Post on 01-Nov-2014
description
Project Management Methods And Tools
1. Project Management Method For OSS Technical
Implementation
To manage and control the OSS implementations in the Public
Sector, Project Management methodologies and tools are highly
recommended.
The objective of this section is to provide an indication of key
functionalities of a tool for the management, tracking and
measurement of OSS project implementation as well as
suggested tools which may serve the said purposes.
We suggest that the following key functionalities/ components
be considered for the OSS project implementation tool(s) for
management, tracking and measurement:
• Project Definition Report
• Project Plan
• Project Control Book
• Roles And Responsibilities
• Progress Tracking And Reporting Process
• Deliverable Management And Acceptance Process
• Issue Management Process
• Action Management Process
• Risk Management
1
• Change Management Process
• Communications Process
• Subcontractor Management Process (Outsourced function)
• Financial Estimates / Business Case
• Assumptions, Dependencies And Constraints
• Success Measurements
• Quality And Assurance
• Closing The Project
• Standards And Conventions
Project Definition Report (PDR)
The PDR is an overview of the project. It sets the project bounds
and establishes what the project will and will not do. It presents
a structured view of the project and its supporting processes
that can be reviewed and approved by management. It also
provides a baseline view of the project against which changes
can be identified, planned, agreed to and managed. As changes
are made, the PDR document should also be updated. The PDR
should be initiated at the start of the project and finalized and
approved as quickly as possible.
The Components of a PDR are:
• Background and summary of the project
• Project objectives
• Project deliverables
• Key Milestones
2
• Key resource requirements
• Assumptions
• Risks
• Constraints
• Interrelated projects (dependencies)
Project Plan
Planning is critical to the success of any project. The purpose of
planning is to:
• Confirm the objectives are feasible;
• Show how the objectives will be achieved;
• Confirm the work products and the bounds of the work;
• Obtain a detailed understanding of the work to be done;
• Define the total effort;
• Specify the resources, skills, and people needed;
• Identify dependencies within or beyond the project;
• Provide a basis for tracking, reporting, and managing
progress; and
• Provide a basis for commitment to the project.
There are many different plans that can be built to represent
one part or one aspect of a project. Examples of plans that
mostly contribute to and support the overall plan are Risk
Mitigation plan, Activity plan or task plan, Resource plan, Test
and integration plan, Operations and support plan.
3
In developing the project plan, the Work Breakdown Structure
(WBS) is key. The Work Breakdown Structure is a product
oriented family tree of hardware, software, services, data and
work tasks that completely define the project. All aspects of the
WBS must be completed for the project to be complete.
It is also a deliverable oriented grouping of project elements to
organise and define the total scope of the project; work not in
the WBS is outside the scope of the project.
Why is one created? It is the dominant prerequisite for
successfully integrating & controlling the total project by
assisting in:
• Completing the schedule;
• Developing the cost estimate;
• Developing the risk management plan;
• Focuses attention on project objectives;
• Clarifies responsibilities;
• Encourages detailed planning and documentation;
• Identifies specific work packages for estimating and
assigning work and
• Helps build the project team.
4
Project Control Book
The Project Control Book (PCB) is a notebook, file, or electronic
equivalent, containing complete project information. It is the
authoritative source for project information including project
deliverables. It is managed by the Project Manager or Project
Control Office (PCO). The Project Control Book consists of
volumes covering the various administrative aspects of the
project. These include:
• Standards and Procedures;
• Organisation and People;
• Planning and Estimating;
• Work Breakdown Structure;
• Progress Tracking;
• Progress Reviewing;
• Progress Reporting;
• Risk Management;
• Change Management;
• Issue Management;
• Action Management;
• Quality Management;
• Correspondence;
• Base Information;
• Finance Management;
• Contract Management;
• Billing and Accounts Payable information and
• Supplier Management.
5
The Project Control Book is updated continuously throughout
the life of the project.
