Hi Vladimir,

I am a freelancer and I had similar needs like yours. I went for a web based project management software named proofhub and I found it very user friendly and light on pocket. If you wish then you can also give it a try.

Mimoune,

Even when rare these 270,000 tasks jobs do occur most probably are kept in order by partitioning the work into several jobs that must always be considered as a unit. Mega projects do exist.

Utilities might have in their portfolios hundreds or thousands of jobs most of them not linked by logic but by limited resources, limited crews, and limited equipment. They have to see the whole portfolio in order to level resources. Other companies such as those working on marine works might have a dozen of jobs but again some specialized equipment that must be moved from job to job, these might be specialized pile driving equipment, barges, crane barges, cranes, draglines and a few others. These equipment got to be leveled as you cannot go to Acme Rental to get it. Other companies such as real estate developers have limited financial resources so they must see the whole portfolio in order to watch cash flow and level financial resources. Usually it is not about a single monstrous job, but about being able to see the whole portfolio.

Multiple Key Players have their own WBS needs, as a single key player I got so used to multiple WBS to the extent cannot any longer live without them. Keep in mind P3 is kind of limited, in this regard is obsolete as working a portfolio of jobs with the P3 limitation of a single WBS is too restrictive. Even if you can handle this restriction from your perspective, what about the others? In a job with multiple prime contractors are you going to tell them what WBS is best for their specialized work? Come on move to something better, as Vladimir said if a Solo processor can handle it and today’s processors are Duo and Quad there is no excuse.

You got to read in between the lines what Vladimir said, I believe he is talking about improvements on P3 approach. Don’t rule out what P3 did in ways the industry loved others might have improved on it, of course others might have gone the other way.

Best Regards,
Rafael

thanks Rodel

I had the opportunity to work with this approach in my last project, and it worked like a charm, the advantage compared to traditional client-server process ( pun intended) as noticed by Vladimir, it is less rigid, don’t need a sophisticated IT infrastructure, and specially give a further freedom to each subproject planner( as they don’t necessary have access to same LAN network), as every subproject has different need for the frequency of update based on the nature of their scope of work, then each month the Planning manager merge the different subproject to the project group.

one point need to be stressed here, the interlink between subproject all "go" through milestones, a system of handover and receipt of work-package is implemented.
each subcontractor know when he can start the work based on the handover of the other trade subcontractor.

nevertheless, there is some precautions to be made, working with the same share folder in P3 can be a pain, unfortunately P3 don’t scale well in a huge project, whatever you made a simple operation , better to make a backup.

sorry Vladimir what kind of program have 270000 tasks ;) !?

Best regards
Mimoune

Hi Mimoune,
I am also interested in Rodel answer.
Besides, it may be useful to discuss what is good and what is wrong with this approach without discussing its realization in P3 that was not perfect.
I am also curious what did you cite? I don’t remember such discussions.
Best Regards,
Vladimir

Hi Rodel,
below I repeat slightly modified post #153 fron Let’s Challenge Spider thread where I described group work in Spider Project.
We decided that client-server technology is not good for project management software and developed different approach to organizing group work. Read the description and I will be glad to answer your future questions describing the details that may be of interest to you.

Now short answers to your questions.

In Spider Project:
1) How to handle a big project using different key players?

Described below.

2) How it is manage on a big picture where all key players are doing at the same time (i.e. multiple planners having there own area, cost controller and portfolio management)?

Also described below.

3) How to handle cost management, schedule at the same time with different key players?

What do you mean by cost management? If you mean entering new costs it is usually done not by entering schedule data directly in the project schedule but modifying cost reference-books. Everything else is integrated.

4) How to handle multiple projects at the same time?

If you mean portfolio management then it is easy. In Spider Project you can create any number of project portfolios just creating references what projects belong to each portfolio. By the way one project can belong to many portfolios.
These projects may be managed by different planners at different machines. At any moment you can open and calculate any portfolio without opening its projects. The same requirement - for portfolio scheduling all projects shall have the same data date.

5) How the information’s are shared including the load of works of each key player?

I think that it is described below though I don’t understand what is load of work.

6) Is spider project looking to upgrade and get into enterprise and Portfolio Project Management?

