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In this lesson, you learn the kinds of software that are available, the capabilities of software, which software functions are crucial, and guidelines for selection.
With the Click of a Mouse
Project management software today is available at a variety of prices, offering a wide variety of functions. You can use software to plan, initiate, track, and monitor your progress. You can develop reports, print individual charts, and at the push of a button (or a click of a mouse) e-mail virtually any aspect of your project plans to any team member, top manager, executive, or stakeholder.
Whereas earlier versions of Project management software focused on planning, scheduling and results, tools for analyzing your progress, finding critical paths, and asking "what if" questions were lacking.
CAUTION
Today, there are so many options in and among so many vendors that the problem is finding your way through the bewildering choices.
Bennett Lientz and Kathryn Rea in Project Management for the 21st Century observe that project management software has at least five distinct differences from more widely known and used word processing, database, and spreadsheet software:
Project management software is used far less often than other categories of software.
Fewer people use Project management software, although project participants and stakeholders usually do see the generated output.
Project management software allows for more customization than many other types of software.
Project management software tends to be more expensive than commonly used, widely known types of software.
Fewer people in your work sphere are likely to know how to use Project management software. Leave a Good Thing Alone
Project management software went from being expensive and crude, to less expensive and highly functional, to even less expensive, but confusing. When Harvard Project Manager was launched in 1983 it represented a breakthrough in Project management software. Its main focus was on project budgeting, scheduling, and resource management. With Harvard Project Manager you were able to generate Gantt charts, PERT/CPM charts, and a variety of other charts and tables. It was considered an integrated project planning and control package and sold for as little as 30 percent of the price of its clunky, less functional predecessors.
In the two decades that followed, competition among Project management software vendors heated up, prices came down, and functionality went sky high. Many packages now are harder to learn and use. Consider your own experience in using word processing, database, or spreadsheet software. Aren't there earlier versions of current programs that were easier and more convenient? You were able to pop them in, learn them in a day or so, and go on your merry way.
Today, with expanding megabyte counts, it seems that the vendors need to have everything plus the kitchen sink. This gives them the opportunity to design splashy ads listing umpteen features. Realistically, how many people are true power users who would use all of the advertised features?
CAUTION
Whereas the Harvard Project Manager could be learned in as little as a day if you were diligent, current Project management software can take as much as five days of your time, if you are starting from square one and have no PC guru or mentor nearby to steer you along.
Whose Choice Is It?
Certainly, if your organization, department or division already uses or prefers a certain type of software, then your decision is already made. Your quest becomes mastering that software—or at least the parts of it that are crucial for you to know.
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If a brand of Project management software is the preferred choice in your workplace, and other projects employ such software, you are relatively fortunate. Other project managers or staff will know how to use it and can serve as ad-hoc software gurus to you.
With no experienced users in your work setting, some important questions arise:
What kind of software should be chosen?
In choosing Project management software a rule of thumb is to choose a popular and very well-known package. The price is likely to be highly competitive, people around you would have either heard of the vendor or have heard that the software is widely known, and you won't have to spend a lot of time defending your decision!
Who should learn it?
If you and you alone will have responsibility for learning the software, you need to build time and expense into your budget—it will take you time to learn it or to take a course, and your time has a cost.
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The Project Management Institute at http://www.pmi.org/ and the Project Management Control Tower at http://www.4pm.com/ each offer a wide variety of books, audio-visual materials, training guides, classroom training, seminars, and increasingly, online training. Also, PMFORUM at
http://www.projectmanager.com/ offers a host of career opportunities for project managers or those seeking to enter the profession.
While it may seem obvious that you as the project manager should be the primary user of Project management software, you may need to rethink that assumption. Depending on what you are managing and the dynamics of your organization, if you were to be the primary software user, you might spend the brunt of your time working with the software and have precious little time left for forming and building your team, maintaining reporting requirements, and offering the overall kind of day-to-day project management that the venture requires.
Recognizing the danger of having a project manager become too immersed with project management software, some organizations have established support groups or provide internal software gurus. These gurus are the in-house experts and are often loaned to project management teams for the duration of the project.
The gurus work directly with the project manager, incorporating his feedback, answering his questions, and undertaking whatever types of analysis the project manager requests. They routinely maintain schedules, budget reports, and track the allocation of resources. An experienced software guru knows how and how often to share project related reports with project staff and project stakeholders in general.
What's Your Pleasure?
Assuming that you're not in the position where your organization will loan someone to you who will handle the brunt of Project management software activities and assuming that there is no particular program of choice yet established, how do you go about selecting software?
