|
|
|
Do You use Earned Value Analysis?
|
|
|
| |
|
|
The quality of your project planning is directly related to the tool you use. Our tools are focused on helping you develop a complete, accurate plan. A plan that can be implemented and our tool can handle the unforeseen changes almost every plan experiences. To find out more about our product use the links to the left and tabs at the top to navigate.
If you are considering new Project Management software, below we discuss some important issues that you should consider. |
|
|
|
|
|
1. Visual Plan Development
|
|
Gantt charts are great.... for reporting. Gantt charts should not be used for plan development. PERT charts or Network Diagrams were specifically designed for plan development while Gantt Charts were specifically designed for reporting.
Network Diagrams focus the planner on the relationships between chunks of work. Understanding and representing those relationships is the cornerstone of good project management. With Gantt charts, you rarely get those relationships right and so your plan is constantly changing and unpredictable. You can not execute that kind of a plan.
If you are not using the Network Diagram for planning, then start. If you tool does not have one, then switch tools immediately!
| |
|
|
|
|
|
2. Real World Modeling
|
|
You have to be able to represent how your organization works. Most tools give you one diagramming technique, a few tasks and a handful of relationships. Is that really enough? We support two different diagramming techniques that can be used together in the same project, in the same subproject. We support many different types of tasks/activities with lots of options to define how it will be scheduled.
Resource Analysis is where most tools fail. In fact, most planners do not even use it. Is it because organizations are unconcerned about how much time and money the project will take? Fat chance. The real reason is that most tools' resource analysis provides little value. The reasons start with their inability to model correctly and end with inconsistent, hard to understand, unpredictable results. So one of the most important tools of project management is unused.
If you're not using resource analysis, we reccommend investigating where your tool let you down.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
3. Earned Value
|
|
Earned Value is taking the world by storm. It is becoming required on almost all major projects and is even part of the definition of good corporate governance.
Earned Value answers the question what did it take to produce the achieved results. More importantly is shows much, much earlier when a project is in trouble. In fact, with Earned Value, an experienced project manager can tell if the project will succeed before work is even started.
Start using it immediately
| |
|
|
|
|
|
4. Believable Results
|
|
Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and many more produced wonderful results as long as you believed them. But then someone looked a little deeper and the results became unbelievable.
Do you believe your PM System? Should you? Well, we hate to be the bearer of bad news but maybe you shouldn't.
This is a simple issue that everyone makes complex. The question shouldn't be can I make your product produce the right answer. Instead, it should be can I easily make your product produce the wrong answer.
And the answer for most packages is absolutely. Some have it build right in to the system like rounding everything to the nearest hour. Some have default behavior that no real project manager would allow. Some lack the sophiscation to handle the most common situations and therefore produce terrible results. There are countless examples and even more vendor justifications.
Bottomline is check your tool and make sure it is believable.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
5. Adaptable Software
|
|
Projects take place over time and wherever time is involved so is change. Cost rates, personnel, equipment, investories, plans all change but does your project plan?
Lots of plans are developed and never looked at again. Why does that happen?
We think it is because your software can't handle change. Oh, we're sure a lot of of it has to do with plans that were developed in the Gantt charts but it doesn't stop there. The software has to be able to handle changes over time by design. Everywhere you type in a cost rate you should be able to describe how that rate is going to change over time. Everything that works to its own calendar should have its own calendar and so on.
Software has to support the entire life cycle of the project.
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|