager to further enhance maturity of PPM with Future releases of the Product.
I've chosen Meisterplan among 50+ PM tools due to easy-to-use resource allocation and project aligning features. Most suitable for high-level roadmap planning having limited resources for project development.
Pros
The visual interface makes the software intuitive to understand and use. For Resource Management, I have found few other tools that can match the capabilities of MP. Definitely love the scenario comparison function. While it is pretty easy to get up and running, you can get more complex the more comfortable you are with the tool.
Cons
There isn't much not to like, although more robust and out of the box integration with other tools would be helpful. Just keep in mind that this really excels at resource management.
This is the only tool I've found that gives us the insight we need to make important decisions about when to start projects and when to hire. If you operate staffing for an agency you'll know that it can be difficult to determine exactly how many people of any given role you'll need 3-6-12 months out. This tool can help you align your hiring needs with your sales pipeline. Help you to determine when to pull the trigger with clients as well as new hires. The insight this tool provides has proven invaluable to our organization.
Pros
The only tool in it's class that provides capacity planning and projections to help coordinate hiring and sales leads.
Resource-based pricing starting at $199/month
Starter package: €199/month for 1-20 resources
Business packages: starting at €299/month for 21-30 resources, up to €2,999/month for 401-500 resources.
All prices based on annual payment.
Enterprise packages are available on request for more than 500 resources. Contact Meisterplan for more information.
Meisterplan is a cloud-based project portfolio management (PPM) software that allows company executives to efficiently prioritize and organize projects into portfolios to determine the best uses of their available human and capital resources. Projects are evaluated based on objectives, risks, rewards, costs, timelines, expected outcomes, and other relevant benchmarks.
The app covers processes that include PPM and analysis, resource management, finance management, alignment of strategy and business goals, visual data analysis, and centralized data management. It’s equipped with interactive and dynamic tools that enable users, regardless of their IT expertise, to visualize scenarios in real time and quickly determine the best possible project plans and portfolio mix.
To effectively bring a project to completion, project managers and stakeholders are expected to hurdle three significant project constraints: schedule, cost, and scope. For enterprises working with a large number of projects, it’s critical to know which to prioritize and allocate finite resources to.
Meisterplan is an easy-to-use PPM tool with highly visual features that allow portfolio managers to add new projects, assign people to them, set priorities, evaluate project dependencies, determine project and operational expenditures, align projects to organizational goals, and identify which projects are the most profitable. Various business scenarios can be visualized by adjusting project timelines, and adding or removing resources.
The Must-Have and Cut-Off lines in your dashboard enable you to differentiate between projects that need to be worked on now versus those that can wait. User credentials and access permissions can be created, such as full admin access and read-only rights. User groups can also be defined and managed.
Meisterplan is a multi-user project portfolio planning and management software powered by drag-and-drop technology that makes it easy for portfolio managers to plan and staff projects, set timelines, and simulate staffing and budget changes to compare various business scenarios. Projects in the portfolio can be dragged up or down to reflect priority changes. Projects below the Cut-Off line are low-priority and can’t be assigned any resources.
The portfolio planning feature allows you to visualize the big picture and dig into the nitty-gritty in just a few clicks. Projects in a portfolio are further organized into programs, and projects and resources are broken down into several different structures, e.g., departments, locations, products, roles, and so on. Last-minute additions can easily be squeezed in, and milestones can be established at the portfolio level to mark work completions.
Meisterplan’s resource management feature lets you categorize your resources’ skills and competencies, departments, and locations, as well as their hourly rates, making it easy to assign tasks to them later. Removing and adding resources to projects allow you to instantly see the effects on capacity planning.
The utilization score assigned to each resource and color-coded capacity-versus-allocation charts let you spot resource bottlenecks at a glance, helping you pinpoint areas where additional internal staff, even external resources, may be necessary. Multiple calendars can also be incorporated into Meisterplan to account for holidays in various regions or countries.
Along with their skills, department, and location, Meisterplan keeps track of each resource’s rate per hour. This helps you stay within budget when assigning resources to projects. When creating projects, OpEx (operational expenditures), CapEx (capital expenditures), and benefit budgets are defined.
The traffic light indicators in the Financial section of the Meisterplan dashboard show if costs are over the allocated budget (red light) or within budget (green light) for a certain financial period. A green benefit light signals your actual benefit figure is on or above target, and a red light means you’re below target. The column charts display in graph form your CapEx, OpEx, and benefit targets versus actual figures.
Business goals can be created in Meisterplan, and projects are planned according to these goals. Goals are added or edited via the Strategy window, which can be selected from the main menu on the upper right-hand corner of the home screen. The same window shows a summary of the projects under each business goal, including the total cost, benefit, and workload.
Projects are listed on the left-hand side of the screen and can be dragged and dropped into any of the goal buckets on the right.
Internal standard reports can be generated via the Meisterplan report manager, which is accessed from the main menu. Standard reports include scenario comparison reports, Excel pivot reports, utilization treemaps, and others. Weblinks can be added to the report manager, so users can quickly access custom reporting pages or reporting tools that use Meisterplan data.
To use external reporting tools, e.g., to view Tableau reports in Meisterplan, data extraction must first be activated. Access permissions to reports are determined by report creators who have administrator or data manager logins.
Meisterplan integrates with tools such as Microsoft Excel, Project and Project Server, as well as CA Clarity PPM, Planview, JIRA, Oracle Primavera, KPI, and Tableau. An open API is also available so businesses can integrate with other project management or portfolio solutions.
Meisterplan offers subscription plans tailored to your company’s specific needs. The app can be deployed as a SaaS or on-premise solution. For more information, contact the company’s sales department.
Below are some frequently asked questions for Meisterplan.
Meisterplan offers the following pricing plans:
Starting from: €199/month
Pricing model: One Time License, Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Resource-based pricing starting at $199/month
Starter package: €199/month for 1-20 resources
Business packages: starting at €299/month for 21-30 resources, up to €2,999/month for 401-500 resources.
All prices based on annual payment.
Enterprise packages are available on request for more than 500 resources. Contact Meisterplan for more information.
Meisterplan offers the following features:
Meisterplan has the following typical customers:
Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Non Profit, Public Administrations
Meisterplan supports the following languages:
English, French, German
Meisterplan has the following pricing plans:
One Time License, Subscription
Meisterplan supports the following devices:
Android, iPhone, iPad
Meisterplan integrates with the following applications:
Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Planview, Primavera Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (by Oracle), SAP Business Objects, SharePoint, Smartsheet, Smartsheet, Tableau Software
Meisterplan offers the following support options:
FAQs, Knowledge Base, Online Support, Phone Support, Video Tutorials
