Program Management Assistance Needed!

"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck) 03/26/2019 at 21:30 • Filed to: None

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Any Oppos out there work as a Program Manager? I’m looking at software packages appropriate for a large program (100+ projects). MS Project and P6 are already on the list. We would like to have a multi-user solution, but are shying away from a cloud-based solution since the cloud-based package they bought for project management isn’t living up to expectations.

Anyone have a favorite software package that I should consider?

someassemblyrequired > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 22:09

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Project sucks, but it’s the standard. There’s a few open source packages where the price is definitely right, and some are even compatible with Project.

Oracle is a terrible company that you should not knowingly do business with. They will screw you at every turn.

I used to part-own a company (not Oracle, sadly) that did really high end PM software, but it starts at $5K/seat but drops pretty quickly as you get up to 100 licenses . It allows you to do a lot of stuff (model resources through time, extremely complex logic and milestone requirements) , but it’s only for very complex projects (think like major government/big company stuff). If that’s what you’re looking for I can get you in touch with someone.

benjrblant > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 22:13

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Jira?

TheRealBicycleBuck > someassemblyrequired 03/26/2019 at 22:15

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Thanks. I’m always willing to look. If you would prefer to touch base via email, just remove TheReal from my username and add gmail to the end.

TheRealBicycleBuck > benjrblant 03/26/2019 at 22:17

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I’m looking for something more aligned with infrastructure projects than software development.

pip bip - choose Corrour > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 22:18

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I’m guessing pen,paper and a filing cabinet is the wrong answer 

jminer > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 22:25

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If you’re looking at infrastructure we use project mixed with Bluebeam for the building side.

TheRealBicycleBuck > jminer 03/26/2019 at 22:29

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Thanks for the feedback. As an engineering firm, we flip between P6, Project, Microstation, AutoCAD, Bluebeam, and Acrobat, depending on what our clients have implemented. This client is using eBuilder for the project level, but it lacks the capabilities they need for program management.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 22:34

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We use Procore on a lot of projects. You have to pay to get a full featured version but it works pretty well.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 22:39

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Jira works for everything. It’s a horrible square peg in every round hole, but you can suffer through it with everything.

That said, that’s a shit ton of projects. I’ve never seen a group managing that many, so I don’t know what I’d go with. Probably MS Project, though.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 23:00

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Avoid the fuck out of cloud. Even if you find something that works, it’s Hotel California, and you are super-fucked when they go out of business. This goes triple for anything from Atlassian (you will NEVER EVER be able to upgrade successfully) and quadruple for anything from Oracle (“fuck you that’s why.”)

I think someassemblyrequired is already talking about what I would recommend though. It’s worth the $5k/seat if he is. I basically threw a fit when they said ‘nah, MS Project is fine’ because once I figured it out it was literally the only thing I found that could cope with interdependency hell, much less at scale (we’re not talking dozens or hundreds - I mean quite literally tens of thousands. )

TheRealBicycleBuck > pip bip - choose Corrour 03/26/2019 at 23:02

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Absolutely the wrong answer! :)

TheRealBicycleBuck > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 03/26/2019 at 23:02

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I’ll take a look!

someassemblyrequired > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2019 at 23:03

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Ha no skin off my back, I sold out in 2010. Sent you an email with some links.  I f it looks like a fit I can put you in touch with some good folks.

TheRealBicycleBuck > someassemblyrequired 03/26/2019 at 23:08

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Links received. I’ll go over them tomorrow. Not being able to create Gantt charts is a big downside, however, the ability to play “what if?” especially on the funding side is very attractive.

Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks > Eric @ opposite-lock.com 03/26/2019 at 23:26

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Jira works for everything only if you want it to do nothing, be completely unsupportable in every way, and have six months of development work go poof every minor version upgrade. (You will never complete a major version upgrade successfully. Ever.)

Fuck. Atlassian. They are garbage.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Spamfeller Loves Nazi Clicks 03/26/2019 at 23:39

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I think what it does to company culture is even worse.

I call them “Jira Zombies” and I’ve been calling them that since I first dealt with them in 2005...

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/27/2019 at 05:47

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At that scale I’m guessing your biggest issue will be juggling your resource pool. At which point it’s hard to go past MS Project. It’s asclunky AF but it’s one of the few programs which scales to that sort of level for resource management. 

MattHurting > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/27/2019 at 11:15

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We use MS Project for roughly 100 projects on the program I work. While it has its drawbacks, it’s the industry standard and not too hard to find people that know it. I’ve used Primavera in the past and do not care for it at all.