Project Management Software
Author: Zhadanov Igor

Project management software exists in many different levels of
sofistication and variety of prices. This article aims to help
project managers realize what kind of project management
software tools they need and find out how computers can help
them in everyday routine.

Before choosing some particular tool you should have a look at
the different kinds of projects to manage and corresponding PM
skills. It is very important to pick a project management
software tool appropriate for you and your organization. The
following types of projects and project management software
should cover the field broadly, though any categorization is
very relative.

Project management software for small projects, usually in
single functional area

At this level project managers usually plan and schedule only
durations of project subtasks rather than resource capacity or
work estimates. They do not need to track a project budget and
their project status reports contain only completion date
tracking.

Project management software in this situation helps project
managers to automate such basic routines like

* planning project flow
* occasional status reports preparing
* producing Gantt charts

If your project management tasks are not intended to grow and
such functionality is enough, you should not spend a lot of
money nor waste your time on long learning curve about features
you'll never use.

Project management software for managing larger projects

Project budget is very important now, therefore we need a
project management tool to give us the capability to estimate
resources and money at every stage of the project. As more
people are getting involved in the project, software should
provide the ability to create numerous status reports - from
simple total project cost to more sophisticated ones.

As the size of the project grows, the number of project
management techniques increases. Requirements for project
management software change accordingly. At this level project
management software must be able to work not only with the
static representation of start and finish dates for each
project subroutines, but it needs to be powerful enough to
simulate the project and reschedule it every time something
changes in project flow.

Project management software for huge multi-project environment

At this high-end level we need project management software that
meets a lot of additional requirements. Now we need to roll-up
multiple projects and require consistent information for
decision-makers. Among the features they need are:

* material resources allocating (including finances)
* scheduling and tracking a pool of human resources
* sharing resources between multiple projects
* sophisticated risk assessment tools
* detailed project performance tracking
* creating a detailed project budget. This brings project
management software closer to the company's accounting system

If you need a lot, you have to spend a lot. Project management
software for this purpose costs from $400 up to $3000 and even
more. Such packages usually have network versions and team
communication capabilities.

Categorization above was rather comprehensive over the last
years. But modern project management reality changes
constantly, therefore we can talk about one more project
management software category.

Project management software for managing multiple projects in
small and mid-size businesses

It often happens that project managers face the need to manage
multiple projects simultaneously, using resources that can be
shared between them. But they do not need a huge and extremely
expensive project management software tool with thousands of
not really needed features. What should they choose?
ConceptDraw Project can be the answer. It is a cross-platform
(Mac OS X and Windows) project management software tool that
allows the project manager to automate project routines - from
planning and assigning resources to powerful report generating
capabilities


About The Author: CS Odessa has over 7 years experience in
developing productivity, diagramming and visualisation software
solutions for Mac and PC. http://www.conceptdraw.com