The vast majority of projects that are completed with the assistance of project management software tools use Microsoft Project. I don't have any concrete figures to back up this position, but I doubt that many people would argue with me. For those unfamiliar with this software genre, project management software (although obvious, I won't use the acronym PMS; instead, I'll use PMT for "project management tool") provides a means to easily follow the status of an undertaking. Whether you are creating a software product, organizing an event, or even erecting a building, you need to have some way to keep track of the resources, tasks, schedules, and costs involved. For that, a PMT can be extremely helpful. While MS Project appears to be the de facto leader in this genre, it doesn't mean that you are tied to it--whether you use Windows or not. Actually, you have many choices. In this month's column, we'll sample just a few of them.
A Simple Solution
For sheer simplicity, MrProject is a good choice for a PMT. If you have a Red Hat-based Linux system, then you probably already have the program. Look under Office on the main menu and, if you see a selection labeled Project Management, you're all set. If you aren't running Red Hat, you may need to download the code from the project's Web site and compile it yourself. You can check the site to see the requirements.
MrProject is the perfect project manager if you're a minimalist. It keeps track of resources and tasks and can produce the obligatory Gantt chart (so you can tell at a glance how far behind schedule your project is). Although MrProject is a capable solution for simple projects, there are limitations to using it. First, it's based on Gnome, one of the two major desktop environments available for Linux. That means it is only available on platforms that support Gnome (which excludes Windows). Second, it doesn't easily lend itself to use by a group. It seems to work fine for a single developer on his own machine, but as groupware, it is severely lacking. Finally, there seem to be some bugs in the version I have on my Fedora Core 1 Linux laptop. I had the program segfault a few times and dump the work I had put into a project. It was my mistake for not saving my work frequently, but I got out of that habit when I left that "other" operating system and moved to Linux. Sure, I probably could take care of the bugs by applying the latest patches to the source and then recompiling, but the narrow scope of the software fails to make the effort a compelling exercise.
Like all things open-source, take the time to evaluate this software and see if it meets your needs. You can't beat the price, and your experiences may differ from mine.
A More Sophisticated Solution
Even if MrProject did everything you could possibly want in a PMT, its biggest disadvantage is that it's tied to a specific environment. I've become a hard-core advocate of Web-based solutions because, by moving the client interface to a browser, you gain independence and flexibility. Thus, I tend to look for solutions that are Web-based even if I plan to run the software in single-user mode on my Linux laptop. This may seem odd, but it presents no problems for me since I run both the PostgreSQL and MySQL databases, as well as the Apache Web server, on my laptop. You can do the same on a Windows workstation, since Apache, PHP, Perl, and MySQL all have native ports. (A PostgreSQL port is in the works).
If you want an eye-opening experience, browse to FreshMeat.net and do a search on the term "project management." When I ventured there, I was rewarded with a selection of 169 entries. You can quickly separate the wheat from the chaff by looking at the dates that the projects were added and last modified. Projects that have been around the longest time and have recent modification dates are typically the most mature and feature-filled. Another good sign is an active user community, which you can determine by noting the project's vitality and popularity scores and by visiting the project's home page.
On the first page alone, I found many products that piqued my interest, but the two that I chose to evaluate were The Ultimate Team Organization Software (TUTOS) and dotProject. Both of these products are LAMP applications (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl) and, as such, can be deployed just as easily on Windows. Furthermore, both scale well, from a single-user installation to large-scale installations. Both handle my needs, and I'm sure they will for most of you. I would bet that the design of the user interface will be the deciding vote for you.
How hard were they to install? Given that I already have MySQL and Apache installed on my system (they were included with the Linux distribution), the installation was as simple as unzipping or untarring the package under Apache's document root directory. Both required me to create a database and database user and to set the database permissions. Then, I had to modify a configuration file to store that information as well as the basic site settings. In both cases, the installation and configuration instructions were clearly defined. I spent less than 10 minutes installing dotProject and perhaps 15 minutes installing TUTOS. In short, installation was a trivial exercise.
Amazing Software
Like MrProject, TUTOS and dotProject understand the concepts of projects and tasks, so anything you can do on MrProject can be done with the others. But the similarities end there. The short list of additional features includes multi-user access, project document storage, trouble ticketing, bug tracking, user forums, and much more. Since they are open-source projects, you can customize either package to your needs. Indeed, other people already have. For example, dotProject has a related project called dotMods on Sourceforge.net, where additional modules are available.
Frankly, the only feature that I see lacking between these PMTs and MS Project is the tight integration between Project and the rest of Microsoft's office suite. You just can't do that kind of integration with a browser interface. Will this make a difference to you? Find out for yourself. The TUTOS demonstration site and the dotProject demonstration site are but a click away. (The TUTOS demo has the appropriate name and password on the page. For dotProject, use "admin" for both the user name and password.)
Watch Out, MS Project!
The depth and quality of both TUTOS and dotProject are truly astounding. Even more astounding is the fact that the software is free. OpenOffice.org has been making inroads into Microsoft's Office hegemony and, if this is any indication, the quality embodied by these tools may do the same to MS Project. Take them both for a test drive and see if they can help you. If not, there's always more from which to choose on Freshmeat.net. The lack of a large budget shouldn't keep you from having a quality project management tool at your disposal.
Barry L. Kline is a consultant and has been developing software on various DEC and IBM midrange platforms for more than 21 years. Barry discovered Linux back in the days when it was necessary to download diskette images and source code from the Internet. Since then, he has installed Linux on hundreds of machines, where it functions as servers and workstations in iSeries and Windows networks. He co-authored the book Understanding Linux Web Hosting with Don Denoncourt. Barry can be reached at
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