Project Planning Software
Discussion
I am looking to purchase some Project Planning software. Currently thinking about either Microsoft Project, for the usual reasons of compatibility with clients and compatibility with Office etc. and Suretrak on tha basis that it is closer to Primavera, generally a bit more powerful and compatible with client software. Anyone got any views as to which to go for, alternatives at less frightening prices or cheap sources?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks in advance.
I find that if you are using a full on project methodology to design, document, develop, implement and test your software then Project will help, but will still be labour intensive.
If you dont use a full on methodology like most people and allow your projects to be organic the maintenance overhead tracking this seems to far outweigh the effectiveness of the plan itself. Especially when dealing with abstracts and the like.
If its got discrete tasks that rarely change like a building project say, then its very powerful indeed.
If it hasnt, like in the case of most IT projects it often feels like documentation for documentations sake.
If you dont use a full on methodology like most people and allow your projects to be organic the maintenance overhead tracking this seems to far outweigh the effectiveness of the plan itself. Especially when dealing with abstracts and the like.
If its got discrete tasks that rarely change like a building project say, then its very powerful indeed.
If it hasnt, like in the case of most IT projects it often feels like documentation for documentations sake.
Microsoft Project is the most powerful, best value package in the marketplace. It also has the best back-end applications of any.
Trust me. I was in the PM Software business for fifteen years. I worked for Metier (Artemis) both consulting and building their products.
MSP is as good as it gets if you want to do Critical Path Analysis and Resource Levelling.
If, on the other hand, you want the bars to remain where you put them I recommend either a blackboard or Visio.
If you want to work out where you're effort is going over a number of projects you should buy our stuff
Edited for spelling and grammar
>> Edited by Don on Wednesday 12th January 15:25
Trust me. I was in the PM Software business for fifteen years. I worked for Metier (Artemis) both consulting and building their products.
MSP is as good as it gets if you want to do Critical Path Analysis and Resource Levelling.
If, on the other hand, you want the bars to remain where you put them I recommend either a blackboard or Visio.
If you want to work out where you're effort is going over a number of projects you should buy our stuff
Edited for spelling and grammar
>> Edited by Don on Wednesday 12th January 15:25
nightmare said:
i always seem to spend as much time updating the bloody plans as doing the work....hate project planning software!
Ah. But are you updating the plans for everybody or just yourself? Project Management costs time and money to do. Typically you get back 10% on project costs by doing it right (clearly a very broad brush number!). If the effort you are expending exceeds the saving clearly you'd be better off without it.
Many projects are best run on a whiteboard.
This from the guy who made his living at PM software...
Don said:
If, on the other hand, you want the bars to remain where you put them I recommend either a blackboard or Visio.
Therein lies the problem. I currently use Visio which is fine for a single page presentation type thing but for the current project I definitely need to do some resource levelling and decent progress tracking as the chances of the principal deliverers sticking to their commitments is absolutely miniscule.
rustybin said:
If, on the other hand, you want the bars to remain where you put them I recommend either a blackboard or Visio.
Therein lies the problem. I currently use Visio which is fine for a single page presentation type thing but for the current project I definitely need to do some resource levelling and decent progress tracking as the chances of the principal deliverers sticking to their commitments is absolutely miniscule.
Yes. But do you want the rest of the project to move out to the right as a consequence?
If you genuinely want to know ahead of time how much delay a late delivery will cost you AND you can model your project successfully as a Critical Path and with known (and limited) resources then MSP is your chap.
Its surprising how many people keep MSP for analysis and Visio for the reports they show to the board.
Don said:
Its surprising how many people keep MSP for analysis and Visio for the reports they show to the board.
That is precisely my plan (though the Visio version will show a much later end date and no float). I want to know what is going to happen but I don't want everyone else to. Equally need to be able to show the effect of not giving me the number of staff I need.
I have just taken over the project from a PM who refused to put a plan together despite running it for a year because it would show she was going to deliver late. It is now late and she is no longer the PM. These two facts may not be connected but...
Last project I worked on was managed using "critical chain" approach. Seemed like a fair step in the right direction from what I could see. The project office used PS8. It handles critical chain (time buffers and resourcing constraints) but, judging by the cursing and swearing I heard, it seems to have a pretty awful GUI. Can Microsoft Project handle critical chain style project management? If not, I wonder if anyone has written and add-ins to do so?
ld: 
Vomit inducing explanation here: www.focusedperformance.com/ccfaq.html#01
The benefits, as fas I can see it, is to estimate the error in all your time estimates when you set up your plan (usually calibrated by saying something like "Task X will take 5 man-days if all goes well, and 9 days in the worst case") and to avoid having zillions of little delivery dates (as people tend to slow down until they meet a delivery date, rather than beat the deadline and therefore get more work dumped on them). It is normally assumed that the errors in the estimates are uncorrelated, so that you can assume the total error for the time to complete a set of tasks is less than the sum total of the individual errors. The uncertainty is represented and managed in the project plan as buffers. If the buffers start doing unexpected things, it is an early warning that the wheels are falling off. Resource management is handled semi-intelligently and lets you look at contention for resources between competing sets of tasks.
The benefits, as fas I can see it, is to estimate the error in all your time estimates when you set up your plan (usually calibrated by saying something like "Task X will take 5 man-days if all goes well, and 9 days in the worst case") and to avoid having zillions of little delivery dates (as people tend to slow down until they meet a delivery date, rather than beat the deadline and therefore get more work dumped on them). It is normally assumed that the errors in the estimates are uncorrelated, so that you can assume the total error for the time to complete a set of tasks is less than the sum total of the individual errors. The uncertainty is represented and managed in the project plan as buffers. If the buffers start doing unexpected things, it is an early warning that the wheels are falling off. Resource management is handled semi-intelligently and lets you look at contention for resources between competing sets of tasks.
Don said:
Its surprising how many people keep MSP for analysis and Visio for the reports they show to the board.
Save yourself the hassle of redrwing in visio and just reformat the plan and then pdf it. That works well for me..
MSP might be the dogs danglies when it comes to planning, but personally I hate it as it just doesn't think about projects the way I do. Still find its the best tool for the job though..
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