Project Management Computer Systems - Essay Example

Table of Contents A study of Project Management Computer Systems 2 Defining Project Management Computer System 2 Industry Approach Today 3 Evaluating a Software 4 Objectives for high level project management 6 Looking into analytical and reporting tools 6 Improvements in software 8 Existing PM solutions 9 Task Analysis of PM software 11 References 17 A study of Project Management Computer Systems Defining Project Management Computer System First, we need to define what project management software is. A standard definition can be stated as, A software program/application that is designed to facilitate computer professionals, especially project managers, with tool and resources to monitor all phases of software development including, scheduling, charting, tracking, prioritizing, costs, calendars etc. In other words, project management software is a combination of all these tools and resources to help with project development, communication and documentation of large scale and complex projects. These systems tend to cover most essential tasks of project management, most importantly; scheduling of resources, calculating critical path of interdependent events/tasks and providing information to the concerned personnel. This type of software must be capable of handling these important tasks to ensure that the company delivers the project in the given time frame and more efficiently. There are different approaches to using project management software that can be single user, web based, personal, integrated, collaborative or desktop. Each approach has its own significance depending upon the requirements of the project and its implications. Project Managers use this software to increase their efficiency and proper resource scheduling while handling large and complex projects. Executives in technological word when managing software projects face Lot of challenges and issues. As per results of a survey conducted by Center for Business Practice, "the biggest project management challenges involve developing a consistent approach to managing projects (23.9 percent) and allocating resources (19.7 percent)"(Office Solutions, July-Aug 2003). These issues normally arise when companies need to cope with large projects in relative short time frame in lieu of adopting project management software. The survey also highlighted the vital role of the contributing factors in improving project management that included the software tools at 77.9 percent, and then the development methodologies at 69.1 percent followed by training of allocated resources at the same percentage. These results clearly state the need of project management software for relatively large and complex projects. Industry Approach Today Around the globe, most of the software industry leans to dispatch computer systems/solutions in a standardized manner with all possible efforts and to have a distinct portfolio on their projects list. Performance tuning and goal committed attitude has now been understood as an imperative constituent of delivering a high-end solution. Vendors of Project management software now offer companies easy to use, fast learning and cost-effective systems to finish off their projects proficiently and successfully. It is then upon the decision of managers to analyze and determine the risk factors that can reduce the stake of losing a project and failure of the enterprise in this fast moving global economy. Evaluating a Software It is a very critical step on when evaluating software for project management activities in terms of cost, productivity and usage. While working on big and complex projects, a manager must foresee the implementation constraints before adopting project management software. A manager should first comprehensively evaluate the software before its putting it in practice for the project. However, evaluation is not only the single criterion for software evaluation besides it also depends upon the methods, training, tools(software), execution map, assessment course and other significant components Companies experience viable benefits when they adopt project management software that helps them prioritize resources with effective business plans. The software industry these days focuses most primarily on new ways of providing client focused business solutions to keep up with the latest development methodologies and technologies in the growing business environment. The key elements in project management today, appear to be the scheduling and software development life cycles. Effectual resource organization and issues related to assets management are these days of vital importance. With growing demands of business transforming manual work to automated systems and requirements within so little time leave project managers very less time frame to deliver the a quality a product. Thus, project managers move to choose software that meets the necessary rations of the entire workforce who are involved throughout the life cycle of project development. A small misjudgment in choosing project management solution can lead to project denial and low profit line in the business. The managers do a thorough study to adopt software to help build a big and complex project so that the company is not at pledge when meeting deadlines. With a broad range of project management software available in the market, a simple and balanced approach is what a manager today adheres to execute his efficient development plan. There are different strategies to help in managing big and complex projects including the following: determining project results workforce supervision efficient data allocation allying business processes based on software scheming project costs All these strategies in detail cater to the basic prerequisites in first-rate project management software in significant areas of proper user interface, information management, time scheduling, access privileges to multi users and resource communication. With the widespread evolvement of software development, catchy and simple user interfaces over take the multifarious systems, which lead to confusion and extra time consumption. Objectives for high level project management Considering the delivery of a quality product, companies adopt first-rate strategies and adhere to a simple and balanced approach. Of these strategies, one important part and a true objective of a project manager is to implement software that is easy to use. However, small projects can be managed by only spreadsheets but large and complex projects involving hundreds or even thousands of people require sophisticated software for proper task management and workforce coordination. The project management software helps to keep track of the task to complete and scheduling of resources. Looking into analytical and reporting tools Another objective companies aim to achieve is to have al their data grouped together to be available for each concerned individual. Therefore, a company having implemented a better user interface solution, especially an online system, helps the manager in building customized reports and presenting project data to remote workers. To