Project Management
Software
The most popular
PC-based project management software is Microsoft Project. However, the
guidelines that will be provided here apply to similar software from other
vendors. Some specific guidelines are given in Fig. 6.7. You can find more detailed guidelines in the
book, Breakthrough Technology Project Management, second
ed., by the same authors.
There are some basic problems with most of the existing project
management software packages. First, they were initially designed for use by
single users. Hooks have been provided for collaboration, but at the heart they
are still single-user-oriented systems. Project management in modern
international projects is a collaborative widespread activity. Thus, the most
suitable project management tools would be based on the Internet and would
employ a Web browser.
A second problem is that the existing software allows either total
read-only or read–write access at the file level. If you are going to do
collaborative project management, team members have to update their own
individual tasks within the project plan. Therefore, they require write access
to only specific tasks.
A third disadvantage is that many of the software tools have
excessive features. Some of the features that should be discouraged are:
-
Spell checking. This is not a good feature since you will
have to employ standard abbreviations for most tasks to keep the length small to
show the GANTT chart.
-
PERT chart. Try to avoid PERT or sequential views of the
project. This is especially true in international projects. Why? A PERT chart
can encourage sequential thinking. People will not start a task until the
predecessor is completed.
-
Automated resource leveling. This should be done manually
and in a collaborative way.
-
Most of the reports that can be generated. The problem here
is that the reports cannot easily be customized.
As a rule of thumb, it is recommended that you will end up using
about 10–15% of the software. But it is a useful percentage. If the percentage
is so low, why use the tool? Politics. There is nothing like a GANTT chart in
which you have highlighted the tasks with issues and risk in a different color.
This will give you support and put pressure on management to resolve issues.
All that aside, a key benefit of project management software
is that you can customize the data elements in the software. After all, behind
the project management software is a database. Another benefit is that you can
customize the views and form as well as database queries or filters for the
project data
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