Project management is the process of planning, organizing and executing a project with the goal of maximizing the available resources and completing the project within a given period. The focus is to keep track of the schedule, available resources and manpower for a project, and to make sure everyone involved is kept abreast of developments. While planning and tracking project development can be done with pen and paper, it can be made faster and easier with the use of computer software.
Project management generally has these stages: project initiation stage, project planning or design stage, project execution stage, project monitoring and controlling systems, and project completion. Most of the time, during project execution, there are changes made in the plan, so the flowchart forms a loop until the project is completed. The original plan is usually just a guide but is dynamic. That is the reason why for large-scale projects that involve multiple sub-activities, project management software is very useful.
Project scheduling and assigning these to members of the project team is the most important input in the software tool. If one event depends on the completion of another activity, these should be linked so that if any adjustment is made to a previous activity, the rest of the tasks are adjusted accordingly. Any delay in the completion of the project will be seen way ahead since the software will display an adjusted calendar, which will serve as a warning for the project team. The team can then go through another planning session and input adjustments to schedule, manpower and resources, and come up with an optimized schedule with the help of the software. Project costing can also be processed by a project management software, providing the optimum allocation of resources to come up with the least cost given a certain schedule and manpower requirements.
While adjustments are made, the original plan and actual developments have separate records for later evaluation.
There are several project management software packages available, which have different levels of complexity depending on the project methodology. The simplest software available is the Microsoft Project used in Windows. It comes up with a project schedule in the form of a Gantt Chart. Templates are used so it is very user friendly and the project manager can analyze the output very easily.
Project management software can be implemented in several ways depending on the number of users that need to access the information it provides. For companies that have a few project team members, a desktop application can be used. However, in this case, any adjustment done on one computer will not reflect on the others so there needs to be proper coordination among the users. The advantage of a desktop application is that the user can readily access it.
Project management tools can also be web based, such that several users can access it at the same time through a web browser. However, information may not be available if there are problems with the computer network, or the server is offline.
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