make real time data accessible online to everyone, it though depends upon efficient data entry in the project management software by the associated person. This efficiency no doubt requires cultural change in work environment and quick delivery of project data to concerned people. In long run, project managers totally rely on the adopted software to carry out development of project and make critical decisions depending on the obtainable data. Today software market is flooded with unique and quality software for project management, each offering added features and techniques in handling small to large projects, available in multi user mode, desktop, and online systems. Involvement of more people concerned with the project especially including development, marketing, operations, finance, and HR departments. Dick Weigel, a consultant for Toro says, "The project management system provides a comprehensive view and offers insights that aren't otherwise available" (Samuel, 2002, p5). With more and more client requirements using project management solution, software vendors tend to provide specialized features to add on their systems. A top level concern in this regard is the cost control attributes that matter on top of list of company stake holders when taking critical decisions. With better software, managers keep history of their accomplishments in present and the past in analysing the projects' data to come up with a better solution for the project in hand and secure the company investment. Strategic solutions keep the software vendors in business as long as their project management system includes tools such as project diagnosis and recounting. After all productivity relies on great minds and its way of perceiving ideas into solution with the help of self made tools and techniques. Improvements in software Currently the software usage trend has progressed on the comparative analysis and their compatible features with the issues of project management. Scheduling feature remains the top priority in the adoption in regard of data management and statistical report building. Some of the main aspects that remain the focus of improvement in project management solutions include, Keeping project historical data Presenting project scope and achieved milestones Displaying assigned job schedules Analysing and calculating project costs Managing resource' tasks time Assessing the most possible risk factors Maintaining release versions Software integration other systems Recording business conduct patterns In reality today the above features do not seem to limit the available project management software in order to come up with latest trends been set by the customers to meet their day-to-day business needs. The problem remains the same as to put in practise the best in all of the available solutions and benefit from its advance and special project handling capabilities. However, talking about the perfect solution, scheduling, data and resource management as discussed above, take over the other critical elements that include feat characteristics and information stage management as well. Existing PM solutions Solutions for project management in market come to suit the needs of small to large scale projects of the company, by offering distinct and advanced features within the scope and level of that software. Now software is equipped to work for senior level staff including the company technical managers and clients as well. These systems offer comprehensive features by providing crucial time management for product release and resource provision. Furthermore, they are capable to present cost control solutions to captivate the capital investment on the project including all the expenses in terms of the workers' salaries, consultancy services, partnerships, hardware, and development tools. Here's a look at three examples of mid-range PM software products (ASTD, Oct 2001). It provides details about some of the mid range project management systems with a concise description of their features. Appreciateble Product Name Description SureTrack Project Manager 3.0 Project Kickstart Wizard provides a model approach for problem solving and helps in innovative thinking. Activity planning is defined in terms of periods of development, workforce allocation, clustering of resources and their tasks. Provision of practice based reporting and interfaces in web format. Microsoft Project 2000 Option to categorize and group view of information about tasks and responsibilities of resources. Latent trouble notification is provided with help of graphical display. Job responsibilities are shown through charts regarding delineating resources assigned to multiple projects. Solitary critical path for on the whole master project can be seen by calculating critical path for specific or all on-going projects. TurboProject Professional 4 Data distribution compatibility with consumers of Microsoft Project 98. Allows online access to users for performing basic tasks of sharing information that includes uploading, printing, sharing, etc. without installing the software on local computer. Feasibility of printing layouts and reports in web format. Classification of resources in hierarchical manner is available in respect of their tasks, skills, department, etc. Transfer of data to Microsoft Excel is also a feature of the software. There are other project management solutions that also offer comprehensive features for almost all range of projects. Basically, this table provides an overview of what some of the project management systems had to provide and help companies reach their goal in the rapid evolving technology era. Task Analysis of PM software Almost all of the project management systems intent to provide basic functionalities of time and resource scheduling, and budget control features depending upon the size of the project, and level and scope of that software. Time Analysis and Scheduling For delivery of each project, time analysis and task scheduling is a key factor to manage the sequence of procedures occurring in the life cycle of product development. Existing project management software offer rich features to analyze the time factor to complete a project and a feasible interface to its users for efficiently managing the time. The tools help managers in a way to achieve the target and perform tasks in certain time constraints that depends on which and how a tool is used. Project management systems face the challenges in providing specific scheduling features to perform different nature of tasks for mid range to large scale projects. Some of the main concerns that companies find in scheduling with the assistance of project management software are (Wikipedia, 2006), Interdependent procedures in variant scenarios Assigning tasks properly to available resources, and their effective time management to meet the deadlines Risk analysis within a running task and error estimation Fulfilling requirements by concurrently organizing various projects Evaluating dependent outcomes When meeting deadlines there is a course of events that occur during product development and are dependent on each other. These events critically decide