It is not about collaboration, but about managing your budget. I am using a method similar to Liquid Planner by combining PERT and EVM for the calculation. So it might be seen as some small addition to the landscape of Project Management Tools.

I have no financial interest, but I would like to find out how to proceed. So if there is anybody out with ideas or wants to share his opinion, please don’t hesitate to contact me or to post a comment here.

Thanks,
Christian: http://www.project-tracking.org (pmsfriend@googlemail.com)

IMHO, your solution is good for a brainstorming meeting. How would you track and update a task using your scenario, even when it comes to small projects?

I work in a technical environment, and too often, because we’re technologists, the business tries to get tools to solve their process problems for them. Tools only facilitate process, they can’t replace process.

PM professionals sometimes fall into the same trap: trying to get tools to almost do the project management for us. I’m convinced that no tool can replace good process, but even a average-level tool, or set of tools, can provide decent support for a good process.

While I’m sure we can do better in the PM tool space, I’m almost convinced that we’ll never see “an ideal PM tool.” Instead, if we do PM well, we can find well-matched tools to support those processes and practices, and suddenly, those pre-existing tools will feel like the perfect tool.

I am reviewing PM tools now to see if there is one I like. Most have great “looks” - but are very thin on features.

And the thing that truly amazes me is that ALL the ‘new’ PM tools continue the MS Project / Primavera style of editing the project via a Gantt chart - and only providing a precedence network. So often I see the remark that “the activity-on-node” is easier to understand. I absolutely do not agree with that. Rather, I think that most people are comfortable with it simply because (courtesy of Microsoft and Primavera) they have never used an arrow-on-node network and so they know no better.

I find that maintaining a project via the network diagram is unquestionably the most intuitive method.

PM Hut is not lobbying for any solution at all, PM Hut has always been neutral, and never ever publishes articles that are even slightly promotional to any PM tool, person, product, website, etc… The article does not name any tool specifically, nor implies it in any way. The bio section links to the author’s website (which is a PM tool), and his blog (which is a link to the blog about his tool).

As for the comments with links to other Project Management solutions, PM Hut does receive a lot of these, but just chooses not to publish most of them, since most of them claim to be people using a certain tool, and praising that tool (their name, of course, links back to the tool), while in fact they’re just employees (and in the case of smaller the solutions the owners) of the company producing that certain tool.

Thanks for the feedback and I hope I was able to clarify PM Hut’s stance concerning neutrality.

Most of them are bad and with a catch, including the program you are lobbying for, sorry but a good and neutral blog with have a tons of replies with links to other solutions.

We also used PPM as the principal system of record for IT Management of all our intake (projects as well as enhancements and production support requests). In that sense, it was a total information system that enabled us to take control over the broad work load of the division.

I now work with a company that uses Primavera and it isn’t as robust nor is the company utilizing the tool to its’ maximum potential. Would love to bring PPM in here as I could see big opportunities for improvement with that solution.

Take care -