During the operation of a project a task may change or it may not fit well with other tasks, this software will allow you to update the information in that task to help with the project and make easier for the manager. With the tasks that have been created, plans can be put into place to help take that task. Reports and charts can also be generated by this software to manage the project or to make presentations to stakeholders so that they can see the progression of the project, two of the most common charts that are mostly used is PERT and Gantt charts.
Specialised software packages
Microsoft Project can be used to help aid many different kinds of projects or a wide variety of them. There are also other different kinds of specialised software that is built for larger projects involving many different kinds of tasks and also members of staff.
Project methodologies
Here I am going to give examples of methodologies and show the advantages and disadvantage of formal methodologies.
Advantages and disadvantages of formal methodologies
The advantages of using formal methodologies is that everyone is doing the same things at the same time, because of these organisation will be able to give a standard developer training. Members of staff can also very easily be transferred between different projects and because of everyone doing the same thing that means that software can be easily maintained.
However the disadvantages of using formal methodologies is that they can be very complex even for a simple project, another disadvantage can be that it requires more investment in training staff and products which may not be repaid by the client. Formal methodologies can also be unsuitable for unusual projects because it may not be needed or there is no need of it.
Examples of project methodologies
Here I am going to give three examples of project methodologies and I will also explain what they can do.
Prince2
This is an example of a project methodology; it was released by the UK government’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency since 1996. Prince 2 basically stands for ‘projects in controlled environments.’ This methodology can be divided up into eight different processes, these processes are: Start of the project, planning, initiation of the project, directing the project, controlling a certain stage, management of the product delivery, management of the stage boundary, closing the project.
Consultancy-driven methodologies
What can happen sometimes is that large software organisation can choose to make their own project for the customer. By doing this it can be an advantage because they will use their own methodology but as a disadvantage it can give an enormous amount of pressure on the customer for them to adapt to that methodology for other projects that are related.
This incurs additional consultancy costs, training costs and a potentially much greater lock-in to the software company.
Company-specific methodology
Organisations that have large computing departments will often feel that it is best for them to develop their own methodology. This can be done by using a standard methodology and take out parts that are not necessary or not needed.
The rest they tailor to their organisation structure and to the type of projects that they run. For example, if they have outsourced their network, then they do not need a methodology for network projects. If they do not sell their software, then customer and user management and acceptance and product distribution is much easier.
PERT charts
PERT (which stands for program evaluation review technique) is a methodology in the 1950s, developed in the United States Navy’s project having thousands of contractors. This is a methodology that is used to organise and also schedule tasks when a project is being developed.
