Creative project management software

Keywords: creative project management software, PM plan, PM tasks, PM activities

I am thinking of a workflow based and role based creative project management software and the fuctionalities it should have to enable a Project manager to plan, manage, monitor & control the cost, time, scope, quality, risks & change of a project.

I am thinking of a basic version to start with and very easy to use, cost effective and has basic workflow/functionalities and it should cater to simple/medium complexity projects.

Thinking of ms access based simple solution to start with my creative project management software.

My basic assumption on which I plan is the project should have been already approved to start and the PM/Business PM/Project board should have appointed and on-board. The current stage of the project is initiation. My creative project management software would not cater to programme management, though individual projects can be created but could not be linked - atleast for my basic version. My creative project management software would work based on product based planning.

• Following are the functionalities
• Project manager login
• PM create a new project with details like project name, budget, project sponsor, start date, high level business case, brief scope, brief description on technology, key contacts, constraints, risks, issues, assumption.
• PM with the above entered information can create a project brief report
• PM can any time update key stake holder details and a short description about each one.
• PM can create project team and the governance.
• PM allocate budget for various phases like requirement, design, build, test, installation, transition/handover.
• PM allocate tentative dates for each phase.For the next stage/phase, PM should identify the deliverables as products, and break it to sub-projects into ‘n’ levels. For each sub-product, identify resource, effort, cost, start/end dates, quality criteria, sign off authorities, etc.,
• The creative project management software would identify the latest end date, total cost for the stage and would compare it with the agreed timelines, cost. If not within, the workflow would require an exception approval. If within, the workflow would require stage plan approval.
• PM would continue to track the activities, costs, product delivery status and the software can anytime provide detailed/summary reports of the projects.
• All products marked as complete should map to the path of the file (no plans to integrate with doc repository like sharepoint, vss, pvcs)
• On completion of the stage, workflow would mandate stage gate checkpoint approval. PM should do the next stage planning and the process continues.
• Project closures can be pre-mature or at the end of project. Workflow captures the lessons learned and auto generates project closure reports.
• The software would support the team members to login and mark their tasks with status, time dtls, end dt, deliverable.
• The software would support both fixed bid and time based tasks.
• The software would recommend standard set of templates, deliverables with an option to change by PM

Any further ideas on functions, costs/open source/ technology / existing products which already offer this, etc.,

- Prem

Also Read