1. You may wish to consider adding the following packages:
Great. The plan all along was to add titles as suggested, wasn’t it?
The question of Primary Industry : is difficult for me to answer as I train and consult in all industries, maybe a training/consulting industry could be considered, or the option to select more than on industry.
I agree that a non-specific category should be added for industry independent folks.
I think you could combine MSP 2000/2002 & 2003 as one line, I do not think there is a lot of and leave MSP 98 as a second package.
I think Microsoft would be interested in separating the feedback on their distinct titles. I know I would if I were them.
I am not too sure about the No Answer, I think you need a None when the software does not have the function and a Don’t Know and maybe a No Answer for those uncommitted people.
I think No Answer adresses all three scenarios adequately. I don’t see a compelling reason to make this suggested change.
Many people do not know the difference between ADM and PDM, a little guidance is needed here.
I would think/hope that most PP members know the difference!
I am not to sure about the importance of scheduling speed, these days the network affects the speed more than the software.
Scheduling speed is of importance to planners who work with the software day in and day out. Whether it takes 1 second or ten minutes to crunch a 20,000 task schedule means a world of difference to a guy who has to edit a schedule (and re-calculate it) several times a day.
Network speeds assume we are talking about an enterprise based system. The survey encompasses single station titles / options as well.
I think you have missed out on functionality issues which are very important:
I agree with Ron’s comments.
I find the software survey hard to fill out as I am looking for more physical issues. Some of the questions like Time Scheduling, Calendar Scheduling and Critical Chain and the questions under Critical Chain impossible to answer as the questions are too vague to me. I have read the Critical Chain book by Eliyahu M Goldratt recently.
We’re just looking for an opinion. How else can we word the survey to clarify that we are soliciting an opinion of the software’s implementation of each line item?
Do not forget that you are running a survey here, not a test to see what software is better. A survey is based upon opinions, not necessarily facts. We shouldnt make survey takers research in their manuals to see if the product does this or that.
How easy is it to use? Does it do what you need it to do? How do you like the features? These are survey questions, not Does it use retained logic?
Please find some interesting text from an email on the survey subject (should these points be addressed by us, and/or pasted into a reply to one of the public topics?) below for your information and comment...
1. You may wish to consider adding the following packages:
2. The question of Primary Industry : is difficult for me to answer as I train and consult in all industries, maybe a training/consulting industry could be considered, or the option to select more than on industry.
3. Why do you have P3 + Teamplay as a package. P3 is listed and Teamplay is listed, I think this line is not needed, they are two totally different packages.
4. I think you could combine MSP 2000/2002 & 2003 as one line, I do not think there is a lot of and leave MSP 98 as a second package.
5. I am not too sure about the No Answer, I think you need a None when the software does not have the function and a Dont Know and maybe a No Answer for those uncommitted people.
6. Many people do not know the difference between ADM and PDM, a little guidance is needed here.
7. I am not to sure about the importance of scheduling speed, these days the network affects the speed more than the software.
8. I think you have missed out on functionality issues which are very important:
Does it support retained logic/progress override,
May logic lines be formatted,
Can bars be necked
Can % Complete and Remaining Duration be unlinked.
One or two constraints per task
Multiple relationships between 2 tasks
Longest Path
Levelling, Splitting, Crunching & Stretching
What databases will it operate on,
Ease of printing
Web reports
Number of WBS dictionaries
Number of Activity Codes
Number of Activity IDs
How does it handle Targets and how many
Are there Roles and Resources
How many cost types, cost accounts and expense types.
Does it have timesheeting
Hammocks and LOE activities
9. I think the survey is a great idea but there are two issues here, one is what can the software do and secondly how well can it do it. I think the survey covers the second well but does not address the first issue, what the software can do, which I feel is very important. Maybe a tabular type format is required.
10. I find the software survey hard to fill out as I am looking for more physical issues. Some of the questions like Time Scheduling, Calendar Scheduling and Critical Chain and the questions under Critical Chain impossible to answer as the questions are too vague to me. I have read the Critical Chain book by Eliyahu M Goldratt recently.
5. Bernard’s “Role Specification” – I am sorry, I don’t understand the question.
Currently, the survey asks for the participant’s primary industry and years of experience. Both items will offer vendors some excellent insight into who is using their software and the way it is perceived across industries (if we allow sorting options on displaying the results).
I am proposing to add another item to capture the participants role:
Owner - Financier of the project - a refinery, government, facility owner, etc.
