Finding EV Software with a Low PITA Factor

There is really only one thing you need to keep in the forefront of your mind when looking for EV software with a low PITA factor.  

It’s the same thing that has made the Apple iPhone hugely successful, despite all its competitors.   However, when we begin listing the requirements for our EV software, sometimes we lose sight of the one thing that is going to make or break the success of the software you thought was going to make your life easier.  We start focusing on all the bells and whistles and we begin dreaming of a future with all this wonderful information about our projects—if we buy this really cool software.

Can you guess what it is yet?  If you ask a devoted Apple iPhone user why they love their

cell phone, you’ll likely hear about the iPhone “experience” or perhaps the friendly and intuitive user-interface.  Boil it down in a nutshell and the answer becomes “ease of use” via the simplistic design.  Sure there are others that have more features, yet the iPhone has a very loyal following that its competitors can’t break.  Keep that in mind.

What does that really mean when we talk about EV software?  It is a much broader concept than you might initially think.  It transcends every item on your list of software requirements.  Let’s take a look at some of the requirements you may have for your EV software and consider some ease of use aspects that may make a huge difference in your work life.

1. Robust enough to handle thousands of activities and resources.  OK, so you have some humongous schedules with a massive listing of resources.  If your software is too cumbersome to operate, it doesn’t matter if it could handle billions of activities.  Cumbersome EV software either takes an army to manage, or a lot of time for those few people who understand how it works.  That’s going to cost you time and money, and possibly some very burned out resources.
2. Fast processing and reporting.  Even if it takes only one second to process your data or produce a report, what were the steps or headaches required beforehand?  How many different screens or options do you have to go through before you get to that lightning speed?  Even if there were NO prior headaches and your software is insanely fast, I guarantee if it is too difficult to understand or use after the fact, you'll be grumbling.
3. Reliable information.  Granted, if the information within and generated by your EV software is fraught with errors, you’re going to chuck it out the window pretty quickly.  Most of the time this is caused by “dirty” information going in to the system, or by various settings within the software that affect how the data is processed or reported.  But, let’s say it is doing something to your data—similar to autocorrect or auto-formatting—anything that you don’t want and you can’t turn off….then you’ll be beating your head against a brick wall, because frankly, that will be LESS painful.  This includes putting data in places you don’t want, such as the wrong period or at the wrong level of the WBS.  You’d be surprised how often this happens.  If you hear, “UGH!  Why is it DOING that??!!”, then that’s a good indication that you’ve got an ease of use problem affecting the reliability, or at least the usability of your data.
4. Useful reporting and charts.  Perhaps you desire reports and charts that don’t require some third-party software to generate them.  Eliminating additional software needed because your current EV software doesn’t yield reports you can use is a common reason for wanting new EV software.  But even if it does produce wonderful reports, how easy was it to generate them?  How difficult is it for project managers to access and run a report for themselves?  If you DO need to load it into a third party software, how hard is it to set up the interface, or is it all done manually?

So the next time you go looking for software to make your life easier, make sure it really does make it easier.  I know it sounds like such an intuitive and simple concept, but so many people lose sight of it.  And to help you even further, here is a list of questions you should ask when reviewing potential EV software programs:

• Does it take a small army to setup and run each month?
• Can anyone be trained to use it within one day?
• Is the software so complicated that the developers have created a setup or processing wizard?
• Do you have to enter the same data in more than one place?
• How many manual steps are created or eliminated by this software?
• Are other tools needed to analyze the data in the software, and if so, how many or how often?
• Is the data generated consistent across datasets and does it provide valuable, reliable project performance information?
• How many steps do you have to take to drill down into your data?

Do you have any other tips for finding easy to use EV software?  Or how about complaints of your existing software—how is it not so easy to use?  Check out our blog next time, when we will discuss the "5 Points of Failure for an EVMS."

- Melissa Duncan (About Melissa)

Read the previous posting - Right Sizing: A Common Point of EVMS Failure - Revisions and Data Maintenance"

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Earned Value legend as there may be a few of us that don’t yet have this memorized…

CA=Control Accounts
CAM=Control Account Manager
CPI=Cost Performance Index
EAC=Estimate At Completion  

EVM=Earned Value Management

EVMS=Earned Value Management System
EAC=Estimate At Completion 

IPMR=Integrated Program Management Report
LOE=Level of Effort
OBS=Organizational Breakdown Structure
OTB=Over Target Baseline
PC=Project Controls
PM=Project Manager
PMB=Performance Measurement Baseline
RAM=Responsibility Assignment Matrix
SPI=Schedule Performance Index
WBS=Work Breakdown Structure