So whats the best Project Management software package?

This is an all too familiar questions I often see asked. In fact it popped up on LinkedIn Q&A the other day and I couldn't resist diving in with two feet, especially when I saw all these people running off and naming this and that.

Here's how it went:

Question: What is the best project management software out there for a novice and considering that financial/budgeting tracking is not important?

My Answer:
To be honest I often find that I can do all the basics of Project Management by just using MSExcel.

Please bear in mind that 'back in the day' our forefathers built dams, skyscrapers, railways, managing these projects using... paper!

So I have upgraded from Paper 1.0 to MSExcel and find that for the sake of putting a simple schedule down and ensuring that a small number of resources are correctly allocated; it does it all nicely. I have can and do use MSProject to a relatively advanced level quite regularly and have also used Primavera as well.

But to be honest, by the time you set up all the parameters, unpick the things that the software wants to do automatically for you and then find that not everyone on the project has the right software to read it - you could have actually spent all that time working on delivering the project. This type of software is a classic time waster for a novice and my advice if you do go down the specialist software route, is to start out whiteboarding/writing down the project plan before you enter it into the software.

I have only really witnessed the power of PM software come into its own on typically multi-million dollar programmes running over 12 months with teams of over 70 personnel. What I also observed with these types of programmes is that there are few people who need that powerful overview and computational capabilities, so everyone else breaks the programme down into little manageable chunks that can be easily run on... a Excel spreadsheet!

Hope this helps.

They liked my answer and rated it the best *blush*, arguably against a bunch of people wanting to recommend OTT packages that would befuddle a novice, or even seasoned PM!
Now don't get me wrong, Project Management is an evolving technical skill and needs to be treated as such. I am certainly an advocate of adopting a rigorous technical approach to Project Reporting (such as metrics and Earned Value etc), as well as an analytical approach to Risk Management
- but PM's really need to grasp the first principles of these disciplines before they engage software to do it for them.

I am often reminded of the Officer in charge of Logistics for the entire British Land Forces during the Gulf War - this man needed to ensure that every soldier got his bullets, beans and bayonet. He ran the entire Logistics Battle successfully from the back of just four Landrovers.

Now if he can do that, I think we can get by with a few simple Project Management tools, can't we?.