Too many tools
I’ve been researching online project management tools for about 4 years — ever since I started looking for an alternative to MS Project when teaching scheduling in my Project Management class at the Marlboro College Graduate School. For years, there was nothing. But all of a sudden, the market has EXPLODED. Take a look at this list over at wikipedia: it shows dozens of products and more are added every day.
I used the online scheduling tool LiquidPlanner in my Project Management course this year, and it was a fabulous tool for teaching time management. Its differentiator is the fact that you can use “ranged estimation.” This means that instead of arbitrarily picking a single moment in time when you believe a task will be complete, you select a range of dates that make sense given the information you have about your project. If there is more uncertainty, there is a bigger range. From beginning to end, this helps the project manager to more accurately represent the state of the project to both the team and the sponsor. Since my teaching is based on the work of Steve McConnell and his “Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art” book, having a tool that supports ranged estimation meets a critical teaching requirement.
I’d love to have the time to review all of the other online project management tools out there! Maybe someday.
