An Alternative that Solves the Top 5 complaints with MS Project

Finally, a Powerful Alternative to Traditional Project Management Assumptions & Design

As an alternative to Microsoft Project, ManagePro^(R) uses a strikingly different approach, emphasizing flexibility to address a broad definition of project management needs and user preferences.  It is an alternative that solves the top 5 "reasons" list to the left, while bringing Visbility, Alignment, Accountability and Wide-spread Useability through-out the organization.  It short, ManagePro is:

1. A flexible project management design.  It can be as simple as a list for users with basic needs, and provide a complete work break down structure for advanced users - all from the same program, at the same time. 

2. A money saving design, as ManagePro is available in both a low-cost browser version, and a more high-powered desktop version... and both versions talk to each other.  So you can mix and match in a way that fits your budget and your user needs.

3. An email sensitive design, as ManagePro not only synchronizes with MS Outlook, but also enables you to drag and drop email directly in and onto relevant projects and tasks.

 

 

Areas to Consider when Searching for an Alternative to MS Project

Research in the Project Management Journal (Fox 1999, Do the Features Support the Function)  found Microsoft Project to be the most commonly purchased or frequently used project management tool, and that "it also has received the lowest overall satisfaction rating of the 10 most frequently used tools."  A number of vendors have capitalized on user frustration and offer a range of alternatives, emphasizing ease of use and web-based project management tools.

Perhaps you have your own list of why you are looking for an alternative to MS Project.   E.g. the need for an alternative can arise because of a variety of factors.  Ultimately it pays, when looking for an alternative to MS Project, to evaluate 4 key areas in your work environment:

1. What type of projects are most commonly managed?  Multi-million dollar, multi-month or are a majority of the projects short term, if not ad-hoc?

2. What's your level of user sophistication.  Are the users most willing to trade features for ease of use, or vice versa?  Is your user group comprised of certified project managers, or a range of general business users?

3. What amount of time is your user group willing to expend in training?  One hour, one day, one week?

4. Do the assumptions underlying MS Project (an emphasis upon scheduling and tracking % complete as a means of achieving outcomes) match with your work culture and assumption base?

As an example, compare the assumptions underlying MS Project versus ManagePro.

 

Aspect	Microsoft Project®	ManagePro®
Primary user group	Project Managers	Business Users and Project Managers
Intent / Focus	·         1. Projects are essentially a series of tasks to be resourced, and resources to schedule  2. Key Focus: Task completion 3. Starting point: project requirements, stakeholders and work break-down structure 4. Scheduling (when), 5. Task assignment (what, who), and     6. Resource management (how much)	·         1. Projects are essentially goals to be achieved through an evolving set of action plans based upon emerging results 2. Key Focus: Results to date 3. Starting point: strategic objectives and goals (why); then 4. Scheduling (when), task assignment (who, what), and to a an extent, resource management (how much)] while 5. Measuring and feeding-back performance.(how am I doing) and 6. Signaling exceptions/alerts (what’s not working)
Project Management Model	·         1. Projects are linear/sequential, and consist of primarily known steps 2. Best suited to situations where elements are clearly definable /predictable at the onset 3. Best managed around a measured schedule and critical path	·         1. Projects are often not-linear, with some elements indeterminate and evolving,  2. Best suited to environments with rapid change and high levels of new or unknown challenges 3. Best managed by responsiveness to the feedback loop generated from the goal, action plan, results flux
Team /Group Orientation	People are “resources” to be allocated and tracked, and best managed via task lists and a schedule of completion	People are interactive team participants, and best managed by setting goals and tracking their results
Work & Communication Model	·         Project Management as a separate process or lateral/staff monitoring function People are managed by task lists and daily calendar	·         Goal-Driven, Team-based Management of Projects - where participants directly coordinate, report, and communicate within the software  People are managed by goals, plans and active feedback, secondarily by resource allocation
Communication flow/function	Top down hierarchical / assessment and administration	Interactive across the entire team / collaboration and coordination
Interface with “Office” type work tools	Links to MS Office as a lateral adjunct	Provides a central tool for the team to integrate documents (docs and spreadsheets, memos, meeting notes, reports), communications (e-mail and memos) decisions, and performance metrics
Cross tabulation functions	Tasks and resources are cross-referenced within project schedule	Tasks, goals and people are cross-referenced against projects, performance reviews and Balanced Scorecard
Linking project outcomes to personal performance	Low - cost & utilization-centric; results are binary “complete” or “incomplete”	High - goal-achievement measures and success translate into feedback and performance reviews
Includes Best-Practice Management Templates	·               Not designed to be a general management tool; No adjuncts to prompt best practices in management.	Designed to be applied or used across the organization as a basic work management tool for both project and performance management
Ease of use/flexibility to alter projects plans in real time	Low	High
Typical Learning Time	16 – 40 hours	3 – 5 hours
Customizable to fit individual manager’s needs	Medium	High
Underlying Learning or Change Management Process Model	No company-provided coaching	Software and deployment process often involves the  need for cultural (working smarter) change!

