A question about current Project Management software tools. Say you were working on a few small/medium IT and Business Change projects in a standard Windows environment, with MS Office and MS Project already installed, and your sponsor offered say $2000 to buy 3 other software tools to help you with managing the project/ help the project team to deliver it, what would you go for and why?
I'm thinking mainly of desktop tools, as most of our project team members do not have employer-provided phones for apps. Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Some contextual questions:
Where do your [team's] struggles lie? (sharing information, exposing information, communication....)
How does everyone work? (co-located, agiley....)
Do you have SharePoint? (there are great add-ons available)
$2000, unfortunately, is really not that much. Especially if licensing is needed Saving Changes...
I would look at some of the lower cost hosted collaboration and work management tools - Trello or ones like that. I would definitely go with a hosted solution as otherwise your budget will be consumed with the one time and ongoing maintenance costs of the underlying infrastructure and IT support for that...
Thanks Andrew, I'm really looking for others' experience & seeing which tools they have found most worthwhile for any topic at any stage of project,our teams are not usually co-located, multi-site same toimezone, and being COTS implementations there are usually supplier staff on them too.
We don't have Sharepoint, but that raises a point- the system ought to be useable out of the box- plug and play, which Sharepoint is not.
$2k is an arbitrary figure, I put that in order to exclude larger tools and PPM suites, and on the other hand some online tools are entirely free. I am more looking for smaller tactical tools, e..g mindjet, teamdeck, testlink, axure, meetingsense etc etc
Thans Kiron- and yes I definitely agree about hosted options, much simpler nowadays Saving Changes...
Michael FeskoSenior Project Manager| ConnectionMerrimack, Nh, United States
Hi Tim,
I agree with Andrew (above) asking about context. Identify the specific pain points your team has. For example, if scheduling engineering resources is cumbersome you could look in that direction. If efficient billing workflow is needed, there's another direction. Try to make sure what you choose will actually solve the problem through some testing of a demo or at least discussing features with your team stakeholders, otherwise it'll be a waste of funds and a disappointment to the team using it (and upper management).
Mike Saving Changes...
Thanks Mike. Good points, but the difficulty with picking specific pain points on multiple projects is that they are all different projects with different teams, and they aren't necessarily all that painful either. Some projects are at go-live, others barely started, so it would be good to know what people are using generally that they have found to be helpful (or alternatively, were not worth buying) Saving Changes...
RAJESH K LProject Manager, PMP| Bharat Electronics, Bengaluru, IndiaBengaluru, Karnataka, India
Relevant points are mentioned. Agree with Andrew & Michael Saving Changes...
Hi all, following a useful tip from someone I gather what I am looking for are actually called "productivity tools" and I found this good article listing a few...does anyone use any others?
My first suggestion is to use PMI as the tool! Investing in the team's talent development, and standardization of processes and artifacts is going to reap much bigger rewards than more software. There are a few other organizations to help your team become stronger. Message me if you want my opinion. Let's remember, the PM skill set is only partly about the tools. It's your soft skills that make a project a success.
Jul 27, 2018 3:29 PM
Bruce A Hayes
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Looks nice but I bet if you ask your team -- they already have ideas as to what they think would be the next best small software spend. I try to keep a few things on my wants list just in case I'm asked.
Saving Changes...
Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Thanks for the follow-up.
Some things that I use: Slack, XMind, Simplenote, MindMap Tab (chrome only), draw.io, Pomodoro (extensions available; Chrome Extension Link), ProjectPlus, Save to Pocket - to name a few :) Saving Changes...
Bruce A HayesProject Manager, Scrum Master, Product Owner, and freelance Trainer.| Available to partner with you. Let's review your needs to see if we are
a match.Fort Wayne, IN, United States
Jul 27, 2018 5:27 AM
Replying to Tim PM
...
Hi all, following a useful tip from someone I gather what I am looking for are actually called "productivity tools" and I found this good article listing a few...does anyone use any others?
My first suggestion is to use PMI as the tool! Investing in the team's talent development, and standardization of processes and artifacts is going to reap much bigger rewards than more software. There are a few other organizations to help your team become stronger. Message me if you want my opinion. Let's remember, the PM skill set is only partly about the tools. It's your soft skills that make a project a success. Saving Changes...
Bruce A HayesProject Manager, Scrum Master, Product Owner, and freelance Trainer.| Available to partner with you. Let's review your needs to see if we are
a match.Fort Wayne, IN, United States
Jul 27, 2018 5:27 AM
Replying to Tim PM
...
Hi all, following a useful tip from someone I gather what I am looking for are actually called "productivity tools" and I found this good article listing a few...does anyone use any others?
Looks nice but I bet if you ask your team -- they already have ideas as to what they think would be the next best small software spend. I try to keep a few things on my wants list just in case I'm asked. Saving Changes...
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