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M2: Analysis of Comparable Project Planning/Management Offerings

M2 Section Summary: Project Proposal Management

Copyright (c) 2000 Jim Salmons and Frank Castellucci
All Rights Reserved

Associated project: Specification Writing for Web-based Project Planning Software

Project URL: http://sohodojo.com/techsig/project-planning-project.html

sXc Project detail: http://sourcexchange.com/ProjectDetail?projectID=24 (SourceXchange is out of business.)

Project coordination: Sohodojo

Sponsors: Position open

Sponsors (M1-3): Opendesk.com and Collab.Net

Core Team: Jim Salmons and Frank Castellucci

1 Introduction

This document aggregates the feature and underlying model analyses of comparable products and services in the domain of the project specification requirements. During the comparables analysis phase, nine product and service offerings were examined.

1.1 Format and Key to Abbreviations

Each of fourteen sections of the Comparables Analysis Data Capture Outline has a Section Summary file such as this one. Section 1 of each data collection form is an Introduction statement explaining the project and the assessment. Section 16 is a reviewer profile. Since all data was produced by the core project team members, section 16 does not have a summary section.

In a Section Summary file, we aggregate the analysis data within each subsection of the raw data collection forms. Each data point from the raw assessment outlines is presented in the following alphabetical order and prefixed with the following identifying abbreviations:

Note: The HTML versions of the deliverable use bullet lists with more readable prefix identifiers than the two-character source identifier used in the text versions.

The aggregated section data in each Section Summary file is the last section of the file. In addition to the aggregated data, each summary file has an optional section for the capture of summary insights or comments.

1.2 Section Summary Insights and/or Comments

====== SECTION SUMMARY DATA ======

8 Project Proposal Management [ All assessments, this topic ]

8.1 Vision/Goals specification

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  Since Projects map to collections of Goal/Subgoal elements, there is a kind of 'de facto' tight coupling between project structure and goals. Extended and configurable description fields along with Note and file attachments mean that ManagePro's database can capture the data for and map to Project Proposals. ManagePro has a flexible and highly-configurable Reporting subsystem that allows dynamic document generation.

  The reviewer has developed custom configurations for real projects where project proposals and similar complex documents were generated directly from ManagePro databases using the powerful Report definition and generation features within ManagePro. These reports can often be dumped directly to a printer, or they may be written to files or to a desktop window where they can be captured for further editing.

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  Functionality not supported in tool.

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  Functionality not supported.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  User defined, not a feature supported by the system.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  WebProject supports creating a project proposal which must be met with approval before the project plan for it can be opened.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  The Whiteboard/Notecard architecture is deceptively powerful. While there is not explicit support for project proposal development, the general feature of the 'Information Unit' model is sufficiently flexible and powerful (in terms of easy version control) that is could be used early in a project during its proposal development.

8.2 Business Processing Rules

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  Yes, but they are optional. ManagePro has a broad underlying architecture which supports a performance measurement, appraisal and personnel development system.

  Managers can develop complex measurement, appraisal and development plans all within ManagePro. Manager-specific views help collect extensive historical performance-oriented data from within the goal-oriented project data. Formal and informal appraisal exchanges and feedback/recognition communications are supported.

  Used in the extreme, ManagePro represents a broad, explicit Personnel Management business model. ManagePro has a 'Management Style' configuration setting which determines the extent that these non-project-goal-specific management features are included in the Person/User's user interface.

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  Functionality not supported in tool.

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  Functionality not supported.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  User defined, not a feature supported by the system.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  When preparing the WebProject server for use, the administrator configures the Project Approval list, which contains the e-mail address of all those who's approval is required to accept a proposal as a project. When a project proposal is made, the members of the list are notified by e-mail and they can then approve or reject a project proposal.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  Not explicitly.

8.3 Implementation Specific Rules

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  Does not address this function.

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  As stated above, ManagePro is highly configurable to support personnel development and management dimensions beyond the basic project-definition and work-assignment features. These customized configurations apply to all data in a specific database. In the User maintains data for many projects within a single aggregating database, all projects within that database will be subject to the same set of business rule/process configurations.

  If implementation-specific rules are required, the User would create and use a separate database.

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  Functionality not supported in tool.

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  Functionality not supported.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  Not applicable.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  There is no enforcement to configure an approval list. In this case, the user that makes the proposal can accept it automatically and create a project plan.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  Not explicitly.

8.4 Reviewer Comments

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  None

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  None

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  None

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  None

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  None

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  None

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  None

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  This is really the only major nod to software development life cycle (SDLC) methodology that is included in WebProject.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  None

DOCUMENT HISTORY

Version 0.9 - Draft
Version 1.0 - Final

### end of sxc24-m2-02sect-comparables.txt (Version 1.0) ###

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