PM Software on trial
We’ve recently been evaluating project management tools to support our development teams, on the basis that Microsoft Project does a good job of planning the schedule but doesn’t support the team in the development process.
1. Microsoft Office Project Server
We initially looked at Microsoft Office Project Server since my employer is a Microsoft Partner. But we found this to be too unwieldy for our project approach and it was cumbersome to maintain particularly the management through multiple WSS sites.
2. Targetprocess
Next we looked at Targetprocess, and whilst this was strong in the area of control and management it was lacking in some areas (i.e. reporting) and the release/iteration functionality was more complex than we need for smaller projects. It also struggled to handle resources spread across multiple projects.
3. Basecamp
As we’ve been working on a project with a partner using Basecamp, we considered using this for all our projects. This was much more intuitive than Targetprocess, but reporting and progress-tracking was limited. Also, the stance of 37signals is such that the functionality is pretty much fixed and we didn’t feel there was the ambition there to develop the product further.
4. TeamworkPM
Almost by chance we discovered TeamworkPM (http://www.teamworkpm.net/ ) whilst this tool comes from the same direction as Basecamp, the product is growing and in some areas it is more powerful. Particularly, Risk management, exporting of reports to PDF and time recording to tasks. The team behind it are working on an API, which should hopefully foster the same opportunities for 3rd part bolt-ons as Basecamp has.
It looks to fit between Targetprocess and Basecamp, so we are very excited that it’ll help us a great deal with:
- Tracking progress through projects and recording billable time
- Providing a central repository for all the documents, notes and discussions that often get lost when relying on email and file systems
- Providing a platform for our clients to engage directly with the project, controllable to a level that we can manage.
If you are interested in finding out more about this visit their website or follow them on twitter ( http://twitter.com/teamworkpm)