The 10 things MS Project won't do for you...

From: Mark Durrenberger (durrenm_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/27/04 

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 13:24:33 -0500

Hear, hear! (or is that here here?) Nicely said, Dominic.

I posted this a long time ago in another PM News group, but it's time
again...

It's not a knock against Project, it's a knock against the uninformed
user...

The 10 things MS Project (Or any PM software) will not do for you...

10) It will not make your team members plan,
9) It will not improve the estimates you get from your people,
8) It will not force people into meeting unreasonable deadlines,
7) It will not provide you with additional resources
6) It will not remove the bugs from your product
5) It will not discover the scope you missed
4) It will not de-scope your project to meet budget
3) It will not negotiate with management for a new date
2) It will not always tell you good news and

...And...

1) It will not turn you into a project manager

If you use this, please reference me and my company 

-- 
_________________________________________________________
Mark Durrenberger, PMP
Principal, Oak Associates, Inc, www.oakinc.com
"Advancing the Theory and Practice of Project Management"
________________________________________________________
The nicest thing about NOT planning is
that failure comes as a complete surprise and is not
preceded by a period of worry and depression.
- Sir John Harvey-Jones
"Dominic Moss" <no.spam.to-dominic.moss@no-spam.projectability.co.uk> wrote
in message news:%23IfW649EEHA.4080@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> fwiw here is my opinion on this subject:
>
> I have been training people to use MS Project and also in the principles
of
> effective Project Management for the past 8 years, prior to this career I
> spent 15 years working in construction primarily in planning & project
> management - I have been using computer based scheduling tools since 1984
> and if you think Project is a RPITA you should thank your lucky stars you
> didn't have to use some of the tools I used back in the 1980's. Not
> surprisingly I am with Mark D and Dale H on this one.
>
> I encounter some people who just list out tasks and expect project to sort
> it out for them, they don't have a sequence or any logical structure to
> their project it is just a whole pile of stuff, sometimes non-related
stuff,
> that has to be done - there used to be a tool "Microsoft Team Manager"
that
> could do this very neatly. It used what Microsoft called "Best Fit
> Scheduling", it could handle priorities, deadlines and dependencies and
was
> ideally suited to "Process" working where the focus is on keeping all the
> balls up in the air. If you entered tasks 1,2,3,4 they were scheduled in
> sequence one after the other - if you changed the priority of task 3 the
> sequence went 3,1,2,4 if you said 2 has a deadline of tomorrow it would
then
> go 2,3,1,4 etc - it was pretty neat and I was really disappointed when it
> was dropped as it was ideally suited to organisations that are reactive
and
> have an overwhelming workload to schedule with many conflicting deadlines,
> priorities etc.
>
> Projects are intrinsically different, they need to stop, ideally at
planned
> completion but sometimes earlier if circumstances change. Implicit in a
> project is a logical sequence, one thing leading to another from
> commencement through to completion, ideally structured into stages or
phases
> with milestones along the way.
>
> Just entering tasks and expecting a tool to sort it all out is to my mind
> abdicating or abandoning responsibility by the manager, the tool is
designed
> to provide you with information which you then interpret and make
decisions
> upon. I once had a person on a course who reacted to one of the features
of
> Microsoft Project by bleating "why doesn't it tell me what to do?" -
> fortunately their co-worker interjected and said "that is what you are
paid
> for, do you want to be replaced by a computer?".
>
> I could also digress into the whole duration vs work argument as well but
> think it best to save that for another day.
>
> Happy planning.
> -- 
> Dominic Moss
>
> www.projectability.co.uk
>
> Helping people achieve more with Microsoft Project
>
> Tel +44 8707 303 400
> Fax +44 8707 303 500
> "David White" <djwh1te2@rogers.com> wrote in message
> news:o_79c.5123$k4F1.3864@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> > Why do people insist on using a 'planning' tool to run a project?
> > The comment from Doug Scott (IEEE) is the most true - Project Manager's
> > should manage the tasks, the resources and use Project as the planning
and
> > reporting tool that it is.
> > After all if Project was the be all and end all then we wouldn't need
> > methodologies like Prince would we?
> >
> > BR
> > Dave
> > "Oreka" <something@microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:c4185a$1k6q$1@news.wplus.net...
> > >
> > > Why Does project insist on scheduling tasks at the same time:
> > >
> > > Example:
> > >
> > > Task A - R1, R2
> > > Task B - R1
> > >
> > > Project will schedule these two tasks on the same day.  The only way
to
> > stop
> > > this is to remove R1 from both tasks then replace and the problem goes
> > away
> > >
> > > Note:  this example is from a project with about 120 tasks or more.
> > >
> > > I have had this problem with many versions of Project.  If you assign
> 100%
> > > of a task on a given project SURELY it shouldn't assign that resource
to
> > > another task.
> > >
> > > I am at the stage that I need to find another PM package that works
> > > properly.
> > >
> > > Regards
> > >
> > > T
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Why, Why, Why
    ... effective Project Management for the past 8 years, ... Scheduling", it could handle priorities, deadlines and dependencies and was ... sequence one after the other - if you changed the priority of task 3 the ... Helping people achieve more with Microsoft Project ...
    (microsoft.public.project2000)
  • FLAIRS 2009: AI Planning and Scheduling Special Track
    ... Special Track on AI PLANNING AND SCHEDULING ... The FLAIRS 2009 conference special track on AI Planning and Scheduling ... attracts papers from all areas of AI planning and scheduling. ...
    (comp.specification.z)
  • FLAIRS 2009: AI Planning and Scheduling Special Track
    ... Last Call for Papers ... Special Track on AI PLANNING AND SCHEDULING ... The FLAIRS 2009 conference special track on AI Planning and Scheduling ...
    (comp.specification.z)
  • Re: Getting Users to USE MS Project
    ... All good advice coming from this thread for what is a typical and very ... planning function to all of them collectively and at individual 1-2-1's. ... dependancy management, etc.) it is an exponential leap that, quite frankly, ... In our circles, we have professional schedulers ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • CFP: Special issue of Journal of Scheduling
    ... APPLICATIONS AND METHODOLOGIES FOR PLANNING AND SCHEDULING ... Emphasis is given to papers describing ... Scheduling's online submission system ...
    (comp.specification.z)
Quantcast