Project Management Tools - Essay Example

Project Management Tools Faculty Introduction Project management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources in such a way that these resources deliver all the work required to complete a project within defined scope, time, and cost constraints. A project is a temporary and one-time endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Project management Tool/software is a term which covers many types of software including scheduling, resource allocation, collaboration, communication and documentation .This types of tools are basically used to deal with the complexity of large projects. All projects have three basic common elements that are tasks, resources and time. These three common elements are interrelated and any change in one has an effect on the other two. Microsoft Project excels on these elements as whenever any change in project is done using Microsoft Project, the affect of those changes will be visible through Microsoft Projects graphical presentation of your project. Project Management Tools Project Management Tools are available in various categories. Some of the project management tool category is given below: Checklists and templates Mainstream Project Schedulers Critical Chain Software  Risk Management Web-based Project Management Cost Estimation  Oracle Project Management Tools Linux/Unix Project Management Tools Let us look some of the project management tools that are mostly used by the project managers. Project Management Templates: These Project Management Templates help to manage projects more successfully. More than 50 pre-completed project management forms, templates, documents and processes will help a Project Manager to save time, reduce cost and improve the quality of projects. Microsoft Project: Microsoft Project is program developed and sold by Microsoft which is designed to assist project managers in developing plans, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing budgets and analyzing workloads. Some of the releases of Microsoft Project that are available today are: Microsoft Project 2003 Microsoft Project 2002 Microsoft Project 2000 Microsoft Project 98 Open Project: Open Project is an open source clone of Microsoft Project 98, which is built for Linux and Unix Systems. It is a powerful application that can be used to efficiently plan, manage, and communicate project information. It can be used to handle dynamic scheduling, manage multiple projects and resources, and support better communication. Plan & Progress Tracker: It is capable, easy to learn and easy to use project management software based on Excel. The various features of this tool are: Quick and easy project input - tasks, plan & actual dates, assignments, comments, progress, budget & actual Visual project tracking aids (Gantt charts, bar charts, progress tracking/warning) At-a-glance comparison of actual progress against planned progress Link tasks to corresponding documentation or information Track actual vs. budget, with settable visual warnings Easy sharing of information for improved communication FastTrack schedule: It makes easy to organize, track and manage project details. The New consolidation and schedule-building help you plan more efficiently, keeping your projects on track and within budget. FastTrack Schedule delivers descriptive project snapshots that are sure to make an impact with clients and project managers. Visio 2003: It is a diagramming program that can help in creating business and technical diagrams that document and organize complex ideas, process and systems. With the help of Visio diagram created that enables in visualize and communicate information clearly, concisely and effectively that can not be created with text and numbers. Visio 2003 also automates data visualization by synchronizing directly with data sources to provide up-to-date diagrams, and it can be customized to meet the needs of any your organization. The main feature of it is: Easily Understand Concepts, Processes, and Relationships Communicate Clearly and Effectively Integrate and Automate Systems and Processes Palo Alto Software: Pal Alto Software provides many types of software for project managers. Some of the main software that Pal Alto Software provides is: Business Plan Pro: Business Plan Pro is the fastest and easiest choice for entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to build a professional business plan. Marketing Plan Pro: Marketing Plan Pro includes everything one needs to create a professional, complete and accurate marketing plan. Advertizing Plan Pro: Advertising Plan Pro is the only tool one will need to create a detailed, impressive and professional Integrated Marketing Communications Plan. Rational Concepts: Rational Concepts focuses on helping organization by making web based software solutions and collaboration techniques by employing power of internet. Some of the useful products developed by Rational Concepts are: Proj-Net: Integrate project information’s such as cost, schedule, risk, action items into a project office on the web and provides the tools and methods to manage that information. Proj-Nets tools bring all platforms, geography, source applications and personnel together on an intranet, extranet or the Internet. I-Schedules: With the help of I-Schedule, information relating to a projects schedule is available anytime, anywhere. I-Cost: It is the first project cost system available for corporate intranets. It combines powerful features with a simple web interface, resulting in the best project cost measurement system available. Epiware: It is Open Source Project and Document Management software used for upload, manage and share documents online. Epiware enables the creation of virtual teams by providing an online workspace for users to collaborate and exchange information in a secure, protected setting. It is intuitive and easy to use. With Epiware, costs can be lowered, projects can be expedited, decisions can be made in a more efficient and timely manner, changes can be executed more quickly, and errors due to miscommunications can be reduced or eliminated. Oracle Project Management Tools: The Oracle E-Business Suite Projects family of applications bridges operations and corporate finance so one can manage the full lifecycle of every project. Easy Projects .NET: It is a new generation web based application for managing and tracking software development, IT, manufacturing, financial and many other types of projects. That is why it is called "Easy Projects" .It can be used to setup and configure a large and complicated "fits all sizes" project application with millions of features. The main powerful it contains are: Projects with multi-nested tasks. Detailed statistics and reports. Email notifications and alerts. Issue and request tracking. Message board. RiskyProject: It is basically a risk management tool. RiskyProject is a project planning, quantitative risk analysis, and performance measurement software that project managers can use to plan and implement project with multiple risks and uncertainties.  Cost Xpert: Cost Xpert is an industry leading software cost estimation tool which is calibrated to reflect the latest industry standards. It can be tailored to fit any organization’s process and it generates reliable cost and schedule estimates. Cost Expert Automatically generates a work breakdown structure (WBS) that can be used as a starting point for any project plan. ConceptDraw Project: An easy way of planning, tracking and reporting several concurrent projects. ConceptDraw Project is a unique project planning tool designed for efficient planning and tracking of multiple projects. Any business activity requires planning of several simultaneous projects with different dependencies and limited resources to be used. With ConceptDraw Project you can easily share resources between projects, establish links and organize a single workspace to successfully plan projects of any size and complexity. SmartDraw: It is used for creating quickly and easily flow charts, org charts, floor plans, network diagrams, project charts, calendars, forms and many more. Conclusion In this paper various types of Project management Tools that are used by Project manager discussed. The tools varied from checklists and templates, mainstream, project schedulers, risk management, web-based project management and cost estimation. 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