Friday, January 14, 2005

Tools for PM

Project Management is no less than embarking on an adventure. The adventurers ofcourse would not start without their basic tools like Binoculars (for Vision), A Compass (for Direction) and a Map (for strategy). Many Project Managers, however, struggle to gather any of such useful and essential tools of their trade before they begin. The best tool ever to emerge and widely used is a software for scheduling. I find that some Enterprise Project Management Software seems to be emerging but it is far from adequate and matured enough to be as robust as Binoculars, Compass and Maps have been. The other thing is people using Gantt charts displayed on large boards achieved better visibility and get the teams working on those projects have the time lines etched on their minds. Unfortunately the Gantt Charts prepared using software seems to be ending up on the PMs desktop. Unless they print them out in bold color and large paper and stick them up for everyone to see.