Choosing Project Management Software

Ask the executive director of a nonprofit what projects the organization is working on, and you'd best get comfortable -- you're in for a long conversation. Most NPOs have multiple project running at any particular time. Managing all the associated tasks, resources, and schedules can be tricky.

That's where project management software can help. These programs are designed to ease the burden by promoting logical management processes that can take a project from concept to completion.

Choosing the right project management ( PM) software is a combination of matching needs to features, and balancing training and support considerations, budget, and software and hardware requirements.

Sometimes the best solution may not be a program designed for project management at all. Many NPOs manage projects quite effectively using nothing more than the collaboration and scheduling features of Microsoft Outlook, Visio, or Sharepoint. Still others use Access, MySQL, or some other database to track tasks and resources.

Determining whether or not you need a dedicated PM application largely depends on the scope of your projects and the effectiveness of your current management systems. If you manage large projects and are finding it difficult to track project resources or schedules, chances are PM software can help.

A good place to start an assessment of PM products is to consider the features generally offered by these programs, and see if they match your needs.

The following list summarizes features available in Microsoft Project (heavily discounted for qualified nonprofits through TechSoup Stock ) and is comparable to the features offered by most leading PM programs.

Project Task Management

• Define the project
• Define general working times
• List the tasks in the project
• Organize tasks into phases
• Schedule tasks
• Set deadlines and constrain tasks
• Identify risks to the project
• Add documents to the project

Project Resource Management

• Specify people and equipment for the project
• Specify the booking types for resources
• Define working times for resources
• Assign people and equipment to tasks
• Track resource costs

Tracking your Project

• Save a baseline plan
• Track the progress of your project
• Incorporate progress information into the project
• Check the progress of the project
• Make changes to the project
• Track risks and issues associated with this project

Outcomes and Reports

• View a pie or Gantt chart outline of your project
• See the status of multiple projects
• Compare progress against baseline work
• See the project's critical tasks
• See project risks and issues
• See how time is allocated to resources
• See project costs

Other PM products worthy of consideration include Primavera Suretrack (arguably the market leader for corporate and large-scale project management) and Dot Project, an Open Source PM system available for Linux and Windows.

TechSoup community members also recommend:

• PHProjekt
• phpCollab
• Open Workbench
• lucidus

Whichever software you choose, remember that it won't actually complete your project for you, or even make sure all the people involved are doing what they need to do. Good software won't make you a better project manager, but it can help you do your work more efficiently.

For further information on PM tools and resources, find your local chapter of the Project Management Institute Web site.