I came across this post by Craig Roberts the other day:
WBS in Primavera [1]
It got me thinking about my workflow. I thought about the tools I've come to use regularly for the past 10 years, and to be frank there's a lot of room for improvement. My current tool-set consists of the following programs:
- P6
- Scheduling Log (Schedule Analysis)
- Claim Digger (Update / Change Analysis)
- Microsoft Excel (Mass Import / Export / Tables for narratives)
- Microsoft Word (Narratives)
- Microsoft PowerPoint (Presentations)
- PDF Printer (Report Creation / Sharing)
- Sumatra PDF (Review Reports)
- MS Project (Share Schedule)
- Notepad++ (Edit Digger HTML)
I find that contract specs typically require PDFs for reports, but for more involved project managers / execs / team members are looking for something along the lines of an MS Project file so they can look at logic. As I was thinking about it I found I had a lot of questions I'd like to ask other planners about, but the following 4 questions probably sum them up best:
- What does your tool-set look like?
- What do you use to share the schedules with your clients / team?
- Have you ever found it useful to send a clients / team members a version of the schedule in a "logic readable" format?
- If you have sent clients / team members a schedule in a "logic readable" why? In other words, in what circumstances would it be most helpful to me and my clients / team members?
Your input is appreciated, and thanks!