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Even in the Project Server edition, collaboration is limited to using Microsoft tools. There is no easy way to view tasks that not progressing as per plan. The manager can run a report to find the tasks that have missed their deadline, but that’s too late. It is impossible for managers to figure out the state of their project or milestones looking at the Gantt chart. Other than visually separating out completed tasks, there is no way to identify tasks that are past their deadline or tasks that are slipping. Even Project Server has minimal notification options. Unfortunately, this is not possible with this desktop-based tool. Today, with so many things going on, it is crucial to be reminded of important events, e.g., tasks that have missed their deadlines, tasks that do not start because predecessors are still incomplete, tasks that are lagging, etc. Unfortunately, many tools even today, including the one we build, have relied on the % complete way of reporting because it’s a lousy habit nobody is willing to let go. In a study we conducted, we found that most resources never fill the intermediate % done. Instead of asking the resource for the remaining hours and the system calculating the percent complete, it wants the user to figure the % complete. Let’s take an example – if you were allocated 30 hours of work, and you have spent 25 hours but still have 10 hours of work left, what is the % complete? Not easy, right? Resources find great difficulty in reporting the ‘% complete’ for a task. The ration of the allocations will determine the effort assigned to each resource. This % is not the proportion of the work, but the time they will work per day on the task. In Microsoft Project, you have to enter the total effort and allocate resources in %. You do not allocate resources in this way in Microsoft Project. For example, it is natural for a manager to allocate Joe to work 20 hours while assigning Mark 10 hours on the same task. When multiple resources work on a task, the natural way to think about it is to give each resource individual work. It would be great if a stakeholder could click a button on a task to see who changed the date and when. Yes, they have baselines, but with the scope being so fluid nowadays, things are never that simple as to take a Baseline after each change. This makes it difficult for stakeholders to believe the plan. Managers can change task dates without leaving a trace. Many are left scratching their heads or wasting time in Microsoft Project forums.įor users who have an analytical bent of mind and have been trained well, it may work, but the rest are focussed on getting their job done and not learning another tool. “Everybody is happy,” they say.Īlso, there is also no help provided to the user in understanding why a task date starts or finishes on that date.

Many users I know use the “manual scheduling” feature and use Microsoft Project to generate pretty Gantt charts. They try to change one field, and something else gets broken. Some managers try to wield its power but a week later find themselves getting confused as to why the task’s dates are so and so.

Many concepts don’t resonate with the real-world observation and seem artificial. They are still confused whether to add a constraint, or whether to add a dependency with lead time, or whether to make a task manually scheduled.
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Even after rigorous training, users do not know how to use the flexibility correctly.

There are too many concepts that are practically impossible to master. Scheduling in Microsoft Project is powerful but painfully complicated.
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Plus the licensing is extraordinarily complex and difficult to understand. Yes, we have the Microsoft Project Server option, but it is expensive to set up and maintain. It also means that the “anytime, anywhere access” idiom that we have taken for granted is not correct.
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Today, when Microsoft Windows is not ubiquitous anymore, this is severely limiting.
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It doesn’t work on mobile phones, tables, macOS or Mac OS X devices. Microsoft Project works only on Microsoft Windows. A Desktop Solution – no anytime, anywhere access Even if you have decided on using Microsoft Project because you already have it installed on your computer, you should read this to understand what you are missing. In this article, we shall look at a few of the significant problems with MS Project. They do a whole lot more, are easy to use and inexpensive. There are a lot of better alternatives to Microsoft Project today.

Today, it has become the defacto standard with 66% of the market share and millions of users. With an Excel-like interface and WYSIWYG Gantt charts, it quickly rose to prominence.
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Launched in 1986, Microsoft Project was one of the first project management software to be made available to the common public.
