MS Project

MS Project is a project management software that helps a person manage a project at hand. MS Project lets a person put specific tasks and deadlines to give a timeline of when a project will be finished. Unlike creating schedules in a spreadsheet that are static, schedules in MS Project are dynamic, enabling users to update the schedule to reflect the project at hand (Microsoft 2004).
MS Project takes the guesswork out for anybody that wants an overview of how long a project will take and can allow a person to see what requirements a project needs in a task oriented basis. For example, if a project had a three month deadline and the requirements are already set, then a person can enter each requirement as a task and spread the tasks out in a three month period. Each task is also given a time period for an estimate of how long it will take, and then a person can view a Gantt Chart that shows how the tasks line up in the three month period.
Some of the limitations to MS Project are that it cannot help with conceptualizing and identifying the purpose of the project, defining the project’s objective, or discuss alternative scenarios and build contingency plans. Some of the things MS Project 2000 can do are: help with finalizing the project’s scope, identify its activities, assign resources to activities, and create an estimate of time and costs (Srikanth). As mentioned in the MS Project 2000 Tutorial by Anjana Srikanth, Microsoft Project 2000 “helps you put together a plan of action, fill in and organize all the details that must be completed in order to achieve your goal.”
MS Project lets a person print the tasks out in many different types of formats. Some print versions a person can look at are a Gantt Chart, a Pert Chart, look at the tasks by month, and customized views. “MS Project also supports saving reports as formatted HTML documents or printing formatted reports.” (Smith 2001).
Some reasons people don’t buy MS Project is the price and the compatibility limitation with other operating systems. Currently MS Poject is not available to Mac OS X users. The most current MS Project software costs anywhere from $599 to $1499 per license depending on the amount of features a person needs. Other project management softwares include Project KickStart by Experience In Software, Inc. that costs $129.95 per license that is currently only available for the Windows OS. FastTrack Schedule 8 by AEC Software, Inc. costs $299 and is available for the Windows or Mac OS. An open-source project management software called Open Workbench is available at www.openworkbench.org. This is an alternative to the pricey MS Project by Microsoft.

References
FastTrack Schedule 8. 2005. AEC Software. 26 Feb. 2005

Lynch, Jim. “KickStart Your Next Project.” 06 Mar. 2001. PC Magazine. Ziff Davis Media.
26 Feb. 2005
Open Workbench. 2004. Niku Corporation. 26 Feb. 2005

Project KickStart. 14 Oct. 2003. Experience In Software. 26 Feb. 2005

“Project 2003 Frequently Asked Questions.” 13 Dec. 2004. Microsoft Corporation. 26 Feb.
2005
Smith, Summer. “How does MS Project help in Project Management?” Nov. 2001.
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/almstrum/cs370/summer/MS_Project.html
Srikanth, Anjana. “MS Project 2000 Tutorial.” Stylus Systems Pvt. 26 Feb. 2005