Contractor/consultant - Implementer of the project or project controls
vendor/affiliate - Sells software
The PP currently has a mix of all of the above in its membership. Some consultants are also affiliates (selling software). I think the vendor relationship should be highlighted to allow filtering out possible bias in the results.
IOW, wouldn’t Microsoft like to know if 10% of all respondants to their MS Project survey were Primavera affiliates?
7. Definitive list
Good luck! Here is a list of Windows based software (missing a few items that I need to add, but mostly complete):
If it is easy to add new titles to the list, I would run with what you have and add new titles as members suggest them.
open up the survey to members for testing
Sounds good to me. Just make it clear to the membership that this is a test drive and the results will be erased. Otherwise, I can see people spending time to complete several surveys and getting upset that they will need to do it again.
Does anyone have any major objections to us opening up this
Survey Page to the people on the PP website for testing and comment purposes.
We could open it up for a week and then clear out the test answers and run it for real. Subject to incorporating any further comments / requirements of course.
1. Set the form default to “No Answer” ( i.e. the old N/A ) and move the “No Answer” to the first column.
2. “Time Scheduling” – the description will be changed to “Time Scheduling (scheduling using the calendar)”
3. Bernard’s “Software Versions” – to account for all software versions. My solution is to add an input box to allow the user to place a version number if he/she wishes. Then we can choose to include, compare, or ignore the version number when we work out how to review and present the results.
4. IMHO the simplest thing is NOT to spend time with approaching Software Vendors for Input.
5. Bernard’s “Role Specification” – I am sorry, I don’t understand the question.
6. Column labels in “Experience” filed have been corrected. That was an Excel format error.
7. Before we go live, can someone "in the know", post a definitive list of software packages assuming that versions will be dealt with by the aforementioned user input box. I assume that P3 and P3e etc, will remain be seperate items in the list.
5. The original intent was to have Calendar Scheduling as a 3rd category under Scheduling (Critical Path, Critical Chain, Calendar), but to solicit answers at that level since there are no sub-items for it as there are for the others. This was proposed to accomodate software that does not offer logic network scheduling, but use some calendar scheduling schema (like Outlook based systems).
1. The default setting for each question should be N/A, not Average. Average is a rating that should be chosen if selected.
2. I aggree that the Labels in the columns in the Experiance Section are mis-labeled (they should have numbers only.)
3. The N/A column should be in the first column position, not the last. The way it is now, N/A rates even higher then 10+ for experiance. I also made a mistake in filling out the survey in later sections by mistakingly selecting the N/A column when I though that I was signifing, Excelent.
4. I dont like the title of N/A. First, not everyone taking your survey will know what it means. Second, It should also include the responses for I Dont Know.
How well does Lotus Notes integrate with my software? I Dont Know. I dont have Lotus Notes, have never tried to integrate it into my software. Which answer do I now pick?
5. "Time Scheduling" and "Calendar Scheduling". What are these terms supposed to mean? I dont understand the question.
6. I think that the duplicate questions for the inter-project section made the entire survey too long. How about just rating the various sub-section titles instead of each question in this section?
All in all, the current survey represents a very strong start to this project. It should produce some good results.
Ron Winter.
Member for
22 years 11 months
Member for22 years11 months
Submitted by Bernard Ertl on Tue, 2003-12-02 11:58
I would like to see the addition of a role specification for the user background in addition to the primary industry and years of experience. Vendors will be interested to see how their products are perceived by owners versus consultants. It would also be good to be able to filter out vendors/affiliates from the results.
The survey lists do not provide enough version specific info. For instance, Welcom Open Plan - they recently rolled out version 3.0 which is a significant update over 2.6. I expect that many members have used 2.6, but less have much experience with 3.0. Similar situations occur with the other listed titles.
The column headers for the personal experience section at the top of the survey is confusing to me. Why are there month names listed?
I think that if you are willing to take suggestions from vendors and possibly amend the survey, it will be better to do it now than later.
The survey scripts are now ’complete’ and available for testing etc. You can run them from this page. We intend to drive this link from the Voting link above once you are happy with it.
The results pages are still in a poor shape but these will not be needed for a while - at least until we have a reasonable number of surveys completed (well that’s my excuse!).
Do we need to show these questions to the software suppliers and offer them a week or so to comment?
Let us know your thoughts on the above script and the way forward.
Thanks.
Member for
22 years 11 months
Member for22 years11 months
Submitted by Bernard Ertl on Tue, 2003-11-18 10:27
The original description of the grid display was in the Mechanics thread.
