Let's focus on the owner/developer for a moment. Perhaps the most widely used tool by this group is Microsoft Excel. Name any department, any process, and Excel will usually find its way into the picture. Need to organize projects in your development pipeline, track the open action items during the entitlement process, manage the budget, commitments, and actuals - Excel can facilitate these processes to a certain degree. However, Excel can have its downsides and the most common complaints I hear from Directors of Construction/Program Managers are listed below:
- Multiple people cannot easily update the Excel file simultaneously.
- There is no audit trail of numbers that have been changed - this is even more problematic for those have linked spreadsheets.
- The person who created the semi-automated spreadsheet is no longer there, making it hard to troubleshoot when macros or links become corrupt.
- Takes too much time to roll-up the spreadsheets from multiple project managers, especially if there are variations in the templates.
- No ability to easily link backup documents (such as contracts of invoices) to numbers found in the spreadsheet.
- No real-time visibility into critical information, i.e. Contingency, such that dollars can be moved around more effectively to alleviate the problem.
I have seen these Excel based systems being replaced by Web-Based Project Management and Collaborative Solutions at an increasing pace. Apparently, the word has been getting around. Just recently, I attended a Healthcare Conference where at least 15% of the Directors were using some type of web based system. Not a high number, but compared to 2 years ago, it's a marked increase. Perhaps 2008 will be the banner year?
1 comment:
I always cringe at the thought of trying to automate any process that uses Excel. It amazes me that it continues to be used so often for project management. Especially as more and more options arise that not only allow online collaboration, but are free as well. It seems like these free, web-based management apps are gaining a lot of popularity with small businesses. Are you encountering larger businesses that use these apps as well? Or do they seem to be mainly making use of commercial applications? It's particularly interesting that some businesses make their money simply by setting up, managing, and supporting the free web apps for other companies. How much of a commercial web app's success do you think is based upon the software, and how much of it is based upon the support given for the software?
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