The Project Manager needs to define the standards, conventions
and processes for document control. Some of these points
related to formatting, version standards and conventions, as
well as the rules on who submits documents to the project office
and when they should be submitted needs to be defined and
communicated.
Roles And Responsibilities
A clear understanding of roles and responsibilities on a project
is critical to the functioning and ultimate success of the project.
Key roles and their associated responsibilities found within a
project include:
Project Sponsor
The senior executive who is the principal project stakeholder,
and who has made the commitment and has the authority to
resolve major project issues, approve project expenditures,
plans and organisation, and who is ultimately responsible for
delivering the business objective to the enterprise.
Project Steering Committee
This group should be comprised of senior representatives from
the various areas of the client that will be impacted by the
project. This group provides overall direction strategic direction
to the project. It has the authority to initiate, continue and
6
terminate the project as well as to make decisions and take
appropriate actions to resolve project issues.
Project Executive
The Project Executive has delegated responsibility from the
Steering Committee to provide ongoing management direction to
and control of the project. The Project Executive is ultimately
responsible for the success of the project.
Project Manager
The Project Manager provides overall management to the project
and directs the activities of the project team members on a day
to day basis. If the project is large or complex, there may be
several project managers each with a specific area of
responsibility. Typically, each of these project managers would
have their own team and each would report to the Project
Executive. Where a project has multiple project managers, one
of them will be designated as having Project Management Office
or consolidation responsibilities. Prime responsibilities of the
Project Manager include:
• Establishing project work plans, estimates, and schedule;
• Establishing project training and staffing requirements;
• Conducting project planning and project status meetings;
• Presenting plans and status to executive management;
• Make decisions on project related risks, actions and
issues;
• Tracking and reporting project progress on:
Cost;
Schedule;
Products.
7
Preparing project status reports;
• Establishing and administering the change control
procedure;
• Reviewing and approving project change requests;
• Preparing and making presentations at project reviews;
• Establishing standards with vendors / contractors, if work
product guidelines are not specified in the contract;
Manage and Interface with the project office and
Reporting hours expended on assigned tasks and making
reasonable estimates to complete each week for assigned
tasks that have been started.
Business Representatives
Business representatives have the responsibility to ensure that
the relevant interests of their particular business unit are
appropriately represented to the project. These responsibilities
include:
• Provide or validate input to the business case;
• Provide or validate business requirements;
• Support project activities which require business
involvement (e.g. creation or validation of test scripts,
supporting user testing) and
• Support user acceptance of deliverables.
8
Other
Other roles as required, such as that of subcontractors, need to
be clearly defined and agreed to.
Project Organisation Chart
When the project organisation and the roles are defined, they
should be communicated both within the project as well as to
stakeholders. This would include documentation such as
project organisation charts. This information would be
considered to be living documents and should be updated as
required.
Progress Tracking & Reporting Process
There are generally multiple levels of staff and management that
need to participate in Progress Tracking and Reporting
meetings. These would include:
- Project teams or sub teams;
- Project Managers;
- Project Executive;
- Project Sponsor and
- Steering Committee.
• This is the basis by which management has access to the
project and by which the project has access to management, so
it should be considered as one of the most critical aspects of
any project;
• Management participation is critical; if attendance or
attention is a problem it should be addressed immediately;
9
• The Progress Tracking and Reporting documents and
templates should be tailored for the specific audience to ensure
the appropriate message is delivered; and
• The process should be implemented at the very beginning of
the project and continued regularly throughout the project until
completion.
The objectives of this project management procedure are:
• To raise management awareness of the status of the project
relative to the plan (including schedule, cost, deliverable);
• To raise management awareness of risks, actions, issues and
changes impacting the project;
• To give management an opportunity to ask questions to
better understand the project as well as provide direction to the
project team and
• To communicate project status, actions, issues, and changes
impacting the project to other project members and
stakeholders.