the duration of software development and project management systems tend to cater to this situation in own unique way by providing details of each assigned task and its status of completion. PM systems more often show a product development status with the help of charts and graphs, the most common being the Gantt chart and PERT diagrams to calculate cost and time of project all the way through completion. This diagram as generated by software presents a manager with a progressive network model of events and integrated activities. Like for an example, a problem solving matrix of PM system will identify these related activities and highlight the critical time required to finish off the project. Information Sharing The systems designed to help project managers provide a platform to share project information among the associated workforce and aim to present analytical data in as less time as possible. These systems generally intend to make available the lists of jobs and their scheduling to the assigned resources. Projects managers can see a summary of information about the tasks' status and the time it would take to complete them. A PM system is built to notify the managers about risks probable to arise during product development and a report of workload on each assigned resource. A few typical requirements also include the data and previous work synopsis about the completed projects and an analysis of their performance and the over all project plan. Now let's see what Microsoft Project has to offer project management solution to the product managers on how to evaluate the cost, schedule resources and time analysis of projects. Microsoft Project 2003 Overview MS Project offers project management solutions to its customers to help organize their resources and achieve objectives of their company by effectively managing their complex and large scale projects. It comes in different versions to best suit the needs of customers and provide enterprise project management solutions by providing facility of importing data to other Microsoft Office 2003 products. Standard version provides a single and multiple user environment solutions i.e. Project Standard 2003 and Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution, which offer smart functionalities for individual contributors and for sharing information among the concerned workforce respectively. The main componential features of the software are its scheduling and cost control features while handling multiple projects simultaneously. Project Standard 2003 or Project Professional at a glance This version is generally designed to help the project managers, business managers and planners with features and tools to organize and schedule their resources discretely, adapt projects that best suit their management and development needs. One important feature is the learning curve of Project Standard 2003 that helps understanding its core functionality with the help of easy-to-understand online help and step by step tutorials. This helps in identifying the set of features in order to get started with a project, allocate resources, schedule tasks and generate project report more effectively and aide in communication among the workforce. Up-to-date guidelines, templates and references are also available online through Assistance on Office Online feature from Microsoft to help the managers keep on track and finish the project in the given time frame. Wide-ranging tools for project management enable the manager in planning and evaluation of tasks by creating schedules, budget assessment, and keeping track of the progress of completed, on-going and to-do-list jobs. Performance tuning, change measurement and comparative analysis of project strategies and plans provide managers with the ability to effectively manage large projects and meet the deadlines. What remains is the communication among the assigned resources and presenting project summary in different number of ways. It includes auto generated and custom based reports containing tasks, resources, project plans and cost estimation details that can also be imported in other Office products to present information to be shared among other resources. Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution at a glance With the rapid development and technological advance, EPM helps in strategy planning for software development with core functionality to effectively organize and manage tasks and resources assigned to complex and large projects with strong communication among them. A major advantage of this version is that the information is collectively available online for combined decision making and better evaluation of project tasks and their status to boost up the speed of under-level projects by clearly identifying risk factors with the help of graphical data presentation. Analysis tools provide close detail to critical data and difficulty areas to further project performance at a higher level and show an overall business view to the managers and executives. To enhance productivity and decrease the cost and time duration for delivery of projects, EPM facilitates in adopting best practices of project management in lieu of the organization's growing demands and its assurance of quality standard software. It significantly helps in meeting the customer contentment through designed realistic plans to reflect the budget, resources and implemental schedules. Managers get a better control over the assessment of risk factors and the overall project execution, and to fuse the processes involved in project management by adopting standard attitudes of software development as defined by regulatory and official authorities. The main aspect of this version is to make possible the availability of critical project data through web access to project and business managers in order to make valuable decisions regarding project tracking and other crucial development issues. Reporting of project summary from EPM can be done by either web or email highlighting activities of resources to the concerned team members. "The Microsoft Office EPM Solution is built on a flexible platform that can be customized to support your existing processes and integrate with your line-of-business systems, so you can get the most out of your current technology investments" (Microsoft, 2003). References OfficeSolutions. 2003. Project management study reveals challenges, trends. Retrieved on January 22, 2006 from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FAU/is_4_20/ai_105367968 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Project management software. Retrieved on 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_software Microsoft. Microsoft Office Online. Project Standard 2003 Overview. Retrieved on January 20, 2006 from http://www.microsoft.com/office/project/prodinfo/standard/overview.mspx American Society for Training & Development, Inc. (ASTD). Oct 2001. SOFTWARE ROUNDUP: Project Management from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4467/is_10_55/ai_80177106 Samuel Greengard. The Project Management Advantage, page # 5. Retrieved on November 2002 from Business Finance Magazine Read More