TenForce – Pragmatic Project Management

Bold young project managers add a summary task to their plan called “detailed actions” and create the actual detailed actions as subtasks of this summary task. In this way they have everything in one place. And if the complete project shifts, the due dates of the detailed tasks shift too. They err!

As a result they spend nights updating their project plan because it contains too much detail and they revert to the good old method: a project plan in MS Project and a list of detailed actions in a spreadsheet. Both documents are distributed and discussed in the project status meeting. After the meeting the project manager updates the material and distributes the updated documents.

Issues management, risk management,… are implemented in similar ways. They are essential parts of project management and cannot be managed with MS Project either. So, more spreadsheets start popping up…

We at TenForce, after being fed up because of working this way for more than 15 years, developed a product that centralizes, distributes and follows up this kind of information. It allows you to organize your material in a logical and intuitive way adapted to your project operations.

Example? Check “How to keep fit after running 14 sprints” and see how we integrate, when required, MS Project tasks and detailed actions so that you can manage both in an efficient and convenient way.

Have you had similar experiences with MS Project? Did you too learn that MS Project is not a project management tool but a planning tool? And how did you work around it? Please share your experiences with us.

Stay tuned for more…