• During project startup, Progress Tracking and Reporting
review requirements should be determined. Criteria would
include the project structure (e.g. existence of a Steering
Committee, Project Executive; existence of project sub teams,
etc.). Report templates should be customised to meet the
requirements of the particular reviews. Ongoing reviews should
be scheduled. Status reports need to be prepared and
distributed, preferably in advance, and minutes of the reviews
produced and distributed.
10
Deliverable Management & Acceptance Process
• Deliverables are the most important currency of a project;
as such, their control and management is critically
important to the success of the project;
• Ensure that there is agreement and understanding of
what the deliverables are, who will approve and the basis for
approval as early in the project as possible;
• The status of deliverables is one of the key metrics for
Progress Tracking and Reporting and
• Ideally, vendor deliverables should tie directly back to the
contract / SOW.
The objectives of this project management procedure are:
• To ensure that deliverables and associated approvers are
clearly identified in the plan and that deliverable acceptance
criteria is clearly defined and communicated in advance of
the creation of the deliverable;
• To make sure that the deliverable validation is making
progress;
• To make sure that problems and delays with the review
and approval of deliverables per the plan are highlighted
and resolved and
• To provide a defined process for managing the tracking
and acceptance of deliverables.
11
The process starts with the development of the project plan and
the identification of all deliverables which will require formal
approval. A form identifying the purpose of the deliverable, the
approver and the criteria by which the deliverable will be
approved is created in advance of the development of the
deliverable. A log of all deliverables is created and used to
manage the process as deliverables proceed through their cycle.
It focuses on monitoring progress of the validation, identifying
delays or problems with deliverable approval which may impact
the plan.
Issues are raised where necessary in order to better understand
the causes for concern and activities will be launched with the
aim of bringing the deliverable(s) into full compliance with the
deliverable acceptance criteria.
Issue Management Process
• Most issues start as risks; addressing risks is generally
easier than resolving issues;
• An issue is an event that has already occurred and has a
projected impact on the project scope, schedule or budget;
• Issues should be addressed as early as possible in the
project; generally, the longer an issue is left unresolved, the
more difficult it is to resolve;
• Each issue will need some action(s) to be taken to effect a
resolution (such as further investigation );
• Responsibility for addressing Issues must be assigned
along with an estimated resolution date and
12
• Issues must be tracked and reported through to
resolution.
The objectives of this project management process are:
• To identify issues as early as possible;
• To ensure that all issues are communicated to the
project stakeholders;
• To allow the impact of all issues to be understood,
documented and managed;
• To provide a process to facilitate the tracking and
resolution of issues as expediently as possible and
• To maintain a log of all open and resolved issues.
When issues are identified, they need to be assigned to an
individual who will be responsible for: assessing the impact of
the issue, engaging the appropriate parties to resolve and,
where appropriate, escalate to resolve.
Action Management Process
• An action is an activity, generally unplanned, which needs
to be assigned and tracked through to completion and
• Actions arise at any point in the project; they can be
incorporated into the project plan or managed outside of it
through the Project Management process.
The objectives of this project management process are:
13
• To identify actions as they arise and assign them to the
appropriate person;
• To ensure that all actions are communicated to the
relevant stakeholders;
• To allow the impact of all actions to be understood,
documented and managed;
• To provide a process to facilitate the tracking and
resolution of actions as expediently as possible and
• To maintain a log of all open and resolved actions.
When actions are identified, they need to be assigned to an
individual who will be responsible for addressing it. Based on
the particulars of the action, there may be need to: assess the
impact of the action, engage other parties to resolve and, where
appropriate, escalate to resolve.
Risk Management
Risks are predicted events that might happen in the future and
may impact the project;
Risks should be identified and quantified before they happen,
and the consequences mitigated or avoided by preventative
actions;
Provision can be made in the project plans should this event
unavoidably occur and
Each risk will need some action to be taken and will need to be
continually monitored.
