Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!vtserf!cohill
From: cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Project Planners
Keywords: project planners,gantt
Message-ID: <954@vtserf.cc.vt.edu>
Date: 8 Jan 91 15:59:58 GMT
References: <1991Jan7.184508.17676@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Lines: 25

Reporting on MacProject II is virtually non-existent; it stinks
big-time.  I used to teach project management and if you have more than
5 or 6 people you want to be able to churn out paper status reports (or
the email equivalent) on a regular basis, sorted by person, showing the
status of each task assigned to that person.  You can't do that with
MacProject II.  

All you have is a really awful one-shot query feature.  You can store
the queries, but it's a major pain doing them one at a time.  Graphics
and charts are okay, but without reports it is strictly very small
project stuff only.  We are looking for a replacement for it here.

As far as it being popular, all that means is a lot of people bought it;
my experience is that very few people actually use PM software of any
kind, unless you are in a very big organization with very large
projects, where you then have industrial strength PM apps.

The problem most people have with PM is that to use it correctly, you
have to think a good deal about what you want to do, and few people
bother with that.  It's much more fun to just start churning out code.
-- 
|          ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never       
|              imagined, or were encouraged to avoid.   T. Pynchon          
|                    
|Andy Cohill        cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu            VPI&SU