At work we are in need of project management tools. Although the organization deals with knowledge and research, so each project is distinct, there are some common themes in all our project work: misalignment of resources, missed deadlines, and routine over- or under-booking of people's time. Three fingered suspects are a lack of coordination between projects, not using the historical project management data we have, and too much switching of staff among projects. (1) For example, staff providing support for a project — outreach, admin support — are booked in a vacuum by Project A, with no awareness the deadlines conflict with those of Projects B or C. Or a project slips behind schedule, pushing Project A's deadline into conflict with another project's. (2) Not applying knowledge from previous projects. Even new projects reuse old tasks such as releasing a report, creating a publicity campaign, doing a mailing, producing a website. We have a reasonable idea of the production timeline and the resources required for these tasks, but do not always schedule the needed resource appropriately (partly because projects are planned somewhat in isolation so knowledge isn't always shared.) (3) Finally, people switch among projects frequently, which has the net effect of delaying every project.
Several possible software tools we're scouting out for inspiration include Enact, Primavera, and MS Project. As Sean Stickle pointed out, bugzilla would be a good starting point. And this forum lists some others: Artemis, Plan View, Niku.
Posted at June 26, 2003 09:50 AM | TrackBackA long slow struggle, that one. We use MS Project here, and have a couple full-time Project Managers, whose job is to maintain the project files, make sure resources aren't coliding, and coordinate the team meetings. We've finally gotten to the point of everyone agreeing this is a good thing, but corporate politics makes following allocations a two-steps-forward-one-step-back thing.
But I got sidetracked. I believe Niku was considered as well, and we use their time/expense system.
---L.
Posted by: LNH on June 26, 2003 11:17 AMHow many people are in your company? How large are your departments?
Posted by: Liesl on June 26, 2003 11:32 AMPre- or post-acquisition? My division, formerly an independent company, has 1100 employees, in roughly equal portions sales/installs/support and development. I'm in a department of two dozen technical writers, who cover all our divisions products. The other US division is about the same size; don't know about our UK owners. Operationally, the divisions are separate, but of course things like corporate software are decided at the headquarters level.
---L.
Posted by: LNH on June 27, 2003 12:16 PMI use MS Project, and have for years, but there are times when I have to force it to do what I want. And it requires a lot of care and feeding.
Of course, I'm trying to make it do some of my estimating for me, by telling me when things will finish based on the data I've already fed it. That requires doing decent estimates to start with and logging time in more detail than I mentally keep track of it. It's possible that it's not really suited for microprojects (one or two people, 6-8 weeks)
Posted by: Ann on July 3, 2003 03:35 PM