The objectives of this project management process are:
14
• To identify risks as they arise and assign them to the
appropriate person;
• To allow the impact of all risks to be understood,
documented and managed including development of risk
mitigating actions;
• To ensure that all risks are communicated to the
relevant stakeholders;
• To provide a process to facilitate the tracking,
management and, if appropriate, resolution of risks as
expediently as possible and
• To maintain a log of all open and resolved risks.
When risks are identified, they need to be assigned to an
individual who will be responsible for: assessing the impact of
the risk; developing a risk mitigating plan or action, as
appropriate; engage appropriate parties to resolve and, where
appropriate, escalate to resolve.
Change Management Process
• Changes are inevitable in every project, and so it is
essential to implement a change control process early in the
project to allow changes to be managed;
• A critical aspect of managing changes is communication
whereby all stakeholders input can be considered in
assessing the impact and deciding whether or not to accept
the change;
• The result of the decision should be communicated to all
relevant stakeholders so that the plans of the various parts
of the project can be kept in step and
15
• Typically, any changes will impact the scope, schedule
and / or resources.
The objectives of this project management process are:
• To manage each request for change, in order to keep
the scope of the project under control with full
traceability;
• To provide a means for including in the plan any
milestones, deliverables and / or activities which are
missing;
• To allow the impact of all changes to be understood,
documented and managed;
• To make sure each request for change is assessed by
key project stakeholders;
• To make sure each assessed Change Request is
disposed of (accepted, rejected or deferred) by the
appropriate authority;
• To maintain a log of all proposed changes;
• To enable the orderly implementation of each accepted
change and
• To enable changes to SOWs or contracts as
appropriate.
Summary of the process is as follows:
• Change control should be introduced early in the project;
• Determine how changes are to be introduced and
processed as part of the project plan;
16
• Use an appropriate change request (e.g. small or large) to
document any proposed changes;
• Ensure that changes are assessed and approved in writing
by authorised persons and
• Update the baseline and all appropriate documentation
after the change is approved.
Communications Process
• Effective, timely, ongoing communications are one of the
key criteria for a successful project;
• This includes communications about the project, within
the Project team itself, throughout the project hierarchy (e.g.
including Project Executive, Steering Committee and
Sponsor) as well as to the client stakeholder community;
• There are a wide variety of communication vehicles which
can be used in a project (e.g. meetings, websites, newsletters,
etc.), including use of other project management processes
(e.g. Progress Tracking & Reporting, Change Management);
• A Communications strategy should be developed using
those vehicles that are most effective in communicating the
appropriate information to the defined target audience; and
• Communications are bilateral in nature, so a
communication strategy must include vehicles that solicit
and provide input from stakeholders to the project team.
The objectives of this project management process are:
17
To ensure that a communications strategy and plan which
incorporate the total project are developed, approved and
implemented;
To ensure that project stakeholders have a clear understanding
of how communications will work on the project and ensure that
they feel their interests will be adequately addressed through
these communications;
To ensure that information is disseminated to the appropriate
audiences at the appropriate times, starting at project inception
and continuing through until project completion and
Communications should be unambiguous, clearly understood,
and provide the opportunity for further dialog.
A communication strategy and plan should be developed at the
beginning of the project to define what information about the
project needs to be communicated to whom and by whom, on
what frequency and by what method. The communication plan
would identify the particular vehicles to be used (indicating why
they are chosen); identify who the particular communication
should come from and go to; identify the types of information
that need to be communicated (as well as received from the
audiences) and the timing or frequency of the communication.
This communication plan needs to be communicated to all
target audiences so there is a clear, common understanding of
what will happen.
Subcontractor Management Process (Outsourced Function)
If subcontractors play a key role in the project, success of the
project will generally depend on how well they perform and that
18
is usually a function of how well the contract is written and how
well they are managed to the contract;
Ensure that both vendor and the client have a clear
understanding of the vendor contract and SOW and measure
them to it;
If possible, tie compensation to clearly defined contract based
deliverables or milestones. Avoid payment for level of effort and
Effective, timely communications are critical to success.
