ADDITIONAL RESOURCES


Choosing Project Management Software Systems

by Peter Luke of PMA Consultants



Introduction
The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide is an internationally recognized standard that provides fundamental guidelines for project management as applied to a wide range of projects, in virtually any industry. The PMBOK has evolved through many years of collaborative development by members of the Project Management Institute, and enumerates the processes that make up the discipline of project management. These processes overlap and interact throughout a project or its various phases. The processes are described in terms of: inputs (documents, plans, designs, etc.), tools and techniques (procedures applied to inputs), and outputs (documents, products, etc.). The Guide recognizes 44 processes that fall into five principal process groups and nine knowledge areas that characterize most projects. The five process groups are: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Monitoring, and Closing. The nine project management knowledge areas are:

• Integration Management • Project Scope Management
• Time Management • Project Cost Management
• Quality Management • Human Resource Management
• Communications Management             • Risk Management
• Procurement Management  

A plethora of vendors have developed thousands of commercial construction software tools that address one or more of these processes with varying degrees of effectiveness. Finding, evaluating, and selecting construction software systems that are appropriate for your business can be a daunting task. This article will suggest guidelines for selecting tools that can make your firm's project management endeavors easier.

Software Selection

Independently, software can do nothing; simply installing construction project management software cannot solve underlying management problems or fix bad processes. What software can do is encapsulate best management practices, guide users through appropriate procedures, and efficiently store data and perform calculations and comparisons that can assist users in the analysis of their business processes. In order to achieve the best value from project management systems, supporting software must be selected that effectively models the business processes that are to be automated. The following guidelines will help choose software tools that best fit your needs.

Describe the Organization

Who are we, and what do we do? Project management organizations vary in size, cash flow, focus, business practices, and process maturity. Private sector firms are likely centered on profitability, where public sector entities focus on benefit to their constituents; an engineering firm specializes in producing design documents, where a contractor aims to complete construction; large firms may have multiple, concurrent projects, where a small firm can concentrate on one project at a time. Software should be selected that addresses the size, shape, complexity, and sophistication of the business processes to be automated. Care should be taken to look for software solutions that do not vary too significantly from current successful practices; large jumps in process sophistication are likely to fail. On the other hand, as Albert Einstein observed, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Successful software selection is a balance of familiarity and improvement, and is best taken in small bites.

Model Business Processes

How do we do business? The discipline of project management has evolved from industry's need to mitigate risk. Project management software can help businesses to reduce risk by focusing management's attention toward those areas that can contribute to potential project failure. In order to effectively address risk, each existing business process should be evaluated to ascertain its effectiveness, accuracy, and likelihood of poor performance. Those processes that most contribute to an organization's risk of failure should be the first candidates for improvement, and possible automation. If, for example, a firm seldom runs over budget, but often fails to complete projects on time, their scheduling practices are a likely place for enhancement. Similarly, a public sector organization that out-sources design and construction tasks does not need software to produce detailed cost estimates and schedules.

Identify Software Tools

What's available to meet our needs? Once desired improvements have been identified, a search for applicable software tools should be conducted. The best sources of reliable information include cognizant professional associations and peer organizations. Meeting with others who have already addressed similar problems can focus attention on solutions that work and help to avoid those that don't.

Establish Selection Criteria

What do we really want? From the myriad of features available in each of the construction management software applications that promise to meet your needs, identify those that specifically address your business practices. Evaluate purchase and maintenance cost, data volume, processing time, ease of use, similarity with your current business practices, etc. Also consider support requirements, including hardware, training, implementation assistance, and maintenance after the system is installed. If possible, meet with existing users of the software to learn how well it works, and how difficult it was to install and implement. The easiest way to compare software products is to develop a list of required functionality and characteristics, and to score each product either by comparison or by absolute measurement.

Software Implementation

Selecting the software is only the first step in the implementation process. Merely purchasing and installing the software, without a concerted implementation plan is a prescription for disappointment, if not failure.