I envisioned something like this: Survey Question/Item MS Project 98 P3 Open Plan Ease of Use - Software 4.2 3.5 3.8 Navigavility 4.5 3.8 4.1 Control 3.7 2.8 3.3
I suggested that some icons could be used to represent ranges for the average survey result for any item. Something like Circles that are shaded in in a percentage proportional to the average result within the 0-5 range. A graphic representation instead of actual numbers will make the grid easier visually to scan and see the comparisons between the titles selected.
Note that the numbers for the section headings should be averages of the responses within the section (sort of a summary for that section).
I’m assuming there will be a preceding step where a software title will be chosen from the available list. It looks very good to me so far. I especially like the comments next the fields in parenthesis to clarify the items.
I saw two items that contained spelling errors:
Data re-use (templaces / database / etc.) :
and the last item in Section 4.
I think once the missing items are added, it is ready for testing!
Survey Questions - Appologies for deadlines slipping. We have got the planning software survey page into a reasonable shape. The questions are (we hope) as per the current thinking. They are stored in a data-table so any other surveys, or voting Q&A can easily be implmented, by simply creating a table full of questions.
We have yet to add a user-input box to store comments and a wish-list for that package.
Then the above page will be tested etc. Then we will populate the data-table that holds the planning packages to be reviewed. Then we can let it commence?
Results - We have to think about how the results are shown. We can have a simple results page to show the results for each software package. In addition, and this has been talked about before, careful comparrisons can be made by using a matrix but it does not seem to be an easy thing to display (from a display point of view, not web scripting) - any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
1. You may wish to consider adding the following packages:
Great. The plan all along was to add titles as suggested, wasn’t it?
The question of Primary Industry : is difficult for me to answer as I train and consult in all industries, maybe a training/consulting industry could be considered, or the option to select more than on industry.
I agree that a non-specific category should be added for industry independent folks.
I think you could combine MSP 2000/2002 & 2003 as one line, I do not think there is a lot of and leave MSP 98 as a second package.
I think Microsoft would be interested in separating the feedback on their distinct titles. I know I would if I were them.
I am not too sure about the No Answer, I think you need a None when the software does not have the function and a Don’t Know and maybe a No Answer for those uncommitted people.
I think No Answer adresses all three scenarios adequately. I don’t see a compelling reason to make this suggested change.
Many people do not know the difference between ADM and PDM, a little guidance is needed here.
I would think/hope that most PP members know the difference!
I am not to sure about the importance of scheduling speed, these days the network affects the speed more than the software.
Scheduling speed is of importance to planners who work with the software day in and day out. Whether it takes 1 second or ten minutes to crunch a 20,000 task schedule means a world of difference to a guy who has to edit a schedule (and re-calculate it) several times a day.
Network speeds assume we are talking about an enterprise based system. The survey encompasses single station titles / options as well.
I think you have missed out on functionality issues which are very important:
I agree with Ron’s comments.
I find the software survey hard to fill out as I am looking for more physical issues. Some of the questions like Time Scheduling, Calendar Scheduling and Critical Chain and the questions under Critical Chain impossible to answer as the questions are too vague to me. I have read the Critical Chain book by Eliyahu M Goldratt recently.
We’re just looking for an opinion. How else can we word the survey to clarify that we are soliciting an opinion of the software’s implementation of each line item?
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
22 years 10 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Do not forget that you are running a survey here, not a test to see what software is better. A survey is based upon opinions, not necessarily facts. We shouldnt make survey takers research in their manuals to see if the product does this or that.
How easy is it to use? Does it do what you need it to do? How do you like the features? These are survey questions, not Does it use retained logic?
Member for
16 years 9 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Hi there,
Please find some interesting text from an email on the survey subject (should these points be addressed by us, and/or pasted into a reply to one of the public topics?) below for your information and comment...
1. You may wish to consider adding the following packages:
SureTrak www.primavera.com
Meridian Project Systems Prolog Scheduler www.mps.com/products/PS/index.asp
MicroPlanner Expert www.mpi.com
PowerProject Teamplan www.astadev.com
Dekker Trakker www.dtrakker.com
Project Scheduler 8 www.sciforma.com
2. The question of Primary Industry : is difficult for me to answer as I train and consult in all industries, maybe a training/consulting industry could be considered, or the option to select more than on industry.
3. Why do you have P3 + Teamplay as a package. P3 is listed and Teamplay is listed, I think this line is not needed, they are two totally different packages.
4. I think you could combine MSP 2000/2002 & 2003 as one line, I do not think there is a lot of and leave MSP 98 as a second package.
