Open Workbench is a Project Management software that allows you to design and follow-up your project. This tool is very interesting for two reasons: its use is closer to the PMI project management standards than MS Project and... it's free!
The software can be found at Open Workbench homepage. Its editor is Niku corp. Niku has been recently bought by Computer Associates (see Press Release), and I wonder if this wonderful project management tool will remain free... Anyway, for the time being you can download it for free, so let's discover Open Workbench!
1. Overview of Open Workbench Open Workbench can be installed in several languages, including French and English. When you launch the tool, the main project grids (tasks, resources...) are shown in the center part of the screen. On the left, you can see a "favorites-like" panel that allows you to open several views. This panel is organized in order to access the views according to the task you need to perform:
- Planification (WBS creation, dependancies definition, resource allocation)
- Scheduling (Schedule development)
- Control (Project follow-up, availability analysis, variance analysis, schedule revision)
- Two additional panels allow you to access to the Gantt view and to filters)
In fact all these views are completely tailorable ; you can edit or create new views according to your needs. Each view is saved as a separate file. This is really interesting if you wish to transfer your customization from one PC to another.
Ergonomy: all definitions are put in grids, the Gantt chart is only a read only view. Unlike MS Project, you can't drag & drop tasks to set dependencies or move tasks, all preliminary work has to be done on the text grids. But this is not a real disadvantage, it reduces the risk of unwanted task moves!
I have tried Open Workbench for the first time when I needed to create a project plan for my personal needs (in fact I'm currently refreshing three rooms in my flat, and I needed to prepare a schedule showing external constrains, mandatory dependancies... in order to know what I needed to prepare and for when). This exercise was a good opportunity to try Open Workbench, as the schedule is not too complex, and as I do not want to purchase MS Project for that purpose!
2. Creating your initial schedule 2.1. Creating the WBS
As a good PMP your first step is to define the WBS (it's not the first step, but in fact for my rooms refresh project I didn't need to get a Project Charter and a Scope Statement !! So the first task to perform in that tool is the WBS definition. Therefore, you just need to click on the WBS view, and the proposed view enables you to create your WBS items.
The first field to enter is the WBS item type. You have four types of WBS items: Phase (level 1), Task (level 2) and Activity (level 3). The fourth type is Milestone.
The second field is the WBS ID, in other words the Code of Accounts. On the contrary to MS Project, the code assignment is not automatic (Project creates 1, 1.1, 1.1.1 codes automatically, and it doesn't let you the freedom to chose your codes... this is not practical at all when you move a WBS task upper in your schedule, all other IDs are automatically renamed).
Then you enter the item name, and one very interesting field is the "Deliverable" field, that allows to show, for a given WBS item, the expected deliverable. That would enable, for a "scope definition" task, to put "WBS" as the corresponding deliverable.
If you need to move one item, you need to cut & paste it, you can't drag & drop it, as explained above.
You can also double click on an item in order to display the complete WBS item dialog box, that enables you to fill in additional fields available: duration, resources, start/stop date constraints, external documentation URL or free-text note.
2.2. Assigning the dependencies When your WBS is created and all tasks and activities defined, you can now specify the mandatory and discretionary dependencies. Here again, the view you will use won't enable you to drag & drop one task to the dependent one, you need to enter the dependencies through the text grid or the WBS item dialog box.
Of course you can create all types of dependencies (Finish to Start, Start to Start...). One advantage compared to MS project is that you see in the grid the Parent and Child dependencies (in MS project you only see the child dependencies). It allows you to check, for a given task, if the entry conditions are correct.
You can also specify external dependencies or provide dependencies of another project schedule.
2.3. Assigning the resources
When I created my first schedule using Open Workbench, I did not find easily where you should enter your resources list... in fact, you should use the bottom-left grid of the main project screen to list all available resources.
Once your resources are listed, you can then assign one or several resources for each WBS item, by using the item dialog box or by right-clicking on the item and selecting the "resource assignment" menu.
2.4. Generating the schedule Now it's time to select the "build schedule" menu in order to compute the project schedule. Start and stop dates will be calculated for each WBS item, taking into account the task durations and the dependencies. The "Gantt" view will enable you to graphically display your schedule. By default, the view is set to a weekly display, but for small projects you may decide to display the view on a daily scale. This feature can be set in the "Edit current view" menu. Once your view is updated, you can decide to save it with another name and add it in the "favorites view" panel.
After having generated your schedule, you may update some tasks in order to set mandatory start or stop dates (i.e. adding constraints to your schedule). Then you just need to rebuild the schedule. The view will display with several colors particular WBS items of your schedule, especially if they involve resource constraints or schedule issues. It will be a good help to rapidly see the problems and correct them with resource leveling or rescheduling techniques.
There is also an optional "optimization" feature that calculates an optimized schedule in order to avoid resource issues and take constraints into account.
(to be continued)
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