MrProject Features/Target Market

I thought it might be useful for me to add a few 
comments re:Features and Target Market.

First, since this is my first post to the group, 
I should offer a few words about my background. 
It is not my wish to offer an extensive 
description - only to allow others to know a bit 
about me.

I am an American working in the Project 
Management field for more than 20 years. I've 
worked in numerous industries, including 
petrochemical and refinery projects (design and 
construction), nuclear power generation 
(construction and operations), US government 
projects that demand C/SCSC (Cost/Schedule 
Control System Criteria) - and more recently in 
product development firms (Lucent Technologies 
and Agilent) and for software organizations 
(Hewlett-Packard and J.D. Edwards).

I've been awarded professional certifications 
from Project Management Institute and from AACE 
International (Association for Advancement of 
Cost Engineering).

I've also had the privilege of living and working 
in many different countries, including Taiwan, 
Germany and Ukraine.

Now, I have some pretty strong feelings about the 
direction and feature-set that should be 
incorporated.

Not so many years ago, there existed numerous 
software tools that were vastly more powerful 
than even the most capable contemporary tools 
today. Those tools ran on the mainframe and they 
did an incredibly good job of baselining and 
tracking the time, resources, and cost dimensions 
of large projects of great complexity - and of 
multiple small projects. The names of those tools 
were MSCS/COPES (Management Scheduling and 
Control System by McDonnell Douglas), Project/2 
by Project Software Development Inc., CIPREC by 
IBM, PREMIS/PICOM by ???, PMS-4 by IBM was 
probably the first of the truly powerful systems.

My reason for introducing all this is to suggest 
that there are many, many PM practitioners such 
as myself, who recall the power and flexibility 
offered by these old tools. A return to the 
capability would be met with a chorus of cheers.

This is particularly true as you examine the 
current state of PM software today. It is 
dominated by two key programs. Primavera Project 
Planner (P3) at the high-end (industrial 
strength, if you like) and MS Project at the low 
end.

Having said that, it is worth noting that MS is 
mounting a very serious campaign to dislodge 
Primavera from its perch at the upper-end of the 
spectrum of PM software with the latest release 
of MS Project 2002. Microsoft have also altered 
their focus considerably with the Project suite 
of tools and are now aiming at a groupware 
concept in which Project acts as a centerpiece 
for control and management of groups of people 
working on projects of various sizes.

Please pardon me if I am covering old ground for 
the readers, but for about a month or two that I 
have been reading the digest, I have seen nothing 
about these topics - till now.

On to a few specifics:

Re: Target Audience. I did not see any mention of 
the possibility of pursuing the large 
Engineering/Construction companies - nor of 
government use for their major 
acquisition/development projects/programs.

This surprised me since I see Linux as being a 
much more robust and 'industrial-strength' OS 
than any of the MS OS's, hence, I would have 
expected that one of our objectives would be to 
capture those organizations who; (a) have the 
money to pay for robust and mission-critical 
systems; and (b) wish to have a more capable tool 
that currently offered by MS Project and at a 
value point that is more attractive.

It seems the current view is more toward the 
lower-end user that places less demand on the 
system.

Re: Single-User system. I noticed the comment 
that MS Project is a single user system. Well - 
yes and no - but that really is not the issue 
here.

I think the real question is; "Are we developing 
a product for the person that is to be a 
dedicated Professional Scheduler and uses this 
tool on a day-to-day basis - OR - are we 
developing a tool that follows the *original* MS 
Project paradigm and is so simple to use that a 
casual Project Manager can use the tool on 
occasion?" The answer to this questions weighs 
heavily on development priority. It seems the 
present direction is toward the latter - but I 
wonder if that is the wisest course of action?!?

Re: Task Duration(s). I noted that we are 
planning to allow 3 types of durations for an 
individual task - pessimistic, assumed, and 
optimistic. This is a network model that reflects 
PERT as opposed to CPM. I wonder why it is that 
we chose this approach?

You see, PERT is, by its nature, MUCH more 
complex - both from a system User perspective - 
and from the perspective of those who will 
receive the outputs. It is a probabilistic model, 
and as such, it offers useful information on 
projects in which there is VERY large variability 
with durations - but at the cost of being MUCH 
more complex. 

CPM (Critical Path Method), on the other hand, is 
deterministic and makes use of only a single 
estimated duration for each task. It requires 
only a single azimuth throughout the network 
rather than PERT's three azimuths.

For every type of project I have ever been 
associated with, CPM offered a much more 
practical and useful output than did PERT. I 
suggest you reconsider this direction.

Re: User needs. With both P3 and MS Project, the 
major shortcoming is in the resource management 
and cost management capabilities. Primavera 
Corporation attempted to supplement P3 with 
another tool for cost management, but failed - 
and MS Project suggests the use of another MS 
product (Excel and/or Access and/or SQL-Server) 
to meet the needs of their customers - but these 
applications are all custom.

It would seem a clear opportunity to study some 
of the complaints of users, and then build 
MrProject so that it fills those voids. I expect 
the obvious areas for development will be in the 
resource management and cost management areas.

That's all for now. I hope these comments are 
constructive and useful. Please let me know if I 
need to elaborate further or address any 
questions.

Best Regards,

- Dan H. Cooprider, CCC, PMP