|
Project management software tools were originally conceived for use by a small number of people working on large independent projects. However, many businesses are in need of project management systems that can: a) be accessed by a greater number of people and; b) are capable of managing numerous parallel projects. One of the most significant challenges facing project managers is communication: collecting data from team members, informing team members of information important to them, keeping management, the client, the owners and end-users up-to-date on various aspects of the project. Client selection of project management software tends to focus on five main criteria:
|
According to an article recently published by Computing Canada there are an estimated 40 million people world-wide that use Microsoft Excel as their project management software. As a percentage of the total number of dedicated project management applications sold, this makes Excel the most popular project management product on the market today. This fact highlights the gap between the functionality of existing project management software and the actual needs of the project management software market. Excel is essentially a repository for data, which users manipulate in order to design their own systems. Use of such cobbled together in-house systems are still extremely common in the industry.