I have been asked to identify the top project management tracking tools used by project managers. Microsoft is saying that Excel is the number one tool used by project managers, followed by MS Project. Does anyone have anything to share to support or counter this statement? Thanks for your help. Saving Changes...
Barb, MS Project dominates the IT arena, however, other tools such as Primavera Project Planner (expensive) and SureTrak (competes w/MS Project) are vastly superior, IMHO.
MS Project is at best a casual project planning tool.
Artemis and Project Workbench are dogs and require lots of training to use effectively.
"Open Plan" is another tool worth looking into.
The bottomline is that the tool must match the reporting and tracking requirements of the project.
Tom Welch Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Of the project management tools being discussed, are there any that have superior automated scheduling/resource leveling algorithms??. The Resource Leveler in MS Project has way too many quirks. The only other that I've been exposed to was the AutoSchedule function in ABT's Workbench which worked very well (for me) for even large projects, resulting in a reasonably optimzed schedule.
Is there better? Saving Changes...
John ZacharProduct Dev Manager| Association for Project Management (APM)Brackley,, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
Everything everyone has said is good, although I wouldn't call Project a planning tool, but a scheduling tool. BIG difference.
I use Excel. I've developed an example of how Excel (or other similarly capable spreadsheets) can be used to track project information. The example cannot be used, but does represent how Excel (or similar) can be used in this information tracking mode.
Typically the categories that information falls into is about spend (more to find out what I have left, rather than to report to accounts), achievement over time (have I accomplished what I set out to accomplish by this point on the calendar), level of productivity (this helps to understand deviations in planned achievment, and of course why the deviation exists), and the temperature / attitude of the stakeholders (this is all about the project continuing to be aimed in the correct direction).
Please let me know by direct e-mail if a copy of the file is desired. Since it is copyright, I can't just post it. Saving Changes...
Ditto Rich Eaton's comments. Niku Workbench, formerly ABT's Workbench provides a powerful autoscheduling function. Below are the processing steps. The autoscheduling itself is an automated feature schedules and/or reschedules ETC, i.e., Estimated To Complete, hours for each task and resource. We have not found another PM tool with this automated capability.
Autoscheduling: After you finish creating a project plan and the interrelationships between tasks, you are ready to schedule the tasks and the resources that work on each task. If your project is large, scheduling can be a complex process that balances dependency relationships, resource availability, and task duration.
To ease the burden of scheduling projects, Niku Workbench offers an automated scheduling process called Autoschedule.
Scheduling Steps
Because scheduling is an iterative process, it usually takes several steps to balance the resources working on a project. You may need to make several adjustments to the plan. This includes changing resource availability, adjusting dependency links, and possibly even adding tasks. Here are some suggested steps you might use to develop a realistic schedule:
1. Make adjustments to resource calendars, indicating the work days and holidays for each resource. Use variable availability to accurately model your resources.
2. Autoschedule the project without resource constraints to show the shortest possible duration of the project.
3. Autoschedule the project with resource constraints to eliminate resource overcommitment.
4. Set priorities for Phases, Activities, and Tasks.
5. Recalculate the duration of inherently overcommitted tasks.
6. Lock any tasks that you don't want rescheduled.
7. Refine your assignment of loading patterns.
8. Autoschedule the project again with resource constraints.
9. Refine dependency relationships (including gaps and overlaps) in the CPM Network view. Saving Changes...
PlanView too has powerful autoscheduling functionality that takes into account diverse project component priorities etc.
It should be pointed out that PlanView, Niku and other enterprise-wide resource management tools provide a very different orthogonal view of projects than MS Project does.
MS Project assumes a static world in which assigned resources are only working on the single project. Enterprise resource/PM tools reflect the diverse "pulls" on those resources by multiple projects.
Both types of tools have tremendous value; I think that the enterprise tools better relate the organic nature of organizations.
Saving Changes...
Jan SchillerPartner and Chief Project Officer| Berkshire Consulting LLCArizona, United States
Barb, I confirmed Microsoft's statement re: Excel used more often than Project for project scheduling when I was on assignment at a Fortune 500 company developing some baseline metrics for project office creation.
Nearly twice as many project schedulers developed their initial work plans in Excel than MSProject. Of those that used MSProject, they used it only for creating the initial WBS and getting that nice Gantt chart to show upper management.
The gap? Regardless of tool, hardly anyone was TRACKING progress against their plan. Saving Changes...
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