Abstract
Research and critique the benefit of project management software packages such as MS Project in a professional project management environment. What are their strengths (and limitations) and how could they be deployed to enhance professional practice
Introduction
It is widely accepted that an efficient business environment needs adequate information technology (IT). To deliver this need, the software market is always updating itself to offer the most current technology for the professionals of all industries. As project management gains more and more awareness, the above rule is proven to be right since the last few years the software market is flooded by project management software. Early attempts to computerise some project management tasks led to software tools focused mainly on scheduling without any kind of analysis functions (Lientz & Rea, 2002, p 303). Many years later, PMI’s BoK (2004, p 369) defines project management software as a total package of applications that aid project teams with “planning, monitoring and controlling projects, including: cost estimating, scheduling, communications, collaboration, configuration management, document control, records management and risk analysis”. These packages can be industry-specific, such as construction and engineering, or for general use. This report will critique the benefit of project management software packages, analysing both its strong and weak points and presenting an action plan of proper software deployment for enhanced professional project management practice.
Why Project Management Software?
We usually come across the cliché that project management is not a science, it is an art. In this unusual form of art, “project management software is our canvas and the tools it provides are our paints and brushes” (http://project-management-software-review.toptenreviews.com). Kerzner (2001, p 705) notes project management software “can be a terrific aid to the PM in tracking the many interrelated variables and tasks that come into play with a modern project”. The importance of this kind of software becomes more evident in large projects (in terms of budget and life cycle) where “project-related information [..] should be easily accessible to the project manager” (Cleland & Ireland, 2002, p 371). The human brain could never calculate the accumulating costs of a project as fast as a machine can. It would certainly be a nightmare for the PM that would have to sort out the project budget calculating thousands of activities’ costs. The same applies to resource levelling in complex projects or finding the critical path out of a network that seems like a labyrinth. Archiving and organizing all the activities into phases of project and deliverables can help the PM to break a massive project into manageable pieces using sophisticated software as MS Project.
It is no secret that many things can go wrong in a project, therefore the PM has to record the actual time and cost spent on every task. These actual data imported will then generate a revised plan that needs to be different from the original plan (Pyron, 2004 ,p 520). MS Project provides the necessary tools to track the progress of projects using the ‘baseline’. Coffee’s (2003) review on MS Project explains that baselines are used as “monitoring tools that take snapshots of the state of the project at any point to provide either historical notes or reference points for subsequent analysis”. During the execution phase, the PM can compare the original plan with the actual progress of the project drawing useful information about both efficient and inefficient resource expenditure.
Project management software is also good to what-if scenarios and can easily “predict what may happen when a task is delayed, additional tasks are added, or the relationship between activities is edited” (Phillips, 2004, p 261). Building on that, Greer (2002, p 162) recognizes that the solid database behind project management software can help PMs respond to crises by “creating alternate scenarios evaluated in detail by the sponsor and the stakeholders”. The importance of a computer database is even more evident when it is used to extract particular information for analysis or reporting purposes. This flexibility is called filtering and it “can be used on specific resources, time periods, dependencies and other factors” (Lientz & Rea, 2002, p 304).
Limitations No one can doubt that project management software is a great tool to help PMs save a significant amount of time. However, “the tremendous power of project management software can lull young project manager into a false sense of security” (Heerkens, 2002, p 138). As every other software, applications like MS Project are just tools; they do not execute the entire job for the PMs. It is unacceptable to expect a computer to manage the project, it just manages the vast amount of data that large projects require to store (Verzuh, 2003, p 104). Project management software is incapable of “establishing project objectives, define project tasks or dependencies, determine and manage project constraints” (Richman, 2002, p 93). As the significance of having a proper Statement of Requirement becomes more and more apparent, project management software should consciously take a secondary role in a project system since their power can only be exploited when the project is defined correctly. Computers can only help producing wrong plans faster, instead of helping the PM understand the essence of project management: satisfying the stakeholder’s needs.
Another important issue is the learning curve required to understand how sophisticated project management software works. Here lies the hidden cost behind any software that PMs use because the average investment of £350 to buy the software licence can not compare with the additional hundreds of pounds required for training on how to actually use it (Hallows, 2002, p 46). The way that these training courses are set up makes things worse as trainees have to attend a series of ‘off the shelf’ courses without taking into consideration the different level of familiarization that each trainee has. Even though they are designed to be as user-friendly as possible, untrained PMs spend a lot of their working time trying to insert all the data into the software, ultimately leading to serious PM’s productivity issues (Hall, 2006). For this reason, Russel (2000, p 47) suggests to “limit your time on the computer so you don’t end up doing project management software work instead of project work”.
Next steps in deployment of project management software
The future of project management software lies in the virtual world where connectivity has a central role. The increasingly popularity of web-based project management software shows how important this option is for organisations that seek efficiency. In order to utilise the available distant human resources, organisations should deploy a solution that “pass on instructions to resources, relay information on work done and handle requests from project managers for work to be done” (Turner & Simister, 2000, p 122). Even though there is an additional cost to take full advantage of the connectivity features that MS Project Server provides, the benefits for the project environment are remarkable. The PM updates all the project data, from new activities and risks added to increased costs or task delays. When the update is over, every project team member is informed about the changes automatically through MS Project Server. Thus, everyone stays up-to-date, work can be successfully organised by a single point of reference server and confusion from working on different schedules is eliminated (Kerzner, 2003, p 483). This feature is highly appreciated especially in programme management where MS Project Server shares “a central resource pool that helps maximize available resources by working within resource limitations” (Richman, 2002, p 94). The networked project team also saves valuable time during crisis situations when rapid changes and implementation of contingency plans is crucial. Finally, the PM can focus more on decision making since he is free from time consuming memo writing and publishing that most of employees tend to either ignore (Yourdon, 2004, p 107) or fail to understand.
PMs that are not accustomed with the software advancements should consider seeking help from a project administrator that will transfer all the hard-copy project plans into the computer. Doing so, they can focus on more important project issues like communication with the stakeholders, problem solving or management of individuals; typical tasks that a computer cannot do due to the fundamental inability to integrate project management experience (Young, 2003, p 271). A real advancement in project management would not be the development of a new, fancier version of MS Project but a system that could use artificial intelligence to support PMs in their decisions by identifying a problem and suggesting various solutions to it. Weber et al. (2004) currently work on intelligent systems that can even predict project failures, but more research is needed in order to hope that someday PMs can exploit artificial intelligence in their professional environment.
Conclusion
Project management software makes life easier for smart PMs that want to save time using the processing power of a modern computer. Project administrators, instead of PMs, can be used to insert all project data into the software and keep them updated in order to produce fast and insightful analysis or reports when needed. However, software does not replace the delicate skills of an experienced PM which can use his experience and talent to lead a project towards a successful closure. Until artificial intelligence is fully integrated with project management software, computer aided project management can only be a secondary tool in the hands of the PM. This advancement, together with web-based project management tools will be the future challenges in the domain.
References
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Dimitrios Litsikakis 