MS Project great tool for dedicated PM, less useful for casual users
May 30, 2021

MS Project great tool for dedicated PM, less useful for casual users

Javier Silva | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is used across the organization in different areas to support high complexity projects that require a large number of steps and detailed control about resource utilization and multi-level project complexity. Due to the time commitment on using it it is not widely used for short term projects that are basically managed on different tools.

Pros

  • DETAILED PLANNING ON LARGE SCALE/COMPLEX PROJECTS. Task interactions dependencies.
  • Very detailed resource management. You're able to track across the projects the utilization of all of your resources.
  • Powerful cost management. You can track costs for your resources, for your individual tasks, and quickly update any additional cost requirements for the projects, map those costs against your budget and get a detailed report of your burn rate to mitigate possible budget risks.

Cons

  • Complexity. With great power and flexibility comes a high level of complexity that makes some of the more advanced features very difficult to use on a day-to-day basis. i.e. being able to get several calendars integrated into a project for different kinds of resources is great but it takes a long time to get a handle on that and make it work for you.
  • Unless you have an MS Project Server setup and all of the team members licensed with an MS Project Account working on a project are limited to those PMs and collaborators with a full license even for minor updates.
  • The tools to present projects to other team members and present updates have not been updated to reflect the needs of the current PM, every view and presentation has to be manually cured to be presentable to the board and that is a very time consuming process.
  • Changing status, colors or updating items automatically based on dates or other tasks is out of the question unless you really have a full set of VBA knowledge and the time to make it happen.
  • ASSET CONTROL. There are project assets that are required at the same time on different parts of the organization and MS Project can provide a detailed asset utilization view on those so that you can schedule properly.
  • CONFLICT RESOLUTION. When the same person is expected to deliver 40hours per week on two different parts of your project you need a system that is able to highlight those utilization issues and help you manage them an reschedule tasks accordingly, if you keep your projects up to date this is a standard capability that works very well.
  • IMPROVE COST MANAGEMENT. Having the capability to go into high level of detail of all your project tasks including labor costs, asset utilization but also vendor invoices licensing costs and the myriad other components of the financial aspects of a project.
Microsoft Project will continue to be my tool of choice for high stakes high complexity projects with over 100 tasks and many requirements to control costs and delivery but the assumption is that a dedicated PM is needed to keep the file updated and manage communication with the Team.

Trello and monday.com are useful for general project tracking across the enterprise since it is super easy to communicate and share status with stakeholders and members automatically, great automation and integration with other SAAS solutions but breaks down on very large projects.

Jira has the capacity to manage very large projects and is especially useful for SCRUM and other software development methodologies. But for large scale projects again MS Project is the tool.

Do you think Microsoft Project delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft Project's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft Project live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft Project go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft Project again?

Yes

If you have a large project with a large number of stakeholders, many resources, and the need to keep detailed costs controls for the enterprise then this is the tool for you, not only you're able to define a very large number of fields to help you manage your project but the default fields on the application are certainly going to help you move forward with tracking control of resources, costs and burn rates on your projects.

If on the other hand, you have less than 50 tasks and two or three stakeholder or members on your team then the MS Project is definitely overkill because it demands the full attention of the PM for extended periods of time to make sure that the information is relevant.

Microsoft Project Feature Ratings

Project Management
7.7
Task Management
10
Resource Management
10
Gantt Charts
10
Scheduling
10
Workflow Automation
5
Team Collaboration
6
Support for Agile Methodology
6
Support for Waterfall Methodology
10
Document Management
7
Email integration
5
Mobile Access
3
Timesheet Tracking
9
Change request and Case Management
7
Budget and Expense Management
10
Professional Services Automation
7.0
Quotes/estimates
7
Invoicing
5
Project & financial reporting
10
Integration with accounting software
6

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