• The objective of the subcontractor management process is
to ensure that all products and deliverables to be supplied
under contract for integration into the total solution are
delivered on time and according to the Statement of Work.
• Effective management of a subcontractor during a project
is a critical element in the overall success of any project. To
ensure success, it is essential that both parties understand
exactly what is being contracted for, and that they agree with
any changes that occur during contract negotiations.
Financial Estimates / Business Case
While not mandatory, development of a business case to
support the project is always advisable. The primary
dependency on whether to create one, or to what level it should
be created (e.g. calculation of TCO and ROI etc) is the corporate
environment and / or expectations of management. Projected
costs and benefits should be based on information received from
the project stakeholders and finance. The final business case
must be supported by these groups.
19
Costs to be considered are those costs which will be incurred as
part of the project or due to the project. In a business case these
would include:
- Resource – staff on the project;
- External resources (e.g. consultants / vendors);
- Overhead costs;
- Consumables and other materials (e.g. supplies);
- Licenses, maintenance fees (e.g. software); and
- Capital expenditures (e.g. hardware).
Benefits to be considered in a business case should be clearly
related to the project as an expected outcome or result. They
can be either quantifiable or non quantifiable in nature. They
can also include benefits realized or costs avoided. They would
include:
- Resource savings or avoidance;
- Business opportunities:
- Revenue increase or avoidance of decrease;
- Market share increase or avoidance of loss and
- Cost savings or avoidance, including capital expenditures.
- Customer satisfaction.
Assumptions, Dependencies And Constraints
Assumptions
Assumptions made should be clearly identified, described and
communicated. A brief description of the effect if the
assumption is invalid should be made. There should be a clear
20
statement of who has reviewed and validated these
assumptions.
Dependencies
Project Managers should identify any dependencies that they
have with other teams or organisations either within the project
or external to the project. This description should include an
indication of the impact of the dependency not being met. It
should also indicate what commitment has been received from
the provider and where the commitment is documented.
Dependencies should be clearly identified and tracked in the MS
Project Plan.
Constraints
Project Managers should provide a brief description of
constraints which they have and any actions they are taking to
address these. This description should include an assessment of
the impact to the project of these constraints and the risks
which they represent.
Success Measurements
Success Criteria
For various components of the project, criteria by which
success, approval or completion can be established will need to
be defined. This would include criteria for establishing when
testing has been successful as well as when a deliverable can be
approved. Such criteria should be established and
communicated well in advance of when they will be used for
evaluative purposes.
21
Completion Criteria
During the project startup, the criteria by which it will be
determined that the project is successfully completed should be
identified and agreed to. This should include identifying who
will make the decision that the project has been successfully
completed.
Quality and Assurance
Quality Reviews
The benefits of 'getting it right first time' are well documented.
Failure to deliver a product that conforms to requirements
results in schedule and cost overruns. Quality reviews for each
work product, for example, a product or a set of branch office
procedures, should be scheduled as tasks as part of the overall
project plan.
Quality reviews can take two forms:
Walkthroughs or inspections of a work product and
Independent reviews where the work product or process is
independently examined
The reviewers can vary according to the timing and significance
of the reviews. They can be peers, more senior members of the
project team, end users, or technical specialists outside the
project.
22
Assurance Reviews
Assurance reviews provide an independent assessment of key
project metrics to provide the project sponsor with an objective
evaluation of whether there should be concerns that the project
will meet its objectives. Such reviews should be scheduled as
part of the overall project plan. The Project Manager or the
Project Sponsor can also request reviews at any time in
response to specific situations.
Closing the Project
Project closeout is necessary to ensure that:
- The business / sponsor formally accepts the project as being
complete based on the criteria which was specified in the
project startup;
- Project records are completed;
- All subcontractor commitments are met;
- Essential project documentation is retained;
- A lessons learned document is prepared and
- A project closeout plan should be included in the Project
Control Book (PCB).
Standards And Conventions
There are significant benefits to the organisation if all projects
within a program and all components within a project use the
same standards and conventions when creating documents.
