28 January 2010 October last year we launched our survey regarding project management software. We are interested in your experience with this kind of software. So, not the ultimate functionality or vision of the vendor is crucial, it's all about the user-experience.

These first results are interesting, but do not meet the requirements of a statistical solid survey. But it's a start and we are very happy with the results of this first survey. The number of respondents is 82 (32 people skipped a question). You find the results underneath.

ROLES
First an overview of the roles of the respondents. The three most occurring roles are: 'project manager' (63%), 'portfolio manager' (27%) and 'project leader' (24%). Roles not mentioned in the list, but added by respondents are: 'coach' and 'methodist'.

USED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS
The second chart shows the 10 most mentioned software systems. The extensive PPM-system Clarity of vendor CA and the scheduling tool MS Project are the most mentioned tools. An identical amount of the respondents has mentioned experience with Primavera, a very sophisticated scheduling tool with a portfolio extension, and the PPM tools Microsoft EPM and Planview.

TRAINING
56% of the respondents was instructed by colleagues. 45% attended classroom training (88% less than one week). And only 21% of the respondents used e-learning (the greater part -69%- less than one day).

SUPPORTED PROCESSES
Not surprising is the high score for project management and time-tracking. The tools mentioned do support these two processes the best. Of course there's a difference between the tools of the different vendors, but unfortunately the number of responses is yet to small to draw conclusions regarding the specific software systems.

SATISFACTION
Clearly, the majority (86%) of the software-users like it. Many respondents (35%) even love the tool they use and tell it to other people. And there's only 1 person that hates the tool he uses (of probably has to use).

CONCLUSION
The overall results are very positive. Functionality looks adequate and people like the tools overall.
NEW INPUT ASKED
The survey is open again for responses! We have opened the survey, and of course we are interested in as many responses as possible. If more people will reply, we can build an interesting database that can give other project managers an idea of what tools they can put on a longlist. Of course the decision is far more complex and depents on a number of criteria (the role someone fullfills, functionality, pricing, etcetera), but user experience is in our opinion an important criterium. So ask your colleagues.

Click here to take survey After collecting at least 100 new completed surveys we will publish the new results.

For more information about projectmanagement software you can go to the 'software' page. But, next to this page, the rest of this website is in Dutch. It's a platform for Dutch speaking project managers and program managers.