 

The key to bridging the gap as an alternative, instead of creating a copy version, is the ability to provide a flexible platform that gives users "different tools and looks" at the data based upon their needs.  A flexible platform that broadens the concept and application of project management to the general work force, not just project managers.  Ultimately a platform that ties work and the projects encompassing work, into goals, objectives and a strategic plan going forward.  We describe that as strategic project management.  See some examples of how ManagePro provides different views for different user needs.

 

 

But don't take our word for it or PC Magazine's (we got a 5 out of 5 star rating), read a professional project manager and reviewer's observations to make your own decision:

 

"First as a project manager, and most recently as a project management consultant, I have often recognized the limitations of traditional project management software in some project environments. Project management software packages are designed to plan and schedule a series of activities required to be accomplished in some relatively fixed order in relation to each other. They focus on determining the critical path and the shortest path through the project, which allows all of the activities to be completed. They are generally powerful, often necessary allies when confronted with a large project involving perhaps several hundreds or even thousands of activities which draw on a large number of often interrelated and limited pools of resources to accomplish the tasks. The class of software termed "project management software" is, in reality, project scheduling software which uses often complicated mathematical algorithms to redistribute resources and rearrange activities in order to make the most effective and efficient use of a limited set of resources to complete a project within a specified time and budget.

However, there are huge numbers of projects which fall into a different category. This category includes small, low budget or short-duration projects which are neither mission critical nor high risk. The majority of these projects do not have the budget, management resources or time to enter data into or use a full blown project management system. These projects may not involve interdependent activities or interrelated resources. They do, however, need management attention to stay on schedule and within budget while delivering the required scope and quality.

In fact, the majority of project environments are made up of relatively small projects involving fewer than 20 individual (usually human) resources. They typically have a duration of less than six months (one year at the most) and a total budget of $20,000 to $1 million each. They are not high risk, mission critical or in a key result area of the organization's strategic plan. These small projects are often discontinuous and involve several points in time where all work must cease while something is reviewed, money is raised or approved for release to the budget, or another entity develops some piece of the project required before the remainder of the work can continue. The environment which I will call "small project" is also normally one where many small projects are being done at the same time. Often, some of the projects are on hold, but they still require monitoring and management at some level.

This is an environment where ManagePro excels..."

-David McClure, OR/MS Today

There's a lot more to address about how any project management software can work for you. Things like:

• Follow-up and follow-through are both improved using the visibility and drill-down capability.
• Color coded scorecards track the execution of all objectives, results tracking, the presence of plans and checklists and their status.
• Everything is available within a couple of clicks, including the requirements and issues relevant to each project,
• Improved decision making, clearer results and more accurate feedback from top to bottom in “One Place where it all comes together!”

 

More Information about ManagePro

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