Project Management Tools: Updated - TESTING NOW! See last post

I'm about to enter my final year and I'm as part of my course I have to do a "Practical Project". The one which interests me the most (from work I did on my placement) was a Project Management tool.

What annoyed me was that there was no easy way for me to get hold of the Timeline, deadlines, milestones, what was coming up next etc... because the project manager was invariably busy. So my idea is to make a web based project management tool which goes from the start of the project (i.e. the initial ideas) right through the planning stages, the timelines, the development, the testing, the deployment and the aftercare.

Unfortunately, I have had very limited experience with existing project management tools.

So what I would like to know is what existing tools are available? Both Open Source and Propriety.

Has anyone had experience with these tools? What are there advantages? What are there disadvantages? What niggles you about the tools and so on?

Obviously anyone who gives me help may be cited in my final report (please let me know if you don't want to be) so I may need to contact you for your full name (again, please let me know if you don't)


Any help is much appreciated, feel free to contact me by PM.

 

Basecamp and MS Project are two well known tools.

 

Ive used MS Project, but it was a uber old 98' edition.

 

I had a quick glance at Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com if anyone is interested) but it costs and for projects which are heavily governed by the Data Protection Act and the Governments multiple secrecy acts it's impractical because it's not located on a protected server under strict controls.

Do you have any experience in using it Jamie?

Atanu: Aye, I know about MSP but I need someone with experience in it who can tell me the pros and cons

 

I would say get Office 2007 since it's a great piece of software. For collaboration you also have MS Groove which is outstanding.

Good luck

 

Please read the first post, I'm a software engineer.

 

Recent Article with good tips and tools

You might want to check out the following article:
http://www.rajeshshakya.com/success-tips-to-project-managers.htm

The 3 web based Project Management Tools I have had experience with are:
MS Project Server - eProject - ProjectInSight

ProjectInsight just felt a bit clumsy. Resource Management was a bear. We never used it past initial testing, the other 2 options were superior

For quick setup and go, a good interface & full features, nothing I have seen beats eProject. However pricing can be rather steep, especially for a large org & long term.

If you have 25+ users/resources, seriously consider MS Project Server, especially if you already have a MS Active Directory based network with a SQL 2005 Back-End. You initial setup costs are higher with Project Server (compared to eProject), but your cost equivalency between eproject and MS Project Server for 25 users is about 9 months, quicker for more users, and about 13 month if you add MS Portfolio Server, also quicker for more users.
For MS Project Server, you need to have a reasonably experienced Windows admin as well to set it up. eProject is very simple to set up (web-based hosted version).
eProject also has a self-hosted version and the pricing over a 3 year period was less than the hosted web-based version, but still more than MS. I have never set up the self-hosted version, so I a, not familiar with the HW/SW requirements and associated costs.

However the question that you have to consider is, just like any project - what are my triple constraints - scope, timing & resources. Then you can look at the tools that fit your requirements. For example, you might not need all the features of a full on pm tool. Maybe you are just looking at e-mail based task management - then "Wrike" is a great solution.

Rajesh's article gives links to a number of different tools for different requirements. Check them out.

 

take a look at dotproject (maybe two words) - it's a free, open source web based project management system that you may be able to either extend as part of your project, or take cues from it for your own solution.

 

i know linux comes with a project management tool. not sure how it is though.

 

Another one of MS Project. And MS Visio to draw diagrams to illustrate certain parts of the project life cycle. That would be useful if you wanted to change your direction a bit, a web based tool to draw up life cycle diagrams with decent graphics. Could do with one of them today actually.

 

Mother Gooser: A web based UML tool sounds like it could be useful, with some collaboration.

 

MicroSoft Project 2007 is awsome I use it to plan my computer project hahah

Good luck.

 

I wonder if you can do a join dissertation project with someone else?! That would be quite interesting but kinda defeats the object so I bet they won't allow it lol.

Ahhhh final year projects, it takes me back it really does.

 

Well, I spoke to Jamie about it, and he reckons that some kind of skeletal code generator would be great so I'm going to need a load of people to help heavily test it later

PS: I'm ignoring everyone who doesn't read my first post

 

I am not writing test cases/scripts for you Doug It's my day job and I already hate it lol. Don't do testing as a career kids, it's depressing and the developers get arsey because you find problems with their beloved programs.

Infact, don't work in IT at all lol

 

I've used MS Project 2003. It's like Excel crossed with Outlook.

Pros - You can enter tasks and subtasks, with coordinated deadlines and progressive milestones. You can produce reports for management on productivity, progress and costs. You can make a baseline for later comparison to actual data (progress, cost, etc.). Recurring tasks are handy. You can share information over the web, although I haven't personally played with this option.

Cons - It's aggravating in the little things. You can have all your tasks and subtasks arranged as you like with all the dates entered. You're a happy camper. And then you have to change a date on a task. Project helps out by automatically changing all the dates of subsequent tasks and subtasks. Now your tasks are due on weekends, holidays, leap years and the second Tuesday of each week. So you get to fix them all manually. I also hate Gantt charts, wich is one of Project's crowning achievements. They're just not an intuitive method of presenting information. They're only good for retroactive management, which is also known as Monday morning quarterbacking.

I'd be glad to help you test whatever application you make.

 

Arthur: What would you say is preferable to Gantt Charts?

 

For me, a very brief written overview plus any tables, pie or graph charts necessary to describe the status of the project. Gantt charts can be complex and overwhelming without conveying the information needed by management. If my project is behind schedule, I need to know why. Simply reiterating to me that I'm late isn't useful, no matter how long and colorful the Gantt chart. This is a problem with Gantt charts in general, not with MS Project.

 

With the system I was proposing tasks would be maintained by the person allocated them, so if they weren't making progress there would have to be a reason for this, these reasons could be standard (Customer not explicit, lack of time, etc) and customisable ones, these could then be pie charted to suit needs. this was originally going to be for post project summaries to make departments more efficient but could easily be adapted to be usable on the fly by team leaders/project managers

 

I'd be interested to see what you've got. Have you started anything yet, or are you still in the planning stages?