admincocktail of software solutions for project management that are on the market.
All too often, project management software and the project management software selection process is grossly oversimplified.
There are many factors to be considered when selecting project management software and, although those factors vary in detail from project to project, there are standard considerations to keep in mind regardless of the project or industry.
Often a project management software company will sell project management software without truly understanding why the organisation needs that project management software and what problems the company expects to solve in using that software.
These situations often result in a project manager purchasing project management software and then later discovering that certain aspects of project management requirements were not addressed and not easily solved using the selected software.
The project management software at that point has a shelf life with the company while project managers start to develop a strategy on how to cover the additional overlooked requirements.
A similar situation happens when the project or company changes business practices, scales up or down in volume, and the selected project management software is unable to grow or change to accompany the changing project management business requirements.
How does a project manager work within their organisation to plan out the project management software selection process and get the most out of the software?
There are 10 areas or questions that the project manager and the vendor must look at or answer, in terms of the software capabilities during the software selection process as follows:
Does the software support collaboration among project team members?
Project management software that has collaborative facilities and features should support the individuals that make up the team and the interactions between them during the group decision-making process.
Many of today’s teams are composed of members from around the globe, with some members using their second or third language in communicating with the group.
This situation provides cultural as well as linguistic challenges for any software that supports the collaborative effort.
The software may also support team membership, roles and responsibilities. Additionally, collaborative support systems may offer the ability to support ancillary systems, such as budgets and physical resources.
Is the software able to track issues?
An issue tracking system is a package within the software that manages and maintains lists of issues, risks as needed by the project team to create, update, and resolve reported project issues.
Each issue in the system may have an urgency value assigned to it, based on the overall importance of that issue.
Critical issues are the most severe that should be resolved in the most expedient way possible, taking precedence over all other issues.
Low or zero urgency issues are minor, and should be resolved as time permits.
Other details of issues include, date of submission, detailed descriptions of the problem being experienced, attempted solutions or work-arounds, and other relevant information with each issue maintaining a history of each change.
Is the software able to schedule project tasks?
Most project managers are familiar with this feature, where the software is expected schedule project tasks, allocate resources, sequence the tasks, input the cost and time estimates, etc.
Does the software support Project, Portfolio and Programme Management?
This is a very important consideration to explore, sometimes organisations are managing a number of projects that are related forming a program, the software must be capable to integrate the information emerging from the different projects in an effort to make a decision at the program level.
Dashboard indicators in the form of traffic lights colours (red, amber, green) can assist executives at the apex to identify healthy projects (green) and troubled projects (red & amber) and make inquiries or decisions on time.
A portfolio is a group of programs that may not be related but can help achieve a common strategic goal, and these need to be supported by the software being considered for purchase.
Does the software support resource management?
Resource management is a key element to activity resource estimating and project human resource management.
Both are essential components of a comprehensive project management plan to execute and monitor a project successfully.
In large projects it may be necessary to automate the process of resource allocation and manage portfolio resource visibility including the supply and demand of resources from functional and cross-functional sources.
Is the software able to manage project documents?
Professional project management requires that the project managers uses lessons learnt from previous similar projects, captures lessons learnt during project execution and archives lesson learnt at the closure of the project.
In view of this, it is imperative that the software must be capable of document management.
The software features should provide information storage, versioning, security, as well as indexing and retrieval.
Can workflows be generated by the software?
A workflow is a system that manages and defines a series of tasks within an organisation to produce a final outcome or outcomes.
Workflow management in project management software allows you to define different workflows for different types of jobs or processes.
At each stage in the workflow, one individual or group is responsible for a specific task.
Once the task is complete, the workflow software ensures that the individuals responsible for the next task are notified and receive the data they need to execute their stage of the process.
Workflows in projects automate redundant tasks and ensure uncompleted tasks are followed up by project teams.
Does the software generate reports and analyses?
Besides generating simple reports on costs, budgets, resources, the software must be able to performance analyses such as earned value analysis, critical path analysis, etc.
Can the software be accessed through a network?
The project manager must assess whether the software can be hosted in a browser-controlled environment be it on the Internet, intranet or extranet.
Does the software have any licensing requirements?
There is need to consider the total cost of ownership of the software, as some organisations are attracted by the existence of “free” or cheap software which might turn out to be costly in the long run as annual or upgrades fees may be too high.
Project management software can be proprietary, open source or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), explore these options carefully.
- Robert Taruwona is the President of the Project Management Institute of Zimbabwe (PMIZ) [email protected] or [email protected] website link www.pmiz.org.zw
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