![]() ![]() The limits of Microsoft Project: a few examples It is rigid and complex, requiring training in both the method and use, just to name a few of the main pitfalls. The strengths of MS Project are also its weaknesses. However, it's clearly not a one-size-fits-all solution. ![]() It’s ideal when teams work together on a project with highly interdependent tasks and where complete control is necessary. ![]() MS Project is well suited to large-scale, lengthy, and complex projects, such as major construction works (like a bridge or factory), developing software, and industrial engineering. It’s now safe to say that MS Project is used by most project managers and schedulers, and it works wonders in some situations. The package was so effective at project scheduling, allocating resources, and determining resource costs, that it was swiftly boxed for sale to businesses. MS Project emerged from a need for Microsoft itself to organise its own projects. However, it quickly shows its limitations whenever flexibility or simplicity is required. It’s true that MS Project suits the waterfall model of project management, much used in software development and based on a linear, sequential cycle. * Quoted from a survey conducted by G2 Crowd in 2015 covering more than 600 reviews and ratings from business professionals regarding their use of project management software packages and their satisfaction with them. John Orate, senior manager and IT professional at Schneider Electric* Good for milestone tracking at a high level, while also designating resources to specific tasks.įits well if you use a waterfall model. The dependency chaining works quite well and helps visualize resource and task scheduling. Microsoft Project is the standard for tracking projects of various sizes. Microsoft Project: Why do we need an alternative? Organizations began legitimately looking for serious alternatives to what had become “monsters”: the classic project management tool, MS Project, and multi-layered Excel. Their only solution was the existing project management tool.īut increases in transformation and innovation programmes, focus on operational excellence, strategic plans, and flourishing initiatives in companies on the move exploded the number of projects, and, in some cases, tools. It does what it knows, and it knows what it does!įront-line staff needed to “get back in line” if they were serious about running a project. Managers turned to the IS department, crying out for simple project management solutions that worked in the field.īut IS departments didn’t have any alternatives. The next ten years witnessed a stand-off between business units and the IS department. In just one organization, hundreds, even thousands of “projects” from different departments, found themselves in a multi-layered, unmanageable pile of Excel files.īusiness units quickly, and unsurprisingly, reached the limits of Excel: lack of collaboration, costly and laborious monitoring and consolidation, sloppy data handling, and projects derailing. Result? They resorted to the only solution on hand: Microsoft Excel MS Project didn’t meet their needs for user-friendliness, flexibility, and collaboration. Their primary occupation was human resources, finance, marketing, communication, operations, or quality. Yet project management was not under their remit. But size varied greatly.īusiness units started launching projects that were no longer the project managers’ prerogative. More projects to launch and more need to succeed. Project management software became the preserve of IS managers.įrom the 2000s, companies realized that their survival depended on their capacity to adapt or transform faster, and at every level of their organization. Other developers based their solutions on a similar approach. Projects which were the exclusive domain of managers well versed in the tools and methods. MS Project became THE solution for project management.Ĭomplex projects run by project managers in “command and control” mode. The next 20 years saw the project world frozen in a hierarchy-bound, rigid, framework, characterized by top-down projects. Project management solutions: MS Project and Excel at the forefront In 1985, Apple Macintosh released the first version of the multifaceted spreadsheet. The project management package is used by “over 20 million project managers” according to Wikipedia. A cult quote from a cult classic: 1984, George Orwell’s prophetic novel, published in 1949!ġ984 was also the year that Microsoft Project was released. ![]()
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