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It sounds like they were using the Excel spreadsheet for a WBS or scheduling application. There are a million and one COTS products for that. They probably used

It sounds like they were using the Excel spreadsheet for a WBS or scheduling application. There are a million and one COTS products for that. They probably used Excel because whoever did the initial task didn't know, or didn't have the time to learn about, tools like MS Project or whatever else that could have helped them, or only knew of larger scheduling tools that require a sys admin to set up and run. The reasons Excel gets used for anything: 1. It's present. 2. It's "free". (Corporate already paid for it.) 3. It's easy at the current scale of the problem 4. It doesn't require servers to use. 5. Someone else created it 20 years ago and no one pushed to use a real DB or specialized COTS product because that takes more effort. 6. It's actually an appropriate tool for the job (very common, but not the #1 reason it's used).

justinclift 3y ago
> MS Project Heh, ~10 years ago that program used to be incredibly bad, losing information and getting getting things wrong. To the point where on some (larger) projects they'd have a separate project manager actually doing the work in a different system, but then update everything into MS Project every week just to comply with upper management directives. :/ Has it gotten any better?
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  I used it most when you did. I found it acceptable, but not stellar. I never heard of it losing data. Most of the issues were with people not adapting to it and trying to make it work like the in-house tool it replaced (which was buggy, slow, and did lose data regularly). But yes, a lot of people didn't like it and just updated it from their separate spreadsheets or whatever on a weekly or monthly basis depending on when reports were generated.
wrycoder 3y ago
Can you recommend a FLOSS alternative for MS Project? I haven’t found one.
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  Nope, everyone these days wants to use Jira or Gitlab or something so that's what I use. I'm back to an IC role (and have been for a while) and am trying to stay out of project management in general. I hated the politics of it all.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  My first instinct reading that question was a StackOverflow like "why would you do that ? do Y instead" type answer. I've used MS Project more than a decade ago for one or two project and just gave up to do what the sister comments are describing: manage the project elsewhere, with JIRA tickets, one or two gantt charts and some more excel sheets as needed. I never had data loss or straight bugs, it just didn't feel more useful than any of the other tools it's supposed to replace. Project status was always more complex than what could be fed into it, so I had to keep track of it elsewhere anyway. Task status needed deeper integration with github and other tools, we're writing tickets and epics etc. anyway so JIRA projects were better suited. Then it lacked enough simplicity and flexibility to be used as an adhoc gantt tool. The whole concept just feels doomed in my eyes when it comes to software projects.

justinclift 3y ago

> MS Project Heh, ~10 years ago that program used to be incredibly bad, losing information and getting getting things wrong. To the point where on some (larger) projects they'd have a separate project manager actually doing the work in a different system, but then update everything into MS Project every week just to comply with upper management directives. :/ Has it gotten any better?

Jtsummers 3y ago
I used it most when you did. I found it acceptable, but not stellar. I never heard of it losing data. Most of the issues were with people not adapting to it and trying to make it work like the in-house tool it replaced (which was buggy, slow, and did lose data regularly). But yes, a lot of people didn't like it and just updated it from their separate spreadsheets or whatever on a weekly or monthly basis depending on when reports were generated.

wrycoder 3y ago

Can you recommend a FLOSS alternative for MS Project? I haven’t found one.

Jtsummers 3y ago
Nope, everyone these days wants to use Jira or Gitlab or something so that's what I use. I'm back to an IC role (and have been for a while) and am trying to stay out of project management in general. I hated the politics of it all.
makeitdouble 3y ago
My first instinct reading that question was a StackOverflow like "why would you do that ? do Y instead" type answer. I've used MS Project more than a decade ago for one or two project and just gave up to do what the sister comments are describing: manage the project elsewhere, with JIRA tickets, one or two gantt charts and some more excel sheets as needed. I never had data loss or straight bugs, it just didn't feel more useful than any of the other tools it's supposed to replace. Project status was always more complex than what could be fed into it, so I had to keep track of it elsewhere anyway. Task status needed deeper integration with github and other tools, we're writing tickets and epics etc. anyway so JIRA projects were better suited. Then it lacked enough simplicity and flexibility to be used as an adhoc gantt tool. The whole concept just feels doomed in my eyes when it comes to software projects.