I have been working as a software consultant for more than 11 years. Because of that I am an eager supporter of lean principles and agile methods.
Sure MS Project is a powerful tool. However it is not suitable for agile projects. It’s not even suitable for software development at all.
MS Project is based on the waterfall method. It teaches users how to make complex and complete plans upfront. It makes the plans almost invisible for the team. It’s hard to track real progress and there are no backlogs. Sure it could be done with some efforts, but it’s not designed for it.
There are people that agree with me:
Why GANTT charts where banned in the first Scrum (by Jeff Sutherland)
Why MS Project Sucks for Software Development
The definitive guide to why MS Project Sucks…
This is complete rubbish. I am a PM for a major IT consultancy with a global presence. You just have to have a plan to run earned value metrics, cost control, and resource utilisation and forecasting. No plan and you might as well say good bye to all this. Say good by to these cornerstones of project management and you might as well say good bye to your margin /profitability on a deal. Just bunk in my view. Need to read Clarety http://www.claretyconsulting.com/ Agile Sucks. I realise that developers these days have had it with corrupt and incompetent managment but this is a dead end approach for any software house wanting to remain in business.
Left by Common Sense on April 13th, 2007