This will help to provide a common “look and feel” within and
across projects and will help to ensure that all projects or
23
components address key requirements or activities in a common
fashion.
The client should assess various models and documents
provided to it and customize as appropriate to ensure the
optimum fit between the needs of the client and the structure
and rigor of the proposed standards.
24
2. Project Management Tools
The following are an indication of suggested tools which may
serve the purpose of management, tracking and measurement of
OSS project implementation:
• MS Project
• Project Hub
• Other OSS Tools
MS Project Tool
MS Project is the most commonly used tool for the development
of the project schedule. This, in turn, is used to manage and
report project status. The MS Project plan is based on a
hierarchical work breakdown structure. It supports a number of
project aspects including:
• Assigning resources to tasks;
• Determining resource problems and imbalances;
• Identification of the project critical path;
• Displaying a project timeline and
• Linking project dependencies.
When the project plan has been reviewed and approved by the
appropriate level of management, typically the Steering
Committee, it is formally baselined. It is the baseline plan which
is then the basis against which progress status is measured.
MS Project provides a number of views into the project plan. The
most frequently used one is the GANTT chart which provides a
graphical timeline depiction of the selected tasks, deliverables,
25
milestones etc. More specific views can be defined through the
use of filters (e.g. click on Project, then Sort or Filtered …)
MS Project can be used as a tool to track actual performance.
There are a large number of techniques and ways MS Project
can support this. These range from application of “earned value”
concepts to simpler approaches based on inputted percentages
complete. The key is to understand what data and views are
appropriate for the size and type of project and what
information is required by management to ensure that the
project is appropriately controlled.
The Project Manager has the responsibility to update the project
plan based on approved changes communicated through the
Change Management process.
ProjectHub Tool
ProjectHub is an Internet enabled, web based application for
Enterprise Project Planning and Control. ProjectHub can
function by itself or it can be used in conjunction with other
“market standard” project management tools, such as
Primavera and Microsoft Project. Together with its ability to
work with Primavera and Microsoft Project, ProjectHub is able to
bring project teams together with its Project Collaboration
features, for up to the minute cross-project analysis and issue
management. ProjectHub’s extensive web based integration
transforms decision-making into a rich and interactive
collaborative and conducive environment.
26
Overview of ProjectHub:
• Plan and schedule projects
• Update and keep track of progress of projects
• Track the action items from start to resolution
• Secure all your information within the ProjectHub system
• Access all your information from virtually any PC with an
Internet connection
• Store and manage all documents
• Track accesses and changes to documents through an audit
trail
• Add comments and changes to your documents while
collaborating with partners over the Internet/Intranet
• Route documents for action through the document routing
system
• Schedule for meetings and other events through the online
calendaring system
• Receive e-mail alerts for all system related events such as
appointments and document updates
• Automatically capture and record minutes of meetings and
action items
• Receive customised and up to date reports on project health
• Manage project exceptions such as issues, risks and change
requests through the Management Log
• Monitor each contract’s deliveries through the Contracts
Log
ProjectHub’s Homepage and Main Dashboard provide
customised project information, as well as Project shortcuts,
action item alerts and other system information. In a glance,
27
project managers may instantly view progress information in
graphical formats. This feature assists upper management in
the identification and resolution of problem areas within their
project structure.
Multiple groups could be created for managing the users’ access
ability for various information inside Project Hub.
Provides a platform for the project initiator or project manager
to create new projects, enter the project related information and
invites teammates to the project.
Project Manager is allowed to create unlimited security groups
to manage the teammate’s access.
The various modules that enable project management are listed
below:
Work Break Down Structures – WBS
Allows the project manager to define the project’s work in terms
of deliverables & the process phases relevant to the
project/organisation The WBS is fully compliant with the Project
Management Institute (PMI) Standards. The WBS can be
synchronized to import from Microsoft Project and Primavera
Enterprise Project Planner or export to Primavera Enterprise.
