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Planning Software

2 replies [Last post]
Thu, 2003-04-10 18:17
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By popular demand...

James is putting together a "software" section on the site that is intended to list the various software packages out there for us planners. I, for one (Im a planner, Jason, volunteering on the site) would love to be able to compare / contrast how, say MS Project compares against CS Project, or P3. Do you know what I mean? Would anyone like to assist us in formalising how we show this data? We dont want to simply list the "sellers" blurb on why we need P3 etc. In order to do this, we need to identify the "aspects" of the packages that need categorising...

ie.
- price comparrisons (user review overpriced, good value)
- functionality comparrisons
- does it do network plots, (user review good/ok/poor)
- does it do EV analysis, (user review good/ok/poor)
- does it do resource histograms
- can it overlay an scurve on top of a barchart?
- after sales help desk

...we can offer users the chance to "review" or vote on their perception of these various functionalities. Users could drop some text, in a guest book kind of thing offering the vendors their ideas on what the software should do, but doesnt.

So, team ! There is a fair amount of thought that needs to go into this to decide on what data we get from the software vendors.

We will then simply store these various "aspects" (along with the vendors text on what they say it can do for us) in a database thus allowing the web scripts to be developed to compare them.

Lots of scope for a great package of info here.

If you think you would like to make a start on an outline of what data we need to collect, or how we should present it, leave a message or your ideas here, and lets see if we can make some progress. Do we need a software user-group!
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Replies

Sun, 2003-04-20 20:59
#1
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Hi Bernard,

Huge thanks for the ideas and information - great stuff. We will add them to the others and see what falls out.

Jason and I are not fully convinced on how we should format the whole thing. Help!! The problem being, how to decide on the "boxes that need filling in". As you put it, it is vital that we ask the vendors the correct questions in order that the output becomes useful and certain key-comparrisons can then be made.

If anyone reads this and think that thay would like to help, please get in touch!

Regards...James
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Fri, 2003-04-18 12:25
#2
Bernard Ertl
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Jason and James,

This is a great idea. There is a lot of great software on the market and it is often not easy to easily determine what strengths, weaknesses and features distinguish one from another. From a vendors point of view, I would like to offer these thoughts:

- price comparisons (user review overpriced, good value)

I would be in favor of displaying a price range for an entry level license and allowing users to provide feedback on their perception of the value offered. Licensing terms for various venders differ, so listing a single price without qualifying what it includes might be misleading. Terming it a price comparison without ensuring that all listings are priced apples to apples on the licensing terms would be a disservice to the membership. I would prefer to see this listed as Base Price or something similar.

- functionality comparisons

Most product comparisons using grids with columns of features and checkboxes for a list of products do not highlight the unique strengths of individual items. It might be good to provide a feature grid including a set of basic features, but space should be allotted to describe unique features for each item.

Otherwise either the feature grid tries to encompass too many specialized categories (and becomes unwieldy) or important evaluation criteria gets left out.

- does it do network plots, (user review good/ok/poor)
- does it do EV analysis, (user review good/ok/poor)
- does it do resource histograms
- can it overlay an scurve on top of a barchart?
- after sales help desk

It seems to me that these are all examples of features that could be included in the functionality comparison as mentioned above. Perhaps a user review option could be added for every feature/function listing.

If the user review facility takes the form of a simple poll, I would suggest that results not be shown until a sufficient vote total has accrued (maybe 10) to ensure that the average will not be skewed by vendors, affiliates or competitors. I would also suggest that only members be allowed to vote and only vote one time for each product.

Users could drop some text, in a guest book kind of thing offering the vendors their ideas on what the software should do, but doesnt.

Sounds great. Would vendors be given the opportunity to respond to any posts?

Some thoughts on basic categories for the feature comparison:

High level (overview) features
- Type of system (Enterprise Project Management System [resource management across distributed projects], Project Management System, Project Management Tool / Add-On)

- Platform (Windows based, Web based, Third party data-base based [ie. requires licensing a separate DB], etc.)

- Calculation method(s) (Critical Path, PERT, Critical Chain, etc.)

- Capacity as an order of magnitude of tasks (Large Schedules [>100K], Medium Schedules [>10K], Small Schedules [>1K], Tiny Schedules)

- Avg. # Days Training Required to Learn

- Industry focus (aerospace, AEC, industrial (plant) maintenance, software/IT development, etc.)

- Vendor support (avg. issue resolution time, hours of operation, contact methods [phone, fax, web site, e-mail])

Detail level features
- Earned value analysis (s-curves, etc.)
- Gantt charts
- Network graphs
- Resource histograms
- Scope breakdown (manhour and progress reporting by work order / wbs / subproject)

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Estimating Software, Project Management Software
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