EnterPlicity Project Management Software & Resources

Apologies for the delay in getting this next post out. It's been a busy couple of weeks. First, it was a trip to Dallas for the annual PMI Dallas Vendor Showcase. PMI is the standard-bearing global organization for project management, and their Dallas chapter put on a showcase of various project management training services and products. Approximately 600 or so people showed up which was surprising since it was a vendor-focused event. The people were friendly and the dinner was good (although finger food doesn't necessarily equal dinner for me). We were there talking about EnterPlicity, our web-based project management software system, and some of the ways that we help organizations in general get more value out of project management software.

Second was a trip to Arizona to visit a current client, and doing a brief presentation at the PMI Phoenix dinner meeting. There was a good crowd again for a dinner meeting, and we had a lot of fun playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire project management style. We'll cycle through some of the other chapters this year so look for us. Lee Lambert was the main speaker at this dinner meeting, and if you want a speaker that is insightful, engaging, and makes the audience laugh, he's your guy.

That all brings us to our topic for this post which is the second part of why organizations struggle with project management software. The last post dealt with organizations that have no project management tools to speak of. Now lets talk about the most common scenario that we see out there, which is organizations that rely on simple or stand-alone tools.

What is the most common tool that organizations use today for project management? If you said Microsoft Project, that's the standard answer, but in my opinion you would be wrong. The most common tool is the spreadsheet. People all over use spreadsheets for everything and project management software is no exception. And boy, have I seen all kinds of different spreadsheets. There is the "see how many worksheets I can create in one file" spreadsheet with scores of projects in one file. Try and work with that one on a daily basis! And then there is the "fantastic formula" spreadsheet with all kinds of complicated analytical formulas. Of course, they take maintenance, and when the person who created it leaves, no one can use it anymore! Microsoft Project certainly is a common tool that is widely used as well, although people tend to either love it or hate it. Most people don't understand how to use it effectively, or are trying to use it to do more than it was intended to do.

Where do organizations typically struggle with this type of scenario? It typically boils down to the fact that information is de-centralized and difficult to aggregate together for good decision making. Spreadsheets or project files are located throughout the organization. Mike has his files, Susan has her files, etc. What happens when the boss asks for a high-level project status report? That information is not in one place. The Project Manager (or whoever is acting in that capacity) has to collect the information and compile it together. When I was a Project Manager working for a dot com back around 2000, we had a weekly project status report that we had to create. Let me tell you, that was an event. It took hours to complete with lots of legwork and collecting data. It was a pain! But that's what you get with a de-centralized, simple toolset.

The other primary problem is simply the amount of time is takes to manage, collect, and adminster the information. This is simply because the information is typically not standardized and is in multiple places. By definition, this equals more time to administer it.

Now, is having a de-centralized, simple toolset necessarily bad? No! It depends on your organization, and the number and types of projects that you have active. However, a lot of organizations struggle with this specific scenario.

Later, we'll review all of the options that an organization in this scenario has to address those issues.

Labels: microsoft project, pmi, project management software, spreadsheets

OK, so organizations struggle with project management software. How? What situations do organizations typically find themselves in, so that we can then address topics to deal with those struggles? I am going to attempt to categorize typical scenarios that I have found.

The first scenario are those organizations that have no project management tools right now. When I have given talks, in order to interject some fun, I have labeled this category "Cucumbers". Why did I pick cucumbers? Because I was looking for something that signified not having much going for it, and I happened to see "Larry the Cucumber", one of my kid's stuffed characters. A cucumber has no arms, no legs, no hair...there's just not much there, with all due respect to Larry.

Similarly, organizations with no project management tools don't have much to work with. Now for some organizations that's ok, because they don't have many people or many projects, or there just isn't any level of complexity. But for most organizations in this scenario issues pop up in different forms. Perhaps "Susan" is walking down the hall and gets asked "How are we doing with Report XYZ for Company ABC?" Susan may say something to get herself off the hook initially, but then rifles through her pads of paper trying to find the notes because she cannot remember. Or perhaps she walks through the office asking people what is going on. Missing deadlines, deliverables slipping through the cracks, no one really knows what's going on or what people are doing are all symptoms.

Is this you? Do you experience anything like this in your own organization?

Next, we'll look at the second scenario. Later, we'll begin to look at ideas to address issues that these scenarios represent.

If you are reading this, I am going to assume that you have some level of interest in project management software. I do as well. I have spent the last seven or so years helping organizations put in project management software. For seven or eight years before that, I have used project management software heavily. I have learned a lot, including what tends to work, what doesn't tend to work, and where organizations struggle. My purpose here is to pass on some of that knowledge and experience to you, and provide a forum where we can all learn together as well.

We will not typically talk about how to use a particular tool extensively, but instead our focus will be more on a) helping organizations put in and get more effective use out of project management software, and b) giving organizations clarity into the project management software market. I find a lot of organizations that are confused with where to go here. They use Microsoft Project, it may not be the right fit for them, and they don't know where to go from there. We'll work on providing some clarity.

I hope you decide to join us! We'll have some fun and hopefully learn some things along the way.