Sophisticated Project Management for Small Teams
In my November 2007 article, “Online Collaboration Services Review”, I confessed to being a planning junkie. I was indoctrinated into Project Planning and Project Management Methodology early in my career, and I’ve witnessed how it can determine the failure or success of a project.
Today there has been a renewal of interest in Project Management skills and methodology as a result of the Project Management Institute’s certification program. The principles stressed in their Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) provide a valuable framework for both new and experienced project managers.
So where is the supporting software?
It’s not easy to find products that fully support Project Management principles; it is even harder to find such support in the Software as a Service (SAAS) arena. For a large enterprise willing to spend five or six figures on an enterprise project management solution, options abound. Gartner Group released their quadrant analysis of Project and Portfolio Management players in June 2007.
For the small team or independent project manager, the tradeoff is between collaboration features of an online service versus robust planning functionality available in desktop planning software.
Dream Software Criteria
The features below are items I would want in a killer-app project management solution.
- No Software to Download – Desktop applications are rich, but usually produce proprietary files that require each user to have their own copy of the software. As we don’t usually ask our clients to make that investment, pdf snapshots of the plan must be created to communicate progress.
- Time Entry – Neither the Project Manager or the PMO should have to spend time each week distributing and recording timesheets. Each team member should be able to logon, record their hours for the week against tasks assigned, and even complete a status report.
- Grasp of Basic Math – Total Hours should always equal Hours Spent + Estimate to Complete. % Expended should be based on Hours Spent / Total Hours. The software should not try to “guess” the estimate to complete based on an arbitrary estimate of “done-ness”. The Percent Complete method of estimating hours is highly subjective and misleading. What you really want is for the team member to estimate how much more time they need to be finished.
- Obedient Magic -- Enough with software that mysteriously alters dates, durations, and/or estimates! Yes – project management software should be able to estimate schedules based on constraints entered, such as task hours, resource availability, dependencies, and loading methods. But it should only do so on command!
- Resource Balancing – Don’t kill your team! My dream tool allows me to view the task load on each resource on a weekly basis. It allows me to define resource calendars – some full-time, some part-time, some on long vacations. A critical tool to defining, and continually managing, a plan is being able to see the peaks and valleys of your resource load.
- Customization – I never leave well enough alone. My dream tool should let me add custom database fields and tailor reports and views… and I want to save my customizations for multiple projects!
Of course it should also provide basic core features such as work-breakdown-structures, dependencies, Gantt charts, pert charts, and base-lining. So with visions of planning joy in my head, I reviewed several online options.
Online Project Management
Seven online project management services were reviewed. A detailed comparison grid of these services is attached.
· Celoxis http://www.celoxis.com
· Vertabase Pro http://www.vertabase.com
· Smooth Projects http://www.smoothprojects.com
· eStudio Same Page http://www.same-page.com/
· AceProject http://www.aceproject.com
· 37 Signals Basecamp http://www.37signals.com
· ZOHO Projects http://www.zoho.com
Pricing
All of the vendors reviewed provide their services online for a monthly fee. Fees ranged from $8 to $80 a month, but varied greatly in their terms. The most logical approach was to charge based on disk space and users. Several services limited the number of projects, or charged based on the quantity. AceProject both limits the number of projects and limits the number of tasks that can be defined.
Zoho provided the best pricing overall, offering the most space for the lowest price – but was short on features. Celoxis offers 1 GB of space for $65 per month, with a robust feature set.
Project Planning
All of the services provided the basics of task entry and assignment, many with alerts and attachment features. Surprisingly though, many of services did not provide the ability to define a hierarchy of tasks. The traditional Phase – Activity – Task structure organizes the plan and helps to preserve the sanity of the project manager. AceProject, eStudio, and BasecampHQ provided only a flat task structure. These three services plus Zoho also failed to provide Resource Balancing functionality.
Smooth Projects – Task Breakdown
Celoxis, Smooth Projects, and Vertabase Pro provided the richest project planning environments, including work breakdown structures and resource balancing. Each was missing a key component - Celoxis does not track baseline estimates and Smooth Projects and Vertabase Pro do not provide auto scheduling.
Celoxis – Resource Balancing
Smooth Projects and Vertabase Pro do not provide auto scheduling. If your project plans do not have a lot of complicated dependencies, you might be fine without the automatic scheduling feature. However, without this feature, there are no tools to assist the Project Manager with adjusting a plan once it is off track.
Vertabase Pro – Gantt Chart
Online Management & Collaboration
All of the services provided some level of document management and online time entry. Our top-3 ranked services all provided management tools to track issues, changes, statistics, financials and status.
Only Celoxis and AceProject provided the capability to customize views and reports, and some limited workflow features.
Conclusions
Celoxis, Vertabase Pro, and Smooth Projects offer the richest feature environment for the money. All three base pricing on disk space used, not an arbitrary count of projects or tasks. Each has flaws, and your prioritization of features will determine the best fit.
During this research, I downloaded a freeware copy of Open Workbench. This is desktop software for project planning and management. This free tool is incredibly feature rich (see feature chart). As a desktop tool, it does not provide collaboration features. However the powerful scheduling algorithm and resource balancer met all of my other wish list criteria.
My choice – for small projects where only the project manager will be modifying the plan, Open Workbench is a great choice. I created a hybrid solution by creating the plan on the desktop and then exporting the tasks into a list on our Sharepoint portal for time keeping. While this is not an ideal situation, for teams of 4 or less it works just fine. For larger project teams, I plan to use Celoxis. I’m willing to sacrifice the baseline for the ability to regenerate schedules.