I am a long term MS Project user and consider myself an advanced user, so I'm not being scarcastic. My question: is anyone using a simpler, more streamlined approach to scheduling? We use MS Project (company size = 5K total), but we waste an enormous amount of time getting Project to do what we want and in training new users. The product is just too big and too complicated to be effectively used by the number of people responsible for scheduling. I won't go into the details of our business, but we only need basic scheduling and tracking. I'm finding everything in Project is just too complicated or layered too deeply to be of value to us anymore. I don't think more training classes is the right answer. The product is just too complicated. Does anything else exist that has met with success? I'm seriously thinking about writing my own.... Love to hear any discussion. Thanks, Jim Saving Changes...
A lot of organisations are asking the opposite. Where to go when they want to upgrade from Microsoft? I sometimes wonder if that question is based on functionality or ego, notwithstanding the excellent range of high level scheduling tools in the market.
You share the view of many in our profession. How do we control the project management workload, especially for small scale projects. We do know that the project management overhead can be as high as 15 - 25% of total effort in a project. And for smallprojects it can get right out of control. My clients report having spent sometimes 50% of total project effort on project management overhead.
Is it true that the Gantt Chart is the absolute professional benchmark for schedule management? No!! Horses for courses. If a project can be managed through a simple statement of milestones, go to it.
I know some folk create schedule views in Excel or other spreadsheets. My only comment is that it is a reasonable drawing tool,but no automation, tracking or alerts.
Why not think about creating a project calendar in Outlook, then you can set alerts and integrate messaging and tasking, and the whole thing is easy to manipulate.
Food for thought
David Hudson, Brisbane, Australia Saving Changes...
Darrell MarkhamSr. IT Project Manager| Tyler TechnologiesBrentwood, Ca, United States
Wow….well personally I find MS Project to be a good tool. You can apply the necessary amount of rigger for any size project and produce a dynamic forecasting model for tracking and managing any project if used correctly. However, I did tons of research before recommending MS Project for our program and found that Project KickStart was a great tool for smaller simple schedules and it was easy to learn and use.
Charles RosenManaging Member| Ethical-PM, L.L.C.Somerset, Nj, United States
Jim,
I have found the same to be true, especially when attempting to communicate to senior leadership. You might want to take a look at Kidsasa Milestones Professional (http://www.kidasa.com/) I have found this to be a very useful drawing program as well as having Gantt features. It offers a middle ground to using excel and has some nice graphic options. Saving Changes...
Good discussion. I think sometimes it comes down to the level of communications and the target audience. I have found that within my organization, my operational business partners do not want to see or deal with a MS Project plan with 500+ tasks. I do still use MS project to detail the tasks needed to complete the project delivery, but I do not use it for my over all "Plan", nor for communications to my partners.
I will generally take the milestone approach that David mentions. As a tool, I will use VISIO to lay this out. It produces good looking documents and my business partners are happy that they don't have to open MS Project.
Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Hi Jim, you have a very good question and point. We like MS Project. Nonetheless, we did what you are thinking. That is, in our PMM we provide project schedule templates in Project, Excel, and even Word. We use Project for our more complicated schedules and Excel for lesser complicated and shorter term projects. We also support casual project managers outside of our IT department with easy to use, very basic, templates in Word. While scheduling and tracking are very important pieces of how we manage projects, we find that we get better project results by having our project managers and project participants understand and execute the PMM, rather than trying to force everyone to learn and use our PM tool, MS Project. Let me know if you would like some of our templates. Hope this helps. -- Mark Perry, VP Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Micheal HazongProject Manager| RR ConstructionsCoimbatore, India
Hi Jim,
It can sometimes be a genuine challenge to locate a trustworthy Enterprise Project Management Software service that will not only match your expectations but will also include your budget limits. While you examine a variety of alternatives to Microsoft Project you should pay attention not only to offered tools but also to a wide range of elements like available plans, level of customer support, supported mobile devices and offered integrations. With decent knowledge, you should be able to find a decent alternative for Microsoft Project that will contain all the elements you need at an inexpensive cost. You can also reach out https://tiemchart.com/ and find the best MS project alternative solutions