5. I am not too sure about the No Answer, I think you need a None when the software does not have the function and a Dont Know and maybe a No Answer for those uncommitted people.
6. Many people do not know the difference between ADM and PDM, a little guidance is needed here.
7. I am not to sure about the importance of scheduling speed, these days the network affects the speed more than the software.
8. I think you have missed out on functionality issues which are very important:
Does it support retained logic/progress override,
May logic lines be formatted,
Can bars be necked
Can % Complete and Remaining Duration be unlinked.
One or two constraints per task
Multiple relationships between 2 tasks
Longest Path
Levelling, Splitting, Crunching & Stretching
What databases will it operate on,
Ease of printing
Web reports
Number of WBS dictionaries
Number of Activity Codes
Number of Activity IDs
How does it handle Targets and how many
Are there Roles and Resources
How many cost types, cost accounts and expense types.
Does it have timesheeting
Hammocks and LOE activities
9. I think the survey is a great idea but there are two issues here, one is what can the software do and secondly how well can it do it. I think the survey covers the second well but does not address the first issue, what the software can do, which I feel is very important. Maybe a tabular type format is required.
10. I find the software survey hard to fill out as I am looking for more physical issues. Some of the questions like Time Scheduling, Calendar Scheduling and Critical Chain and the questions under Critical Chain impossible to answer as the questions are too vague to me. I have read the Critical Chain book by Eliyahu M Goldratt recently.
Regards
Paul E Harris
BSc Hons, Certified Cost Engineer, PRINCE2 Practitioner
Director Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd
www.eh.com.au
Project Control Consultants and
Planning and scheduling software book publishers
Tel +61 (0)4 1118 7701
Fax: +61 (0)3 9846 7700
Guys, the PP email sever has 14,800 emails to sift through, I hope we can address the above at some juncture?
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Happy New Year everyone!
We did not get much public feedback on the survey. Did anyone respond directly via e-mail? Is it time to wipe the database and start the survey live?
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
16 years 9 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Thanks, have made the changes.
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Im still seeing month descriptions in the headings for the Personal Experience row. It should be numbers only.
At the bottom of the survey, it should read "Improved my Companys Profitability".
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
16 years 9 monthsRE: Planning Survey
We have made the survey test live
See the following thread...What do you think ?
Feel free to edit the post to make things clearer if you think it needs more expanation.
Happy Christmas.
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
5. Bernard’s “Role Specification” – I am sorry, I don’t understand the question.
Currently, the survey asks for the participant’s primary industry and years of experience. Both items will offer vendors some excellent insight into who is using their software and the way it is perceived across industries (if we allow sorting options on displaying the results).
I am proposing to add another item to capture the participants role:
The PP currently has a mix of all of the above in its membership. Some consultants are also affiliates (selling software). I think the vendor relationship should be highlighted to allow filtering out possible bias in the results.
IOW, wouldn’t Microsoft like to know if 10% of all respondants to their MS Project survey were Primavera affiliates?
7. Definitive list
Good luck! Here is a list of Windows based software (missing a few items that I need to add, but mostly complete):
Project Management Software Directory
and here is a list of Web based software:
www.web-based-software.com
If it is easy to add new titles to the list, I would run with what you have and add new titles as members suggest them.
open up the survey to members for testing
Sounds good to me. Just make it clear to the membership that this is a test drive and the results will be erased. Otherwise, I can see people spending time to complete several surveys and getting upset that they will need to do it again.
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
16 years 9 monthsRE: Planning Survey
UPDATE:
Hi there, we have made the changes shown below.
Does anyone have any major objections to us opening up this
Survey Page to the people on the PP website for testing and comment purposes.
We could open it up for a week and then clear out the test answers and run it for real. Subject to incorporating any further comments / requirements of course.
Any comments team?
Member for
16 years 9 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Hi Guys,
Thanks for the feedback.
Actions:
1. Set the form default to “No Answer” ( i.e. the old N/A ) and move the “No Answer” to the first column.
2. “Time Scheduling” – the description will be changed to “Time Scheduling (scheduling using the calendar)”
3. Bernard’s “Software Versions” – to account for all software versions. My solution is to add an input box to allow the user to place a version number if he/she wishes. Then we can choose to include, compare, or ignore the version number when we work out how to review and present the results.
4. IMHO the simplest thing is NOT to spend time with approaching Software Vendors for Input.
5. Bernard’s “Role Specification” – I am sorry, I don’t understand the question.
6. Column labels in “Experience” filed have been corrected. That was an Excel format error.
7. Before we go live, can someone "in the know", post a definitive list of software packages assuming that versions will be dealt with by the aforementioned user input box. I assume that P3 and P3e etc, will remain be seperate items in the list.
