Torridon Studies “Great Project Management Divide” Between Business Managers and Project Specialists

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Example Timeline Output from Swiftlight

studies expose an interesting divide between the world of more specialized project managers and consultants, and, on the other hand, the typical business manager

New York, NY (PRWEB) August 4, 2010

Business managers and executives, management consultants and project managers are not going to kiss Microsoft Project, Excel and PowerPoint goodbye when managing projects, but they would all benefit from being more “adventurous” and searching for smarter, easier project management tools.

Based on two studies by Torridon Solutions Torridon Solutions, many business managers consider Microsoft Project to be “too complex.” and using Excel and PowerPoint for planning to be “painful” and “time consuming.” In addition, these business managers, as well as specialist project managers, value software tools that go beyond planning to boost productivity and better articulate and visualize progress and measures of success when reporting to executive management.

The “studies expose an interesting divide between the world of more specialized project managers and consultants, and, on the other hand, the typical business manager,” observes Pete McWhinnie, chief executive officer of Torridon, developer of Swiftlight project management software.

“The specialists are frequently using MS Project and a variety of other tools, whilst the business manager is generally stuck with using Excel and PowerPoint for projects. It’s also clear that the needs of both these groups are not yet fully served. Both groups of users, despite their differences, value tools that help with high-level planning and progress reporting, and that save them time in the process of project management.”

To better understand how general managers and specialist project managers use project management software to plan and to report on progress, Torridon surveyed small groups of users and prospective users of Swiftlight twice between March and June 2010. Torridon compiled the results of the both studies in a white paper that is released today and available here.

“The project specialists are heavy users of MS Project, but often report that it’s not great for communicating to management – so they turn to PowerPoint and use a variety of other tools to help with this high level reporting,” said McWhinnie.

On the other hand, “the business manager is perhaps more of an “accidental project manager,” said Mike Scott, chief operating officer of Torridon. “Projects are a big part of their job, but they are likely to think of themselves as, for example, a brand manager or an operations manager rather than a “project manager.” They get things done, their projects “go OK,” but while they have frustrations, they are perhaps less motivated than specialist project managers to seek out tools to help.”

“The productivity of these business managers should be a big deal for any company and our research shows they are not completely satisfied with what they’ve got. They don’t need the detail offered by MS Project and many other tools - they need something that’s simple, practical and good for high level, rather than detailed, planning and reporting. We think that they, or their IT departments, are not looking actively enough for the tools that can make their lives easier,” observes McWhinnie. “They should be more adventurous. There’s a big opportunity to improve, and there are tools that can help them.”

About Swiftlight

Swiftlight is a project management software application that saves time, creates clarity and gets results for its users. It offers a planning structure, high quality visuals and outstanding ease of use and is a great alternative to traditional gantt chart software. Created to meet the needs of a broad range of business managers, executives and consultants, rather than just project management experts, Swiftlight is particularly well-suited to project planning and progress reporting for “smaller scale” or “less complex” projects.

For people who find Microsoft Project too complex, and managing projects in Excel and PowerPoint very time-consuming, Swiftlight can quickly generate clear, presentation-ready plans and progress reports for initiatives such as product launches, strategy reviews, operational improvement initiatives or annual planning.

For specialist project managers with larger IT, engineering or R&D projects, Swiftlight makes it easy to articulate and visualize “the big picture,” with outputs that can capture timelines, objectives, deliverables and measures of success all on one page. Swiftlight also provides links to MS Project to simplify project reporting.

For more information, including a detailed product description and tutorial videos please visit the Swiftlight project management software website. Swiftlight is designed for desktop and laptop computers configured with Microsoft Windows 7, Vista or XP. A single user license can be purchased for $299. A free 30 day trial of Swiftlight is available here.

About Torridon

Founded in 2005 and privately held, operating from London as Torridon Solutions Ltd. and from New York as Torridon Solutions Inc., the mission of Torridon Solutions is to make life easier for managers and the companies they work for by designing, creating and distributing practical and innovative software for the world of planning, project management and management communication. Torridon Solutions has customers in 17 countries, predominantly in North America
and Europe.

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