First, establish what kind of user you're going to be, which is largely determined by two elements: the size of your project and how technical you are.
For tiny projects of zero to two staff for a project of a few months or less, it's possible that no project management software is necessary! How so? You may already possess all the software and software knowledge you need to be effective in managing a small project. We're talking about spreadsheets, word processing, a graphics or drawing program, and the functionality to generate tables, graphs, flow charts, and other diagrams.
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Though somewhat makeshift, the combination of reports and exhibits that you can muster with your current software and skills might be more than adequate for your project needs.
Your current software may be entirely adequate if the basic work breakdown structure (WBS) and a Gantt chart or two is all you need, and you don't necessarily have to create a critical path.
For projects involving four or more people, extending several months or longer, with a variety of critical resources, it makes sense to invest in some type of software. Again, it doesn't necessarily need to be Project management software per se. Many calendar and scheduling software programs come with builtin functions. You can produce tables, Gantt charts, and even maintain a schedule for four to ten people. Increasingly, you can do this on hand-held computers.
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With a total project management team of four people, extended over several months, employing dedicated Project management software may make the most sense.
Dedicated Project management Software
The competition among dedicated Project management software vendors is keen. Major vendors in the field include PlanView, Inc., Primavera, Microsoft, Dekker Welcome, and Artemus. (An overview of Project management software with descriptions can be found in the next lesson.) There are also lower-end programs that will help you generate plans, project reports, and basic charts that don't require as much learning time. Products such as Quick Gantt, Milestone Simplicity, and Project Vision sell for less than $100 and are available at office superstores as well as retail software stores.
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Inexpensive Project management software may be your best option if you don't have anyone else in the organization who can serve as guru, but you do wish to automate, rather than manually generate critical reports and charts.
Suppose that you are managing many people over many months, and have a thousand or more tasks and subtasks to complete. Here, you would look at Project management software for midrange project managers. You can spend anywhere from $200 to $6,000 using the more feature-laden versions of software named above. Most packages will give you the full range of tools sought by even veteran project managers on multiyear projects.
The problem with software at this level is that you can quickly become a slave to it. For example, will you decide to schedule and track all subtasks and tasks based on identified start times, stop times, for each staff member, all the time? Or, will you continually rely on your staff to give you estimates of tasks and subtask completion times?
Relying on the input of your staff helps to build a team, but it takes more work.
Using the software is arduous at first, saves time later, and keeps your head in front of a PC screen more often—away from the people and the events happening all around you.
High-end project management software is designed for the very largest, longest duration, most involved types of projects. If you are a high-end user, you wouldn't have picked up this book. Here, we are talking about software that can range from a few thousand to several thousand dollars. Learning such packages could take weeks. The software selection process alone could take weeks or months.
CAUTION
Even if at the high end there are so many programs available, made by such vendors as Cobra, Semantic, Instaplan, Klavis (for Mac users), Open Plan, Primavera, Microsoft, Enterprise Project management, Microplanner, and others, that you would need a consultant to make such a selection.
Regardless of your level of Project management software knowledge, your selection could be one of the most important factors in overall project success. Many project managers have found that the software in force is too complex and too unwieldy to use for the entire project. Some end up using only an element of the software, such as budgeting or scheduling; some use it only for making charts; others end up abandoning the software midstream. Undoubtedly, a whole lot of scrambling follows because whatever the software was used for now needs to be done manually.
How Will You Use Project management Software?
The first time, modest users obviously won't use Project management software the way that an experienced pro will. Nevertheless, there are levels of usage worth differentiating:
Reporting
Here the project manager uses the software to generate Gantt or, possibly, PERT/CPM charts. She may use other software programs such as word processing and spreadsheets to supplement her project graphs and produce reports.
Tracking
The software is used to compare actual versus planned progress. As the project staff completes tasks and subtasks, the results of their efforts are logged so that the tracking effort stays current.
Project tracking
A system for identifying and documenting progress performance for effective review and dissemination to others.
What-if
The Project management software is engaged to identify the impact of shuffling resources, changing the order of subtasks, or changing tasks' dependencies. What-if analysis is kind of fun, because you get immediate feedback.
CAUTION
Change one variable at a time to have a full grasp of its impact. If you change too many variables at once, the picture becomes cloudy.
Cost control
Project managers use Project management software to allocate costs to various project resources. This is usually done by figuring out how much resource time and effort is consumed. Lientz and Rea observe that "most project management software systems lack flexibility in handling costs as well as interfaces into budgeting and accounting systems." Thus, the cost computations that a project manager makes generally don't plug into the overall cost structures the accountants in her organization work with.
