What is Project Management Software?

Project management software is a computer application that assists in the management and maintenance associated with organizing a project. This software package is used as a tool to communicate timelines, resources, and milestones to interested parties within an organization. Project management software can be thought of as a communication tool for all stake holders within an organization on the current and future state of projects.

One of the most critical functions within enterprise organizations today, project management drives the success of delivering products that generate productivity and profit for businesses throughout the world. A project is a specific goal made up of tasks and milestones that are necessary to complete the final objective. All projects have a defined beginning and ending date, with objectives that can be measured during the execution of the project plan to ensure timely completion of the project.

Project management is the art of managing and defining a project plan. This requires stringent organization skills and oversight on tasks, resources, and delivery dates. Project management software encapsulates the work flow management of a project plan into a software application that can be used as a tool to explain the objectives, delivery milestone dates, and dependencies within a project.

A project plan requires resource management and resource allocation to be successful. Resource leveling is a term used in project management to ensure that the project resources have been estimated sufficiently. In project management software, resources allocation reports give the project manager a tool to ensure that resource demand does not exceed the resources available for the project.

Another benefit of project management software is the ease of creating a visualization of a critical path. In project management terminology, a critical path is the process by which tasks and milestones feed into future tasks. This critical path is defined in the software through dependencies and linkage from one milestone to another.

There are many types of project management software in the software application market. Some of these packages enable the use of collaboration or distributed management of the project. This collaboration software creates an environment where the project plan is defined into modules that can be managed and maintained by multiple project managers.

Complex projects can take many years to complete. By their very nature, these projects are expensive and time-consuming, which requires strict organizational skills to ensure delivery of the final objective. Project management software is a tool to assist in the management and communication of the risks and tasks necessary to complete a project.