Spider Project is 14 years in the Enterprise and Portfolio Management. So your proposal is late, we upgraded in 1996 when Eagle Ray (the original name of Primavera Enterprise) did not exist. At that year we managed the construction of Olympic village for the First International Youth Games in Moscow (with 17 main contractors).
As I answered earlier Spider Project is used as the Enterprise Project Management System by many large companies like Russian Aluminium, Romanian Telecom, Belarus Transgas, etc., Russian Ministry of Defense, Russian Ministry of Regional Development, Russian Accounting Chamber, Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs, etc., in most large programs in Russia like preparation of 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, development of Russian Pacific Area, preparation of World Student Games in Kazan, etc. These programs consist of hundreds construction projects and have multi-billion budgets. I cannot list here many hundreds companies that use Spider Project as their enterprise project management system.

Your questions are welcomed. I can answer in more details if necessary.
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Spider Project Professional, Desktop Plus and Lite support group work but differently.
Spider Project Professional includes not only project but also portfolio management tools. I understood that your question is about project management.

If the project has subprojects that are managed by different persons and organizations (we call such projects programs or multi-projects) then you will need Spider Project Professional for program management.

You shall also implement strict regulations on the time of program data updating. Program scheduling and reporting require the existence of the common data date for all subprojects that belong to the Program. So all program participants shall enter actual information to the same date and time. These requirements are the same for everybody who is responsible for updating program data.
Let’s suppose that the Program is updated on Tuesdays basing on the program status on Monday evening. So all Program participants shall enter actual status information strictly on the required time (Monday evening) to make the status date the same for all program subprojects. And this shall be done on Tuesday morning before the Program will be rescheduled and reports will be produced.
These requirements do not depend on the software data organization. If you want to be able to reschedule the program or get project reports the data date shall be the same for all program activities.

But subproject managers may require different frequency of data updating. In small subproject it may be necessary to reschedule daily to supply resources for the plans for the day (shift). So subproject managers may need to manage their subprojects separately, with their own data dates, resources, regulations though all of them shall follow program requirements and supply the program planner with the Monday evening statuses of their subprojects on Tuesday morning.

That is why Spider Project uses special organization of the group work with the program data.

Program Planner creates Responsibility Breakdown Structure where phases are the names of responsible managers, activities in these phases are those that belong to their subprojects. Program Planner creates a list of responsible managers and enters the folder paths where to send them their subprojects and where to take updated models. These responsible managers are assigned to the phases in the responsibility structure.

When the command Distribute suprojects is selected by Program Planner Spider Project replicates the Program model and sends to each of responsible managers the models of their subprojects for the autonomous work until the next update. Now subproject managers may work with their own regulations until the next Tuesday (for an example updating the model every day). All of them know that it is necessary to update their models to the status of Monday evening on Tuesday morning because at 10:00 on Tuesday Program Planner will select the command Consolidate subprojects and all information in the program model will be updated by the information that exists in the subproject models. This way the new version of the program model will be created and the previous one will be stored in the program archive. The program (portfolio) shall be rescheduled and analyzed, corrective actions may be planned, and after new plan for a week will be accepted Program Planner selects the command Distribute subprojects ...

At the lower levels program planners may use not professional but Desktop version of Spider Project that is much cheaper. They do not need to work in the network, they just need to place their models with Monday evening status to specified folder, to FTP server, or just send by E-mail. The size of Spider Project files is relatively small.

But if you manage relatively small project where project participants just enter actual data (not work with the models adding activities, assigning resources, costs, etc.) then you don’t need to replicate project model and use different model of the collaboration. And for this model you can use Spider Project Desktop Plus (two times cheaper than professional version).

You still need Responsibility Structure but this time people are responsible only for entering actual data for different activities. Usually they are assigned as resources but sometimes you can decide that actual data shall be entered by somebody else (foremen, etc.).

But this time Spider Project will send not the models of subprojects but table Reporting Forms that include the data of what is planned for current time period (list of planned activities with assigned resources, planned dates, volumes of work, durations, costs, material consumption for all planned activities).

For each parameter this form includes initial, planned and remaining quantities. If actual data differ from planned actual quantities shall be entered and other parameters will be adjusted. An example - if you entered actual activity volume of work, the software adjusts the remaining volume of work, actual and remaining duration, actual and remaining costs and material consumption.
You can modify the remaining data with the forecasts of remaining volumes, durations, costs, material requirements.

Entering actual and forecasted data you shall save this form to the specified folder, FTP server or just send it to Project Planner by E-mail. Using command Consolidate monitoring data Project planner updates project model creating its new version. Previous version is stored in the project archive.

Reporting forms can be opened and filled with Spider Demo that is free. They can also be exported to Excel and imported from Excel.

And of course you can create different access to the project data for different project participants defining what and how they can see and edit project data.
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Rodel,
can you answer to Rafael question on P6 longest path in the New Spider Project Functionalities thread? You may do it better than me.

Best Regards,
Vladimir