MBA642 Project: Evaluating Project Management Software

This presentation evaluates the performance of project management software across the initiation, planning, and execution stages of a project. The analysis focuses on five current project management software options: Basecamp, Teamwork, Plutio, Zoho Projects, and Jira. The presentation details the benefits and shortcomings of each software, highlighting how they address project requirements and compliance with quality standards. Screenshots are used to support the evaluation, and the software's capabilities in project planning, resource allocation, scheduling, budget control, quality management, document exchange, and communication are discussed. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of selecting software based on specific project needs to ensure easier collaboration, better schedules, enhanced communication, and efficient task delegation and budget management. References include works by Binder (2016), Meredith, Mantel, and Shafer (2017), Stettina and Hörz (2015), and Kerzner (2017), providing a comprehensive overview of project management principles and practices.

PROJECT
INITIATION,
PLANNING AND
EXECUTION
Student ID:132534

INTRODUCTION
 Project management
software is made use
of for
1. Project planning
2. Allocating resources
for the project
3. Scheduling
• Helps in controlling
1. The budget of a
project
2. Managing the
quality of a project
3. Exchanging
documents during a
project

ADVANTAGES OF USING PROJECT
MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
 Collaborate on projects
 Internal and external communication
 Management of budget
 Monitoring
 Sharing of document
 Enhanced communication in between
clients and the suppliers
 Optimization in decision making
 Enhancing customer satisfaction

BASECAMP
 A widely used project
management tool
1. Offers many collaborative
features
2. Recap of projects the
team is working on is sent
to the email of project
manager.
3. Users can also contribute
to email as well.
 Benefits:
1. Search tool is very
powerful
2. User-centric
 Shortcomings:
1. Lack of milestones
2. No option for
customization

TEAMWORK PROJECTS
 Cloud-based solution to project
management
 Features are task lists, file uploads,
messages and time tracking.
 Helps team in managing group
objectives, communication and
establishing business processes.
 Benefits:
1. Flexible
2. Consists on intuitive features- Task
management, Messaging,
Milestones etc.
3. File management support
available through Google Drive,
Box.com and DropBox
 Shortcomings:
1. Navigation is a problem for the
new users

PLUTIO
 All-in-one platform for business
management
 Developed mainly for small
businesses
 Used by freelancers
• Benefits:
1. Organized and very easy to
use
2. Customized application
3. Juggling between multiple
applications not required
4. Streamlined communication
5. Multilingual
 Shortcomings:
1. Missing features such as
recurring invoices, API
2. Needs to add more templates

ZOHO PROJECTS
 Project management
software with clear and
straightforward interface.
 Areas covered:
1. Project planning
2. Gantt charts
3. Reporting tools
4. Collaboration software
5. Document management
 Benefits:
1. Has lot of APIs and is flexible.
2.Easy to use and available
timesheets
3. Projects can be exported to
Excel
 Shortcomings:
1. Missing features
2. No provision to add widgets,
export task sheets in
document format
3. High price

JIRA
 It caters to the need of
mainly agile and software
development teams.
 Benefits:
1. Provision to create
customizable scrum
boards
2.Track bugs
3. Robust set of APIs
 Shortcomings:
1. Limitation on the file
size that can be
uploaded
2. Difficulty in integrating
other ALM tools such as
TFS with JIRA.

CONCLUSION
 Thus it can be said from the above discussion
that project management software can be
used to handle the three main constraints of a
project.
 These provide:
1. Easier collaboration
2. Better schedules
3. Enhance communication
4. Delegation of tasks made easy
5. Manage budgets
Therefore, project managers need to choose the
software as per their project requirements.

REFERENCES
 Binder, J., 2016. Global project management:
communication, collaboration and
management across borders. Routledge.
 Meredith, J.R., Mantel Jr, S.J. and Shafer, S.M.,
2017. Project management: a managerial
approach. John Wiley & Sons.
 Stettina, C.J. and Hörz, J., 2015. Agile portfolio
management: An empirical perspective on the
practice in use. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(1), pp.140-152.
 Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a
systems approach to planning, scheduling,
and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.