Managing projects without project management tools
Every organization, small or medium nowadays relies on some project management tools. Some of these project management tools are quite prohibitively expensive but still organizations fall prey to their promotion and gimmicks. The project management softwares like Primavera, MS-Project and SAP PS2 definitely help in making life much easier for the stakeholders of bigger projects but definitely they are not required to be used by every organizations who is in to projects.
We all know each project is a time bound activity and has a defined beginning and a defined end. The tasks and sub tasks in between the beginning and the end constitutes project activities. Some of these tasks are required to be dealt with special care as they directly affect the project time period and are critical to the project schedule. An experienced project manager can easily control and monitor projects with even good old Gantt Chart. What is more important is the application and commitment of individuals who are responsible for bringing the projects in time.
Power Plant Project site
Project management tools have become the in-thing for every organization worth its salt who is in to core business. But I would ask here how many of these organizations are using even 50% of the features of a project management software. For most of these organizations project management software like Primavera and MS Project are being used for preparing networks or the schedules.
Last week I happened to be at a seminar on “Effectively managing projects”. I found everyone out there was an expert. Giving tips and advices to others on how to effectively use these tools. MS Project 2003 and Primavera have a whole basket of features. A typical project management software should
- Draw out a schedule
- Define and build relationship
- Should be in a position to allocate resources.
- Monitor expenses and suggest course corrections
- Carry out gap analysis between planned and achieved.
- Collaborate with all stake holders.
- Trigger alarms in case of deviations
The most important point here is not to let your organization becoming slave to these these tools. These tools should not take the controls in their hand the project management team should understand the requirements and use these tools optimally and effectively.
May also like to read: Project Management software tools
I’ve used some of the PM tools you’ve said above, but now I’m using PlanningForce for couple of months,its really different from others & robust ! Actually I was not planning to buy that tool,but I just tried its free-trial version I was satisfied with it.So finally I’ve bought PlanningForce.