Mark AndersonDirector of ERP Systems| Clesen WholesaleIl, United States
Hi All
Our procurement and product management team has a fairly lengthy forecasting process and want a project management solution. The team is 6 people (none have PM experience), but the schedule is very dynamic. I feel MS project is overkill and AFAIK doesn't have some of the key features my CEO is looking for. I started looking at other tools (cloud based). The requirement I can'f fulfill now is a fairly simple one
I have task A and task B that can run in parallel and are predecessors of task C
what happened this year is that task A and task B were forecast for 2 weeks each and both finished in a week, but the owner of task c didn't know (different location), so we lost a week that we could have got ahead on. The CEO's ask is that in such a case, the owner of task C would be notified that all the dependencies were complete, so they could start early. Would be nice if the plan would then recalculate and pull all task with a FS relationship forward.
So far I've looked at Monday.com, but it fell at the first hurdle: couldn't set two more than one dependency (predecessor) for a task (i.e. could not make task a and task b as predecessors of task c)
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I do not see a question here but commenting on what you’ve mentioned: In these situations, close and continuous communication is very important. Regular weekly reviews with all task leaders is important too. Saving Changes...
to achieve what you are looking for you would need a real scheduling engine which will dynamically update forecast dates based on changes to predecessor tasks. However, as Rami says, a schedule is not a substitute for communicating directly with task owners.
A low tech solution such as a work board might be a better way to get closer collaboration between individual task owners who are contributing to a main deliverable.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Mikel SteadmanPMO Leader| Development Dimensions InternationalTroy, Nh, United States
Mark -
I think you're asking for advice on communication. The owner of Task C wasn't aware that the owners of Task A and Task B had completed their work ahead of the estimate.
Software can't replace the value of face to face or virtual status or scrum meetings. If the team had made it a priority to review roles and responsibilities as well as the proper communications channels, my guess is this would have not been a miss.
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