When You Are Looking For Project Management Software
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Looking for the right project management software can be a pain. It is really important that you define upfront the goals you are trying to achieve with the introduction of the new software. If you have no budget available, you might want to check out my list of free Project Management software.
Photography by TheBusyBrain.
If you are considering buying a PM application, you can use sites like this for comparison and review.
If you are especially looking for construction project management software, SoftwareAdvice.com might come in handy. Houston Neal explains:
"Our website reviews and compares construction software programs, much like a consumer reports. We cover project management applications, accounting/job costing and estimating programs.
We just completed a project management feature checklist and made it available as a PDF download on our website (you can find it here) ."
When you do all this comparing, you must have some advice to share for those searching construction project management software…
"Suppose your construction firm has specific technology requirements, and it's important to choose a system that matches your needs. With nearly 100 construction project management systems available, it can be difficult to identify the right program for your business. Three top-level features to look for include:
- Project scheduling to manage projects along the critical path;
- Job costing to ensure projects stay on budget, and;
- Document control to manage change orders, RFIs, submittals and to enforce accountability."
If you don't like the looks of these lists, here is an article on how to choose on your own project management software, and you can read my guide on software selection.
Do you have a good tip for people looking for project management software? (Be a sport, and don't just put a link to a product in the comment… :))
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Subscribe to my blog by email and you will receive bi-weekly a summary of my postings. As sign of my gratitude you receive the first part of my book "
Bas de Baar, blogging as "The Project Shrink", is taking his message to the International Project Management community with a vengeance: "Projects Are About Humans. Now Deal With That!" ... 
Currently I am using assembla ( http://www.assembla.com/) for a project. Quite a nice tool, especially for software development (quite a lot standard tools in an integrated environment.
Other tools I am planning to use (however I have a lack of time ;)):
http://unfuddle.com/
http://www.basecamphq.com/
Web-based PM suites provide a much more cost-effective alternative to the traditional PM software that you might install on your laptop (for on-site management) or on a corporate server:
- Can be accessed from anywhere that you have internet access including on-site, in the office, at home, from your PDA and even from an internet cafe.
- Is normally priced on a subscription basis, i.e. per month rather than a large up-front license fee. There are also no maintenance fees associated with traditional software licenses.
- You can give all the stakeholders and team members access. This way everybody can see the project in real-time rather than having to post out task lists, updates, progress reports etc.
As a vendor of PM software - here is the main tip we would give. Decide if you are managing projects or managing task lists.
A quick search for PM software will uncover 100's of tools.
But 95% of these will only be suitable for managing a simple set of un-related tasks, limited number of resources and projects. That is fine if that is your need - you wont be paying for features you dont need.
However if you you are running multiple projects, shared resources, need to resolve resource conflicts, prioritise work, monitor project / team performance (not just if tasks are complete or not) then you probably need to look at true PM software.
You then need to decide if you want top end (complex / 6m to 1yr to implement) or mid-range (simple, effective, implement in probably 5 - 30 days).
Go to http://www.iplanware.com then click on resource centre. Or follow this link http://www.iplanware.com/Selecting_PPM_software.pdf
This is a summary paper we put together covering the main things to check out. A more detailed paper covering actual things to check at a functional level is due soon. Hope this helps.