Project Management Software
Larry Cone just published an article titled, Letter to a PM – My Guilty Secret about his loathing of Project Management software. He expresses in a clear and concise manner how most PMs feel about PM software – Microsoft Project in particular.
Larry talks about how difficult it is to correct problems in MS Project once you have a schedule built and how the dependencies that drive project’s automated schedule updating can have ripple effects that are both unintended and nightmarish to find and correct.
Larry isn’t a novice. He’s been in the business for quite a while. His experiences aren’t unique. In almost every PM consulting engagement I do I find that PMs across the experience spectrum share Larry’s frustration with the tools used to manage projects. In almost every engagement I end up providing specialized and specific training on these tools – especially Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server – designed to show PMs how to better use the tools to do their jobs. My goal is always to remove roadblocks to success and make the PM’s job easier – this is what the tools were originally designed for after all.
Larry has inspired me to post some tips and tricks about MS Project which I will be doing over the next week or so. It coincides nicely with work I am doing for a current client where I am helping them implement MS Project Server 2K3 and providing basic PM and PM Tool training.
