Chapter1-exercise5

Question:

Skim through Appendix A on Microsoft Project 2003. Review information about Project 2003 from Microsoft’s Web site (www.microsoft.com/project). Also, visit The Project Management Center (www.infogoal.com/pmc) and visit two other sites for project management software providers. Write a two page paper answering the following questions:
a) What functions does project management software provide that you cannot do easily using other tools such as a spreadsheet or database? b) How do the three different tools you reviewed compare, based on cost of the tool, key features, and other relevant criteria? c) How can organizations justify investing in enterprise project management software?

a) According to Schwalbe (2006, p.9) state that project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.” Therefore, project management software is one of tools to help project manager achieve the project tasks within an organization. Many types of software, including scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation or administration systems, which are used to deal with the varied complexity projects (Wikipedia, 2007). In fact, there are not all the project management software products which have the same functions, so that cause the users cannot do easily using other tools. For example, Project Office Management System (POMS) and WhiteCloud, each are used with different database systems; however, if a company’s database is SQL server, and decided to use POMS, then the company cannot do easily using POMS with other tools. Following is listing what functions does project management software provide that users cannot do easily using other tools?

1. Some project management products may not be derived from a sound project management method. For example, the Gantt chart view is displayed by default encourages users to focus on task scheduling too early, rather than identifying objectives and deliverables. (Wikipedia, 2007).

2. Most project management software products have one function similar to PowerPoint such as project calendar, project management software might shield the manager from important interpersonal contact.

3. Some project management software tools have their own operating system, so that could not compliance with other systems. For example, POMS database system is Firebird, but not applied to SQL server.

4. Some software products focus primarily on the planning phase and do not offer enough functionalities for project tracking, control and in particular plan-adjustment; therefore, sometimes the software is not working properly with the other systems.

5. Some software products have functionalities such as project, task management and scheduling, they may not be applied to other spreadsheet.

b) There are three different project management software products as shown in Table 1 and 2 based on cost of the tool, key features, and other relevant criteria. If an organization wants to select one of them based on cost consideration, POMS may be a good option, but its database system is different from the other tools in general; therefore, WhiteCloud may be an another good option.

Table 1 - The comparison of the functionalities of Project Management Software products.



Table 2 - The comparison of the features of Project Management Software products.

c) For an organizations, enterprise project management software integrates information from multiple projects to show the status of active, approved, and future project across an entire organization and provides links to more detailed information (Schwalbe, 2006, p.27), how can they justify and make a good decision investing in enterprise project management software which can help them achieve project tasks with efficiency and effectiveness to meet the project goals within the organization, but low cost. Therefore, refer to Schwalbe (2006, p.31) stated that “the project management software tools can be divided into three general categories based on functionality and price” which include low-end tools, midrange tools and high-end tools depending on the organization needs. Moreover, the organization shall hire project managers who shall have a wide variety of skills and be able to describe which particular skills are more important in different organizational situations to meet the business needs, as Schwalbe (2006, p.14) table 1-2 summarized one of project success factors is experienced project manager.

References

Schwalbe, K (2006), Information technology project management (4^th ed.). Sydney: Thomson Course Technology.

Wikipedia (2007), Project management software. Retrieved 14 August 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_software.