Project Management Software

monquixote

I'm going to throw out a question due to the infinite knowledge base we seem to have on here. 

What project management software is good?

Needs to be something that can do proper Gant charts not just Agile burn down stuff (but that's good as well) 

Not MS project (we are a mix of Win and Mac). Ideally web based, with a preference for self hosted and without a monthly charge per user (though this isn't set in stone)

Jalapeno

Tried OpenProj ?  works on Mac & Windows.

Best I ever used was Primavera

monquixote

Last time I tried OpenProj it was totally busted and crashed all the time. 

Have you used it recently?

Will check out Primavera

TTony

monquixote said:

What project management software is good?

Needs to be something that can do proper Gant charts not just Agile burn down stuff (but that's good as well) 

 

Not MS project (we are a mix of Win and Mac).

A lot of it is good ... the question is whether it would do what you want it to do.

Your Q implies that you don't want MSProject because you use Win & Mac.  But MSP does work on both.  MSP Server is hugely powerful, but you need to invest a lot of time (and money) in setting it up, and the investment wouldn't be worth it unless you're running a fairly complex portfolio of change activity.

I've been using MSP for years, I know it better than any other package and it's always done what I've needed it to do.  Hence I'm an advocate.  But it's not easy to get to grips with, there's a lot of hidden and/or unituitive functionality, so casual users can easily miss stuff.

But it really does depend on how your organisation works.  How process-heavy and fixed your PM methodology is.  What reporting your governance structures require (and hence what the software needs to produce).  How big/complex your projects are (you can "plan" and monitor small projects quite adequately on Excel!).  What other apps it would have to integrate with (Risk Logs, Resource Scheduling, Finance Reporting, et al).

monquixote

I mostly don't want MSP because we are open source in pretty much everything and don't really use any MS stuff so it's not really appropriate. I also had to use it for years and hate it!

I want people to have access to the tool/plan without having to have an expensive client so ideally I want web based. 

We are a fairly small company, but integration is important however we have a number of bespoke systems so APIs are useful so we can write some integration software.

We are an Agile dev company, but some of our customers aren't so we need to be able to do Waterfally gant charty stuff to make our customers happy. 

TTony

That's more like requirements!

When do you need an answer?  I can go ask a couple of PM communities for experiences & recommendations.

Fretwired

What sector is your company operating in? There are a number of cloud-based solutions but many are sector specific - for example, engineering and construction.

monquixote

Ideally I'd like to come to a conclusion in the next week or so. 

Looking at stuff like: Zoho, Ace Project and Wrike at the moment. 

I'm trying to avoid any of the products which rapidly go into costing $500 a month in hosting fees.

TTony

Hmmm.

This looks like it might tick your boxes.  I've never used it, so I'm judging it by the website and a couple of reviews.

frankus

monquixote;25797" said:
We are an Agile dev company, but some of our customers aren't so we need to be able to do Waterfally gant charty stuff to make our customers happy.

If your customers aren't Agile and insist you do Waterfall then you aren't Agile, sorry to have to break that to you. That's the bad news.

Good news is you're what's called Wagile.

monquixote

Fretwired said:

What sector is your company operating in? There are a number of cloud-based solutions but many are sector specific - for example, engineering and construction.

Software development/high tech R&D mostly 

monquixote

TTony said:

Hmmm.

This looks like it might tick your boxes.  I've never used it, so I'm judging it by the website and a couple of reviews.

Ooo you can self host. 

That might be a winner. 

Zoho looks good as well.

monquixote

frankus said:

If your customers aren't Agile and insist you do Waterfall then you aren't Agile, sorry to have to break that to you. That's the bad news.
Good news is you're what's called Wagile.

That's not really how it works in practice. 

Fretwired

Have you looked at RationalPlan?

http://www.rationalplan.com/project-management-products.php

frankus

monquixote said:

frankus said:

If your customers aren't Agile and insist you do Waterfall then you aren't Agile, sorry to have to break that to you. That's the bad news.
Good news is you're what's called Wagile.

That's not really how it works in practice. 

Yes it is.

monquixote

frankus said:

monquixote said:

That's not really how it works in practice. 

Yes it is.

Oh well that's me told then. 

I wonder what I've been doing for the past 10 years....

frankus

Wagile by the sounds of it

Agile works by vertically slicing business hierarchies and relationships... until you've done that you've an Agile ideal your working towards.. the moment you stop working towards it you're Wagile if you rely on 1970s S/E techniques or FrAgile if you're making your own up that aren't in keeping with the Agile manifesto

monquixote

I run the team entirely Agile. 

It's more about the customer teams needing to make the business case in an old school way to free up the capital within their organisation. 

It might not comply to a text book definition, but it makes virtually no difference in practice.

frankus

monquixote said:

I run the team entirely Agile. 

It's more about the customer teams needing to make the business case in an old school way to free up the capital within their organisation. 

It might not comply to a text book definition, but it makes virtually no difference in practice.

I don't think I either want to rain on your parade or derail your thread; have it your way.

monquixote

Jalapeno said:

But is it still crashy as hell?

Last time I tried it, it was unusable like a very badly broken version of MSP.