Project Management Software
Project Management Software
(OP)
To get things started in this forum, I thought it might be best to get an idea of what software is in use.
Presently, I deal mostly with Primavera (P3) but have used Suretrack and Microsoft Project in the past.
Anybody else? Any different software?
Presently, I deal mostly with Primavera (P3) but have used Suretrack and Microsoft Project in the past.
Anybody else? Any different software?





RE: Project Management Software
Does anyone else experience this problem? If so, how do you deal with it?
RE: Project Management Software
Funny story: I went to a project "KICK OFF" meeting recently where the project manager gets up in front of the room and had these great overheads on the project showing our next product outlined from beginning to end. Everybody congratulated him for a nice presentation yadee yadee ya. I had noticed on his Gantt Chart that he literally had a the project completing before one of the tasks was complete. He had a question and answer session at the end and I had asked him "How could you FINISH the project before the completion date of a task. His repliy was "WELL SOME OF THESE DATES AREN'T RIGHT" as the CEO of the company began to chew him out I walked out shaking my head. Unfortunately he is still here still blowing smoke.
Anyway I've used Microsoft Project for a long time and it seems to be the best. We are a small company and have about 10 seats for all of the necessary personnel to view it but the project manager usually distributes hard copies of a Gantt Chart with a revision and then puts "Read Only" status on the electronic copy and only he/she can manipulate the project.
Sorry to ramble but had to share it with you guys.
Mark
RE: Project Management Software
Our industry is going to multi-office projects and I guess we will use the software more in the future.
Things are definitely different these days!
RE: Project Management Software
From what I have seen so far it is far superior to MS Project and is more user friendly than other Critcal Chain software options. I wish more software companies would realize the benefit of multiple undo's!
RE: Project Management Software
I have used projects for a number of years now and as already mentioned I have found the best way to pass the plan around is to convert to pdf format. The other method I have used is the camera option in projects which allows you to create a gif file but this sometimes can cause problems on large files
RE: Project Management Software
Thanks again.
RE: Project Management Software
I've used MS Project for a few years too. Although I also use the PDF route to communicate the project status from MSP, I have recently been using the MS Outlook link that came in with MSP98. You have to install a small driver on everyone's PC (this is free) and you can then send out the project tasks to the resources allocated to them. They can feed back progress (in the usual way for an Outlook task) and you can incorporate this into your MSP plan. It also works well for multi-site projects. I use this as an additional rather that a replacement for the PDF overviews. I've also often output eps files from MSP and incorporated these into monthly reports etc.
MSP is also OK for cost tracking, provided you're very careful about how you enter your data - and that you get your calander right!
As far as Risk management goes, MSP doesn't include anything, but you can use tools such as @Risk and link into your Project plan.
Metrics like cost index, performance index, resource usage etc. can be obtained with a little manual effort.
The biggest critisism that I've heard about MSP is that although its very user friendly in that its easy to get into using it, it does not force you into good project management practise, unlike tools like MicroPlanner for example (which isn't easy to get into, but does force good PM practice). I guess this comes down to training.
The big pluses for MS Project (in my view) are:
- Easy GUI
- Its Micrsoft, so - bugs have a good chance og being fixed eventually (new release every year at least) - good chance that you can share data with others (they are probably using MSP too), albeit with difficulties mentioned above - relatively low price
Communication is easily half of Project Management (IMHO), so for me its a big factor if a tool allows for easier communication. MSP does have room for improvement, but then so do all the other tools I've seen - the question for me is, what are the chances of improvement in the near future?
Hope this helps!
Cheers
Russell
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Russell Taylor BEng CEng MIEE
Hampshire, UK.
RE: Project Management Software
RE: Project Management Software