From IT Toolbox:
So, I’ve quit ranting about MS Project. I do my Project plans like everyone else, then pay little attention to them during the project. I manage week to week based on a few key dates, an issues list, and progress against key deliverables. I communicate project status in a summary form – key dates, deliverables and issues. Oh, I do occasionally update the MS Project Plan, and I print it out and have it on display in my pile on the conference table during meetings, just to comfort the faint-of-heart.
I don’t like MS Project. I really only use it for the Gantt chart. The complexity of the software, if used fully, turns the project manager into a clerk. Project Managers are not clerks.
Project Management is about about manging relationships and expectations and keeping every focused on moving ahead on the project: leadership.
In the IT world, the Project Manager is unappreciated even though they have a tough job: Getting people with contradictory agendas and competing work commitments to complete something for which the Project Manager has responsibility, but little real authority (can’t fire, can’t effect salary) over the humans involved.
I suggest that Project Managers use Excel or check out the free Gantt Project 2.0.2.
Also, unlike most books on Project Management, Tom Peters‘ The Project 50 covers the non-clerk aspects.
Filed under: Information Technology
There are several simpler and cheaper software tools for project managers. Have a look to ConceptDraw Project. It can handle one or several projects, produce gantt charts and reports, but doesn’t turn manager into operator of huge peace of soft instead of focusing on project goals.
[...] Purpleslog presents On MS Project Use (or Non-Use) posted at Purpleslog. This is article airs the frustration many of us must feel: “about being [...]
I like GanttProject, but even with 2.0.2, as soon as you reach 100 tasks, it dies a horrible death and becomes unusable. I’m hoping it improves soon, as it does everything I need a “project management” software tool to do.
I have just been using Excel really. I used GanttProject for some small stuff. I never hit the 100 line problem…these were small projects.
What I don’t think people understand is that a project schedule is a communications tool, and not updating it means that communication is stifled. The schedule HAS to be updated and progress HAS to be tracked if the project manager is going to have any sort of a clue as to where the project is and when it will be done.
How big of a deal is it to use the MS Project interface with Outlook to assign tasks to resources, and then get updated task info from those resources (via Outlook’s task list) automatically? Where is the increased clerical work here?
Project management IS about managing the project. The schedule is a map, and as the PM you need to have your finger on your exact location on that map at all times so when a stakeholder/sponsor asks “Where are you?” or “How much work remains?” or “When will you be finished?” you can do something else besides guess.
If I had a PM on my team who didn’t track his/her schedule and update task progress frequently, I’d warn that PM… and if they didn’t get to it ASAP I’d fire them.