Is there such a thing as free project management software?

For the project management community, commercial packages like Microsoft Project are the standard for project scheduling management. At $599 per license, Fortune 500 organizations can invest in the industry standard tool, while many smaller organizations might not find it as cost-effective. However, cost pressures are a reality in both large and small organizations, often resulting in a limited number of software licenses for project staff. In some cases, project managers are forced to manage projects with makeshift tools, and are not able to leverage the benefits of project scheduling software.

With the increase in agile software development methodologies, the project scheduling choices can vary from the no-tech index card approach to hosted solutions like RallyDev's agile methodology. They even offer a free community edition for managing Agile project schedules.

For organizations lacking a true project management scheduling solution, project managers often use Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint software to develop schedules and communicate project status. There are several other alternatives to the commercial marketing. Two open-source project-scheduling packages - GanttProject and Open Workbench - provide a cost-effective option to Microsoft Project, Excel or makeshift tools. Below is a look at these two increasingly popular free project management software scheduling solutions.

GanttProject

GanttProject is an open-source project-scheduling tool that develops project plans and reports project progress using Gantt charts. A Gantt chart is a bar chart used to show tasks and related project schedules over time. GanttProject quickly creates Gantt charts with a few keystrokes and a couple clicks of the mouse.

Project managers can use the software to easily build project schedules and publish plans to the project website. GanttProject can be used to develop program-level Gantt charts with program milestones. Each task can be assigned multiple resources, task dependencies and notes. The open-source product also has plug-ins available to link multiple GanttProject plans under one project plan.

GanttProject provides a simple resource sheet with fields for name, phone number, email address and project role. Overallocated resources are easily identified in the Resources tab by red Gantt chart bars. However, the individual tasks with overallocated resources are not easily identified, requiring individual checking of each task's resources allocation to level the resources.

GanttProject has a number of built-in features to facilitate communication. Once the project plan is built, it can be shared with other team members by publishing it on a web site, exporting it to PDF file format or a graphic file (JPEF, PNG formats). Under these formats, project stakeholders can use a web browser or an Adobe PDF reader to view the project plan, instead of the GanttProject software. The tool also integrates with the user's desktop email software and supports email integration.

GanttProject is a simple application, lacking some basic usability features commonly found in Microsoft applications including right-mouse clicks menus and undo functions. The tool only supports duration estimates using days as the unit of measure instead of hours, weeks or months. GanttProject only provides a single Gantt chart view of the project schedule, unlike other tools that support task and resource allocation views.

These limitations don't prevent a project manager from quickly building Gantt charts to communicate progress with the project stakeholders, however. Most project managers will appreciate GanttProject's easy-to-use charting feature as well as the ability to quickly graph a project schedule without having to learn a complex project scheduling tool.

GanttProject was released to the open-source community in January 2003. It is available for free at http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net. Product support and additional add-ons are also available at the website. Project managers can view the demo at: http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net/demo/demo.html

Open Workbench

Open Workbench is Niku Corp.'s open-source project scheduling and management tool. Positioned as a free replacement for Microsoft Project, Open Workbench allows users to create projects and tasks, build Gantt charts, assign resources, and track project progress.

Open Workbench provides much more functionality than GanttProject and similar functionality to that found in Microsoft Project. Project data is displayed in a variety of views including spreadsheet formats, Gantt charts, and Critical Path Method charts. The standard views can be customized, or new views can be created to meet project management needs. The tool supports schedule baselines, tracks actuals, and provides variance analysis capability.

The views in Open Workbench are grouped into planning, executing and controlling categories. The categorization provides all the necessary views based on the project's phase. Instead of browsing through multiple views, the categorization provides the common views used during each of the standard planning, executing, and controlling project phases.

Open Workbench categorizes work into phases, activities and tasks. The underlying views can display a detailed Gantt chart with relevant tasks or a high-level Gantt chart depicting the project's phases. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) view dissects the project work packages and assigns the proper phases, activities, and task category. The tool provides an auto-scheduling feature that will convert a WBS into a Gantt chart. Sliding the Gantt bars in the proper view also easily modifies project schedules.

New users of Open Workbench are encouraged to read the user guide before building a project schedule. The tool has a learning curve though the common functions are immediately intuitive. Open Workbench handles tasks, resource assignments and schedules different than Microsoft Project. Experienced Microsoft Project users may find some usability issues as Open Workbench applies a structured and rigid approach to planning, executing and controlling project schedules. The structured approach aids the planning process but also hinders some of the flexibility found in different Microsoft Project views.

One noticeable difference is the way resource assignment and task dependencies functions are performed using a separate dialog box instead of entering the data directly into the spreadsheet view. Double clicking on a task name allows users to modify the task title instead of displaying a dialog box. The different views in Open Workbench can also be confusing since the windows are split into two or three sections depending on the view.

Project managers can download Open Workbench at http://www.openworkbench.org and build a sample project schedule. More than 34,000 copies of Open Workbench have been downloaded to date - an estimated savings of more than $20 million dollars in commercial project management licensing.

GanttProject or Open Workbench?

If you need a simple software tool to quickly draft a graphical version of the project schedule, consider GanttProject. GanttProject is a simple, easy to use scheduling tool with a short learning curve.

If you need an alternative to Microsoft Project, and can invest the time to learn the tool, try Open Workbench. Open Workbench is a much more powerful solution, but requires training to understand all the features.

And keep in mind: there are other open-source scheduling tools to investigate, including GanntPV and JprojectTimer, a Java-base solution. A good resource for searching the latest open-source scheduling tools is http://www.sourceforge.net.

Users of any open-source tools should frequently visit the support web sites and subscribe to newsletters for new updates. Open-source tools will continue to improve over time, and new features will be released to the project management domain. Before investing in commercial scheduling software, project managers and organizations should consider open-source alternatives.

What about Microsoft Project?

I still have a personal bias towards Microsoft Project since I've worked with the tool for years.  I still think Microsoft Project is the best desktop projet management scheduling tool.  However, if you're looking for free project management software, please consider the tools mentioned above.