Project Management Tips has a contributor, Dana Larson, who posted about features needed in Project Management Software. These include:
- Collaboration
- Task Scheduling
- Multiple-Level Organization
- File Storage and Sharing
- Time Tracking and Reporting
Collaboration
There are numerous ways to collaborate, many are built into some project management software systems. Most all work in some way to keep people "connected." IM, WebEx, email, VOIP, etc.
Task Scheduling
Dana talks about individuals managing their own tasks. Tasks assigned to the team members, who can create their own schedules based on their availability and due dates for their tasks.
This is NOT a project schedule. It may be a "to do" list. But this list and the tasks on it, can't have any dependencies, or any critical dependencies.
This violates the fundamental of all project scheduling processes - there is no baselined control over the planned work. Imagine you and I have a dependency. I decide to make a change in the due date, because I'm not available next week to work on this task. So I'll push it to the right by a week.
How do find this out? How do you acknowledge I'm making that change? How do I know my decision doesn't impact your dependency?
This is the reason for the PREDECESSOR and SUCCESSOR fields in MSFT Project.
A really bad idea to allow individual to make changes to due dates and durations.
Multiple-Level Organization
The project management software described here sure sounds like a list making tool.
"Tasks in folders?" How are the PRED/SUCC relationships defined?
File Storage and Sharing
This is missing in many PM tools. MSFT Project Server does a pretty good job. Share Point with Project add-ons does this better.
But the suggestion that files are of a higher quality with this sharing has not been our experience. Unless there is an editor, the files (documents, spread sheets, PPT presentations, Visio and the like) start to look like "cooks soup," and degrade to the lowest common denominator of content and style.
This is a Document Management and Document Control problem, addressed by Document Management systems. Sharepoint can do this. There are others, but leaving this up to individuals ends like like the Greeks say in Ovid
Pile a little on a little and get a big pile
Time Tracking and Reporting
I'm amazed how little this is understood. If you don't know how much time you've spent on something you don't know what it costs. If you don't know what it costs, you can't know what it's worth.
If you working on projects, you need time cards. Period.
