Saying no to using project management software

[NorthCivil]

These days clients /project managers often want to run an entire project through a proprietary project management software.

Problem is, there are a dozen of them out there and each one is clunky and annoying in its own way. With 20-30 projects active at a time, most of these systems will send me about 10-15 automated reminders per day per project into an already busy email inbox. So i do the needful and just direct it all to the junk box.

The use of these is often sprung on me way after the contract is signed. I find I have 4-5 project management systems i need to interact with, which are all sending me auto-reminder and "overdue" emails all day long. To make it worse, once I start declining to use these systems, the party to the project advocating their use will forward my details to a "product technical ambassador" who wants to do "training sessions" to train me to use their clunky system. I've obliged before, these training sessions are really training sessions to teach these software startups how to create their systems. meanwhile, we are the lab rats...

Anybody have success sliding out of using these?

 

[Settingsun]

No, if these things are what I think the are. Replacement for email, drawings have to be issued through the system, review comments are marked on the system-version drawings etc?

They usually can be configured so you get the actual message and attachments by email, and replying to the email puts the reply in the system so that's fine after initial setup. Drawing submission is uniformly clunky. I haven't had the pleasure of reminders and would auto-bin them like you if they can't be turned off.

There's a push for them amongst medium-large consultants IME. My past three jobs going back over 10 years have all either used the client's system or, if the client doesn't use one, propose to use ours so we look modern. Here to stay unfortunately.

 

[KootK]

No, I've also been enslaved by PM technology. And, similar to steveh49, I'm actually part of the problem from time to time. PM software would be the cat's meow if only we all used the same kind. That might be a good argument for a universal, open source application someday if folks could be made to trust it somehow.

 

[fel3]

I think the usefulness or oppressiveness of PM software may vary by role.

Most of my career has been spent managing projects and personally performing somewhere between 25% and 100% of the engineering work, including client management, financial management, project team management, subconsultant management, report writing, design work, specification writing, construction support, etc. Most of the time it's been greater than 50%. In some cases, I have even pitched in with the CAD drafting as well. In those types of situations, I wouldn't want to burden what little time I had with what NorthCivil describes. I would find the constant electronic nagging to be very oppressive. I might even have decided to quit and become a greeter at WalMart.

On the other hand, I have known several people who did virtually nothing but project management (basically the first four items in my list above). One of them--an architect who was a parallel consultant to me on a large corrections project--lived and died by PM software and it made him highly effective in his role. I could not have done what he did and the way he did it, so more power to him.

I have known several civil engineers who also did virtually nothing but project management and for two of them it's a good thing because, while they were excellent project managers, they were terrible nuts-and-bolts engineers. However, unlike the architect I mentioned, these civil engineers made little to no use of PM software. They handled project scheduling using tools like Outlook and the company's financial system kept them apprised of the project financials.

One of the dangers of using computers and increasingly sophisticated software is that we can become slaves to it and we can end up doing things "just because we can" not because we should. I am no Luddite. I have been using computers and LOTS of different programs since 1980 and programming HP calculators since 1976. I spend a good portion of my work life and non-work life using a computer. But, I don't want the computer telling me what to do, when to do it, etc. I want to decide those things. I will often use a computer to help me with this, but I don't want it in charge.

============
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

 

[structuralCADspecialist]

Just chiming in to sympathize. I've seen/used a few different varieties. Same with estimating. They are garbage marketed to managers, not users. Managers probably know the f'd up but are too big-headed to admit it, so they force employees to use the stuff.

Basic software complete with great organizational skills wins out every day.

 

[phamENG]

I've seen a couple used well.

Generally, the good implementations leave me out of it to the maximum extent practicable. They also have email notification settings, so I can turn those off if an RFI or submittal is tied to more than person and they're dragging their feet.

I've never had to submit drawings through them - the approved drawings are uploaded by the contractor. It usually serves as a repository for project pictures, inspection reports, RFIs, and shop drawings. One contractor I worked with kept an annotated PDF of the drawings on it for everyone to view. They had a guy who did nothing but maintain the drawing with the most up to date information. He'd overlay sketches, link RFIs, link shop drawings - so if you ever had a question about something, you just pull up the drawings and the most up to date information was right there.

I've been doing inspections for a developer lately, and their system has been good for uploading daily reports and tracking everything.

I agree there's a lot of room to do these wrong, and I've seen some clunky implementations. But done right they can be an asset to the overall project.

 

[RWW0002]

I think we all hate the constant nagging from the software. If there are any PM's out there reading this. Please stop setting the due dates on submittals for unreasonable time frame! If I start getting overdue notifications on set of steel shop drawings the day after I receive them you can be certain that those are going to go to the bottom of the stack! While you might think the squeaky wheel gets the grease, most of us have begun to turn a blind eye to these notifications.

If, on the other hand, I notice a reasonable review time-frame flagged for my review I will try to be diligent and return them early if possible.

When it comes to "saying no", I have had some luck on design-bid projects convincing the architect that all correspondence should go through them and them alone to keep a half-marked set from getting out "in the wild" without all parties reviewing...
No such luck with this logic on design-build projects though. This is where we see the most use of the PM software and where I see no way around its use.

 

[kingnero]

As a small technical consulting company, we also get pushed to use those by much bigger clients than we are.
We don't do project mgmt, so all we input is for the benefit of someone else. Nope, we don't do that anymore. I've been burned once (we had to use their time mgmt system, and invoice based on the output of their software The principle is OK, the execution was horrible. Took longer to input the daily hours and attach the word done, than the actual work itself (with a slight exageration).

Our general conditions now state that we do not accept the use of any PM systems and related communications (mailings, reminders, ...) except our own (= which is excel ) and which we freely make available to our clients, unless otherwise agreed upon. And we only agree for a fixed fee per active day on the project,; which almost makes it worthwhile...

 

[NorthCivil]

Rww0002

I'll check the junk bin from time to time and I'm still getting auto-reminders to respond to RFIs issued a year ago for jobs that have long since been handed over!

Even worse, getting reminders to respond to RFIs for jobs I quoted but didn't land!!