Thanks Team.
Member for
24 years 4 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Guys,
Agree 1 to 4.
5. Duh ... forgive me.
6. On the duplicates, I dont think it makes it too long (especially if default is "No Answer" - if you use it, rate it, if not, you are finished).
On the whole, very good job done by the PP team. Well done !
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Ron, with respect to your comments:
1. I agree.
3. I agree.
4. How about replacing "N/A" with "No Answer"?
5. The original intent was to have Calendar Scheduling as a 3rd category under Scheduling (Critical Path, Critical Chain, Calendar), but to solicit answers at that level since there are no sub-items for it as there are for the others. This was proposed to accomodate software that does not offer logic network scheduling, but use some calendar scheduling schema (like Outlook based systems).
6. Good idea. I agree.
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
22 years 10 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Here is my thoughts,
1. The default setting for each question should be N/A, not Average. Average is a rating that should be chosen if selected.
2. I aggree that the Labels in the columns in the Experiance Section are mis-labeled (they should have numbers only.)
3. The N/A column should be in the first column position, not the last. The way it is now, N/A rates even higher then 10+ for experiance. I also made a mistake in filling out the survey in later sections by mistakingly selecting the N/A column when I though that I was signifing, Excelent.
4. I dont like the title of N/A. First, not everyone taking your survey will know what it means. Second, It should also include the responses for I Dont Know.
How well does Lotus Notes integrate with my software? I Dont Know. I dont have Lotus Notes, have never tried to integrate it into my software. Which answer do I now pick?
5. "Time Scheduling" and "Calendar Scheduling". What are these terms supposed to mean? I dont understand the question.
6. I think that the duplicate questions for the inter-project section made the entire survey too long. How about just rating the various sub-section titles instead of each question in this section?
All in all, the current survey represents a very strong start to this project. It should produce some good results.
Ron Winter.
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
My thoughts:
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
16 years 9 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Hi there!
The survey scripts are now ’complete’ and available for testing etc. You can run them from this page. We intend to drive this link from the Voting link above once you are happy with it.
Link is Main Survey Page
The results pages are still in a poor shape but these will not be needed for a while - at least until we have a reasonable number of surveys completed (well that’s my excuse!).
Do we need to show these questions to the software suppliers and offer them a week or so to comment?
Let us know your thoughts on the above script and the way forward.
Thanks.
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
The search function rocks.
The original description of the grid display was in the Mechanics thread.
I envisioned something like this: Survey Question/Item MS Project 98 P3 Open Plan Ease of Use - Software 4.2 3.5 3.8 Navigavility 4.5 3.8 4.1 Control 3.7 2.8 3.3
I suggested that some icons could be used to represent ranges for the average survey result for any item. Something like Circles that are shaded in in a percentage proportional to the average result within the 0-5 range. A graphic representation instead of actual numbers will make the grid easier visually to scan and see the comparisons between the titles selected.
Note that the numbers for the section headings should be averages of the responses within the section (sort of a summary for that section).
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
22 years 11 monthsRE: Planning Survey
I’m assuming there will be a preceding step where a software title will be chosen from the available list. It looks very good to me so far. I especially like the comments next the fields in parenthesis to clarify the items.
I saw two items that contained spelling errors:
Data re-use (templaces / database / etc.) :
and the last item in Section 4.
I think once the missing items are added, it is ready for testing!
Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems Inc. - Project Management Software, Project Planning Software
Member for
16 years 9 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Hi Guys,
Survey Questions - Appologies for deadlines slipping. We have got the planning software survey page into a reasonable shape. The questions are (we hope) as per the current thinking. They are stored in a data-table so any other surveys, or voting Q&A can easily be implmented, by simply creating a table full of questions.
Test Survey
We have yet to add a user-input box to store comments and a wish-list for that package.
Then the above page will be tested etc. Then we will populate the data-table that holds the planning packages to be reviewed. Then we can let it commence?
Results - We have to think about how the results are shown. We can have a simple results page to show the results for each software package. In addition, and this has been talked about before, careful comparrisons can be made by using a matrix but it does not seem to be an easy thing to display (from a display point of view, not web scripting) - any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Member for
24 years 4 monthsRE: Planning Survey
Bernard, I will do so by the end of the week (Hmmm... should I make rash promises ?) and will email it to you so you can post it.
Will add a post to the thread saying its closed for comment and is now being edited.
Mark