Fred,

Well said! For senior project folks, software wasn't an important part of the
PM process before the 1980s...if at all! (Henry Gantt was dead over 50 years
before his task bars & milestone markers could finally be automated.)

A quick historical perspective: PC's didn't appear until the early 1980s.
Happily, they were a terrific augment/complement to organizing historical events
& records and, to a lesser extent, to get a grasp on project financing. Who can
forget how great VisiCalc really was (forerunner of Lotus 123)? It wasn't until
the mid-1980 (after 123 really caught on) that PMs could finally start tracking
larger projects with respectable near-term accuracy--but little to do with the
future. Typically, they could only point to the obvious: projects were way
behind and money was rapidly running out. As alarming as they were, the
earliest Chaos Reports were correct! This said, pro formas started to rule the
day--and it didn't take long for cash flow lending to appear. Soon banks,
business advisors and deal makers figured out how to manipulate the system
(showing greater growth and leverage that could yield phenomenal returns).

Naturally, what goes up...came down with a thud as we entered the 1990s. Banks
went bankrupt and the economy tanked. Toward the middle of the decade the
Internet arrived, quietly at first. By the late 1990s, the market was
rebounding nicely with technology driving the bus. MS Project appeared and
despite its early raves, old-timers--busy running projects--were somewhat slow
to embrace the tool. In part, we were too busy converting from 123 to Excel,
and barely had time to experiment with the glut of software flooding the market.
(Personally, I looked at Primavera before electing to go with Project Workbench
(Niku bought them later). And, since timing was/is everything, the then
impending "Y2K-disaster" swallowed up incredible an amount of time and IT
resources. Shortly thereafter, the dot.com bubble burst. And, the rest as they
say, it history.

Sorry for the history lesson. Your point about brainware vs. software really
can't be understated. I'd be willing to bet that more than half of today's
(younger) PMs rely on MS Project to get what they believe is a "jump start" on
any new project ... even before requirements are fully known/scoped. (And, 80%
of these probably use templates, don't they?!) As Mike Greer and most other
seasoned vets will tell you, this can be deadly! It's also the reason why, going
on 100 years, Henry Gantt is still rolling over in his grave.

If a PM has to use software--because company culture dictates it, do yourself a
huge favor, start with a product like MindManager. It can stimulate "brainware"
before the fact--when it really matters most.

Bob Veris, Director
PM Community.org



----- Original Message ----
From: Fred Nickols <nickols@...>
To: PM-Talk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 7, 2008 9:10:01 AM
Subject: [PM-Talk] Software vs Brainware


Over the years I've managed many projects, ranging from small,
one-person operations for a few thousand dollars to large team efforts
costing millions. Not once in all those years did I make use of any
project management software, mostly because it wasn't available for
many of those years. Even when PM software became available, I did
not use it. It seemed to me that too many projects bogged down in
what I call "management overhead" (i.e., reports, schedules, and other
administrivia) . I've always thought that, in far too many cases,
software (PM or otherwise) substitutes for "brainware." In other
words, reliance on software takes the place of thinking, communicating
and actually staying on top of things. I'm curious, do others see
software as substituting for brainware? Does reliance on software put
on a good show but not really make a significant difference in project
performance? More important, perhaps, how do you really stay on top
of things?

Regards,

Fred Nickols
Managing Partner
Distance Consulting, LLC
nickols@att. net
www.nickols. us

"Assistance at a Distance"






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]