Clocking
By adding project team member hours expended on various tasks and subtasks on a regular basis, project managers can then generate reports showing actual versus scheduled use of resources.
Checklists and Choices
It's hard to generalize what type of software various levels of users may require, but here are some general criteria worth considering:
Ease of use
Is the software easy to plug in, are there good help screens, is there a tutorial, is there strong customer support, and is the software menu driven and intuitive? Is it easy to move things around, are the commands as standard as possible and easy to learn? Is there an accompanying manual that is easy to read? Are you able to get started on some functions quickly?
Reporting functions
Does the program allow for individual revising of report formats, can these be easily imported into other software programs, and can they easily be saved, added to, combined, and read?
Charting capacity
Does the software offer the basic project management charts (virtually all do), is there automatic recalculation, are there easy-to-use options, and are there drag and drop capabilities? Can charts be imported and exported easily, are supporting graphics easy to see and to use, and can charts readily be changed into other forms?
Calendar generators
Does this software allow for calendars of all durations, in a variety of formats, for different aspects of the project and project staff, with the ability to mark particular days and times, with holidays and other nonworking days preprogrammed, and are these calendars also easily importable and exportable?
Interfacing
Can you easily connect with telecommunication systems and is information easily shared with others who require online access? Is it efficient in terms of byte space consumed?
Report generation
Can a variety of report formats be selected, with quick changing capabilities, and easy transference to word processing software? In addition, consider these attributes:
Shows onscreen previews of reports prior to printing Offers a variety of formats for Gantt and PERT charts Works with a variety of printers and other equipment Enables several projects to share a common pool of resources Conveys cost data by task or by time
Allows printing of subsections of charts
Accepts both manual and automatic schedule updates
Most of the vendors you will encounter have such capabilities. Hence, you need to go beyond a strict comparison of software functionality and consider the attributes, benefits, and services of using a particular vendor as well. In fact, for any major purchase it's advisable to have a good set of questions. The following is a list adapted from my book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Stress. Ask the vendors whether they
Offer any corporate, government, association, military, and educators' discounts? Have weekly, monthly, or quarterly seasonal discounts?
Offer off-peak discounts?
Guarantee the lowest price? Accept major credit cards? Accept orders by fax or e-mail?
Have a money-back guarantee, or other guarantee? Use a 1-800 ordering fax line?
Guarantee shipping dates?
Have a toll-free customer service line?
Avoid selling, renting, or otherwise using your name and ordering information? Insure shipments?
Charge for shipping and handling? Include tax?
Have any other charges? Have demos?
Offer free or low-cost upgrades? Have references available?
Keep a list of satisfied customers in your area? Have been in business long?
Have standard delivery times? Warranty the product?
Making a List, Checking It Twice
After you've established your own set of selection criteria in consideration of all the things that your project entails and in consideration of the various attributes, benefits and features of working with each vendor, engage in a useful exercise: Decide on paper what you must have versus what it is nice to have versus what is not needed, but you will take it if it is offered.
Then, using articles, product reviews, and the vendors' Web sites, make a preliminary survey of the various packages available and how they stack up. A simple matrix or grid with the vendors listed across the top representing columns, and the important attributes to you down the left side of the page will suffice.
CAUTION
Selection processes can be brutal. You may encounter ten or twelve possible vendors, but try to knock down the list early to three to five. Sometimes, a particular feature is so outstanding that it outweighs other mediocre elements of a vendor's overall package.
Most vendors will readily offer you product demonstrations. Down loadable product demos often are available at the vendor's Web site. Otherwise, demos can often be observed over the Internet.
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Some vendors allow you to download a full package, available for a limited duration.
If you've narrowed the field to three or four vendors, you have a fighting chance of identifying the one that best meets your needs.
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If at all possible, observe the software actually in use either in your own organization or someplace else.
Observing software in use is most telling. Someone in the field, actually using the software, can provide first-person input as to where the software shines and doesn't shine. You get far richer information than you can get from a Web site or, for that matter, a product demo.
The 30-Second Recap
Project management software has become more sophisticated and more bewildering. Many packages will do the jobs you need to do, but are so difficult to learn and to master that you waste valuable resources, namely your time. Worse, you end up abandoning the package.
Many organizations loan software gurus to a project or have other project managers who can supply ad hoc mentoring. If this applies to you, consider yourself fortunate.
Don't get so immersed in software that you lose contact with your project team and the environment that surrounds you.
Choosing the right software may be vital. Predetermine your selection criteria so that you're not buffeted by an endless array of options, benefits and features. | 
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