MS Project Weakness?

[JennL]

In a recent interview I was asked what I thought the biggest weakness of MS
Project is. I'm curious to know what the experts think. Thank you for your
input.

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

Lack of a complete set of scheduling objects and methods to use on them.
This is common to most scheduling tools though.

 

[salgud]

In a recent interview I was asked what I thought the biggest weakness of MS
Project is. I'm curious to know what the experts think. Thank you for your
input.

Depends on what you consider "weakness", and whether you mean on a macro or
micro scale.
On a micro scale, the "Autolink tasks" feature is a major flaw in Project.
It inserts false links into a schedule in many cases, unless it is turned
off. To make matters worse, it is on by default.
On a macro scale, the Network Diagram is not well thought out, cumbersome
to modify and use, and it's real purpose is to some degree defeated by the
difficulty in applying it. I don't think many users venture there because
of this problem, and it's a key scheduling tool.
Resource Leveling is also rather cumbersome. I think there need to be
considerably more options in controlling how it functions for it to be
truly useful.
Overall, it's a much more useful tool than it was in the early days,
versions 1.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc. Still, it has a ways to go to be fully
functional.
Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

JennL --

I've always thought there needs to be an Equipment type of resource to go
along with the Work, Material, and Cost resources. If there WAS an
Equipment type of resource, there also needs to be a way to tie an Equipment
resource's schedule to a Work resource's schedule on a task so that the
Equipment resource and Work resource are always scheduled to work together.
Hope this helps.

 

[RLRivera]

1. A major weakness is that it allows forecast dates in the past... And it's
workaround is by using a start constraint. It gives a false sence of
security because if you don't show other columns of information you might led
to believe those tasks are complete.

2. Cant' copy sections of another schedule into your schedule without losing
the relationships woithin the group of tasks.

3. Can't replace a generic resource with multiple named resources. Cant
have multiple cost accounts againts a task...

4. Not having a Timephased Network Diagram