PROJECT in a box Professional Edition is a document management system for projects built around the European de facto Project management Methodology, PRINCE2. We talked about it with Malcolm West, Managing Director of Prosis Solutions Ltd, the providers of PROJECT in a box. We talk about the Professional Edition, there is also a free Community Edition available.

The system guides you through what documentation you should be producing or reviewing at each step and provides extensive templates but then goes on to provide you with the framework you need to store, manage and effectively deliver your project documentation and to share this across your delivery team even if they are home workers or are based in other organisations.

1. Improve project reporting and tracking

Project tracking as at the heart of all PROJECT in a box products all documents are attached to the system and can be viewed, checked in and out based on user permissions. When a document is changed and checked in the system records details of the change and builds up a very good audit trail and record of the projects progress. A project reporting wizard enables high permission users to create professional management reports which can be compared against other projects in the portfolio for prioritisation purposes. The reports automatically include latest status from the PM?s notes pages and also summary stats on risk, issue and quality from the current project logs. Activity reports can also be included to show individual users activity on the project providing a rare insight into how project activities are being undertaken.

2. Improve estimating and scheduling

In keeping with our ethos of providing practical tools for project managers the system currently has little in the way of practical tools to support estimating and scheduling beyond the template documents. In our experience almost all businesses will have a finance system and company or even manager level preferences about estimating and cost control. Therefore users can manage their information through the system without us imposing a particular format or structure on this exercise which might well clash with the companies own approach. With regard to scheduling, the system will hold and track all known types of planning/scheduling files including MS Project, Primavera, Niku etc. We also have plans for a Product Based Planning module in early 2006.

3. Reduce cost or speed process up by automating workflows

Workflow is very important in PROJECT in a box products, users simply point and click through the familiar PRINCE2 process diagrams until they get to the step or ?sub process? they need to undertake. This makes it very quick to move around your project and the impressive document management capability means wasted duplication of effort is pretty much eradicated. Because of the nature of PRINCE2 and that we enable people to tailor the PRINCE2 management products to fit the needs of their business and project portfolios there is no enforcement of the order in which sub-processes or documents are completed. This striking of a balance between prompting on activities rather than over constraining is very popular with team members, project managers and project sponsors alike.

4. Improve resource assignments

This is not currently a major part of PROJECT in a box Professional edition which is primarily aimed at organizations who have never before required or been able to afford a projects management system. An all to common problem with implementing in such teams and organizations trying to do too much at once and overloading the capacity of the team to learn a system while trying to do the ?day job? and deliver the project. We take this very seriously allowing users to continue using their current tactical tools in spreadsheets or small databases for this sort of activity while concentrating on providing structure and process in the more fundamental aspects of project delivery. A resource management module is planned for release in 2006.

5. Improve project communication

Good project communication is essential to the success of any project and Professional edition provides the tools to help build a culture of communication. All team members have their contact details published in the system alongside their personal white board where they can leave messages for their colleagues and visa versa. These contact details and white boards are accessible from numerous locations through out the system to enable communications to be established, when required, very quickly. Basic Outlook integration has also been provided to enable documents to be checked out directly to email in a single click operation for communications outside the core project team, the same system can also be used to quickly construct team email circulars and other communications.

6. Improve team collaboration

PROJECT in a box Professional Edition has been built with a wide range of collaboration options in mind. It?s Microsoft .NET and web services technology enables it to be used just as easily over a local network within a business as over the internet or as a mixture of the two. When used with SSL certificates Banking level 128bit encryption ensures that none of the information communicated between client user and server can be intercepted. In combination with the permissions model this means that your home workers and collaboration partners can have complete access to your particular projects at the same time as your customer gets read only access and the rest of your organisation is working on a range of different projects that your partners and customer don?t even know exist. Of course with our activity reporting high permission users can also see how effectively this is being used!

7. Improve overall project success

As we said earlier in our answer to question 3, we believe that in 80% of applications too much control and ?enforcing a process? can be detrimental to the project as the user feel they are a slave to the system. Also because we all know that every project is different when you need to do something outside the prescribed flow it can be painful, time consuming and expensive to suspend the model. We therefore make it very clear what is expected to be done at each step or sub process and make it clearly visible via history if it has been done, when and who by but we leave our project team in charge of deciding the priority of what gets done when and by who.

Following the lead of engineering companies Projects are fast becoming the way that most organizations, even in the service sector, deliver their business. This has created a discontinuity in the projects management software market as almost all the systems available have been developed with large highly structured organizations with an ingrained project culture in mind. What?s more they are expensive, frequently starting at ?5,000 or more and requiring extensive implementation support. PROJECT in a box has bucked this trend by providing in Professional Edition an organisation scale system from around ?50 per user where the whole organisation can use it for ?5,000 without the need for Implementation consultancy. You shouldn?t even have to be a good Project Manager to see the benefits of this!

Professional Edition builds on the established concept of Community Edition which launched earlier in 2005 already has over 3,000 users world wide and is the most popular personal PRINCE2 management system in the world. Community Edition has the same core capability as Professional in the process flows, templates, document management and audit trail as well as some useful export tools. It?s biggest advantage though is that it is completely free and can be used as long as you like and for an many projects as you like on your PC. When you are ready to move up to Professional and share your projects with your colleagues you can upgrade your software and your projects will migrate straight over.