[Sigia-l] RE: Project Management Software for MacOS X

[Will Parker]

Dave:

Forgive the long prolog - I need to give a bit of background  
regarding project management software

I worked on the "Project Manager" feature in Mac Office 2004. It was  
designed as a lightweight addition to the Mac Office suite, tying  
together existing functionality in Office to offer scheduling,  
calendar management and general project communication, plus asset  
management at the file level. No GANT, no charting to speak of, no  
true project-level scheduling or resource management.

As part of the planning for that, back in early 2003, the MacBU  
product planner and the feature PM (talented fella named Stuart  
DeSpain) did a survey of the potential competition on the Mac  
platform and decided a couple of things:

- Given the size of the potential market (which was affected by the  
deep penetration of MS Project for Windows in the overall large- 
project-management market) and the cost of producing a full-blown Mac  
version of MS Project, there was essentially no profit to be made in  
recreating Project.

- The current and potential customers for Mac Office are seen (by the  
MacBU) as being mostly in the SOHO market. In other words, in their  
view at the time, most Mac users don't use their Macs to coordinate  
big projects.

Those two decisions led to the light-weight, small-project nature of  
the project management features in Office 2004.

I was a tester on the Project team. Since I aspire to become a UX  
designer, I spent a lot of time kibitzing Stuart's design specs and  
managed to insert a few ideas in the process.

Since then, I've left Microsoft, but I've kept up my focus on project  
management software.

My take on the state of project management software on the Mac is  
that there ain't none -- at least, not if you're looking for a large,  
generalized toolbox aimed at running large, complex projects. There  
are a number of applications that focus on detailed management of  
specific types of projects - mostly in the area of art, multimedia or  
advertising design. There are even more that help you track the day- 
to-day detail work that *you* need to do. For the latter, I'd  
recommend either Mac Office or BaseCamp, depending on whether you're  
working in a network-poor or network-rich environment.

On the other hand, MS Project, like most MS products, is *too*  
general. It's intended to blanket the entire problem space, so IT  
managers can buy (and support) one do-it-all product. Who cares if it  
isn't the best tool for the end-user? IT'S (allegedly) EASY TO SUPPORT.

As an example, the MacBU was trying to move all planning into MS  
Project. The effect on productivity was, in my opinion, not pretty.  
 From what I've heard since I left, not remotely pretty. Everybody's  
reporting requirements suddenly became very rigid. "TPS Report"-style  
forms starting showing up everywhere.

I have to ask: What type of project are you planning to manage? What  
does Project do that you MUST have? At what level are you involved in  
the planning? How many independent teams are involved? How many sub- 
projects do you need to track? What level of detail do you require in  
reports from the teams?

- Will

Will Parker
macartisan at mac.com
http://www.channelingcupertino.com

"Enlightened trial & error is better than flawless planning &  
execution" - Terry Winograd

 > On Jul 19, 2005, at 9:33 AM, sigia-l-request at asis.org wrote:
 > From: "Dave" <dheller at gmail.com>
 > To: "SIGIA-L" <sigia-l at asis.org>
 > Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 6:02 PM
 > Subject: [Sigia-l] Project Management Software for MacOS X

 > Hey there,

 > What do people recommend for project management software (akin to but
 > hopefully better than MS Project).

 > What I need is a tool that combines resource management and task
 > management/scheduling like Project does.

 > Thanx!

 > -- dave