Activities
The individual activities are managed through an Activity Form
that allows project participants to create, edit, delete and
update progress and resource usage add comments and
relevant information. The individual activity tabs allow project
28
managers to drill down to details about individual activities.
ProjectHub provides two ways to view and update the activities,
either via the Gantt/Bar chart or in a spreadsheet format.
Project Information
Project Information allows all information pertaining to a project
to be kept at a central location, which eases the process of
review by top management.
Information such as contractors, consultant, project owner, and
some project description and scope are stored within this
module.
Document Management System
Projects generate large amounts of time sensitive and dynamic
data. ProjectHub’s repository, DMS, allows the entire project
team to deposit all documents in a central location for easy
access and archival. ProjectHub’s DMS features include audit
trails, version/change management, quota and role based
privileges.
In addition, all actions such as uploading new files, deleting
files and so on will be logged in the document history for
auditing purposes. This provides another layer of security to the
DMS.
WorkFlow
Today's organisational environments are characterized by
uncertain requirements and rapid and continuous change. In
order to effectively support activities in such contexts, workflow
29
systems must be able to respond effectively when deviations
from the "ideal" process occur during process execution. The
workflow engine provides the solution to fulfill these
requirements. The workflow engine can be configured to handle
various business rules such as an approving system in an
organisation.
Exception Management
ProjectHub allows project members to record project issues and
track corrective actions.
Discussion boards
Discussion Boards may be used as web based support Centres
to allow people to document and track issues from discovery
through resolution. Filters/Search Capability by Forum/Topic,
Author and Date. This allows users to filter information based
on specific requirements such as dates and subject.
Organisers
The Project Organiser tool allows users to manage time driven
information such as meetings, deadlines, alerts and milestones.
The Calendar integrates with the ProjectHub Scheduler to filter
important ‘date driven’ information.
The Company Organiser allows project team members to check
the availability of other team members prior to arranging a
meeting. It also allows immediate bookings of conference room
and the relevant equipment through the provided link.
The system is also able to send e-mails to project team members
as reminders of project meetings or other deadlines.
30
Conference Room Booking
Conference Room Booking can be accessed by clicking My
Company\Conference Room on the navigation bar.
Conference Room Booking is deisgned to allow users to make
conference room reservation. This could reduce the time spent
in hunting for conference room.
Reports
ProjectHub provides the option to integrate with most of the
mainstream report generator tools such as Crystal Report and
Elixir Report to provide the ultimate flexibility to the users in
maintaining and modifying reports as requirements changes in
the business environment.
Project publisher provides a place to publish a project status by
pictorial representation.
Personal Workspace
The Personal Organiser tool allows users to manage time driven
information such as meetings, deadlines, alerts and Milestones.
The Calendar integrates with the ProjectHub Scheduler to filter
important ‘date driven’ information.
Personal Document acts as a personal file server that allows
user to deposit and easily access documents.
31
Other PM OSS Tools
Some of the other available tools are as listed below:
• A specific PM tool under OSS of which details are
available at http://mrproject.codefactory.se/
• MrProject is a project planning, scheduling and tracking
tool for the GNOME Desktop aiming to act as a better
replacement than available proprietary tools. MrProject is
part of GNOME Office, a productivity suite composed of
entirely free software, integrated with the GNOME Desktop.
The main features are Gantt chart for tracking of tasks,
Task view for managing tasks and all related properties,
Resource view for managing the resources, Custom
properties for adding more information than MrProject
supports natively, GNOME 2 enabled and others.
• Other Potential OSS Project Management Tools are:
DotProject
NetOffice
PhpCollab
Work Project
Memoranda
ZenTrack
Phpaga
PMTool
Java Enterprise Teamwork
WebCollab
Xoopstage
Groupware PHProjekt
32
It is recommended that the above OSS tools be evaluated, in
order to ascertain the completeness of functionality required, as
detailed in the above sections, as per the best practices and
guidelines stipulated above.
33