Primavera P6 Software – Project Management

Project Management Software – Primavera P6

Primavera P6 software, from Oracle, is one of the most powerful and easy-to-use solutions for planning, management and execution of projects.

Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management is an integrated Project Portfolio Management solution for managing projects varying in size, complexity and functions. You can use Primavera P6 to create and analyze CPM schedules easily and effectively. Critical Path Method is a project planning and scheduling technique used to plan and control projects.

As P6 is built on SQL and Oracle databases and uses standard Windows interface, it is very easy-to-use and manage large and complex projects by creating global codes and linking multiple schedules together.

Primavera P6 Software

Primavera P6 has many analysis tools to make the planning, tracking and controlling easier. You can create a new project and create different activities to track the project. There are different types of activities allowed in Primavera P6 and they are start milestone, finish milestone, task, hammock etc.

Start milestone and finish milestone mark the start and end of a significant event in the project. Hammock is an activity that spans a group of activities. You can create arrow diagrams or precedence diagrams for analysis based on your preference.

There are five main elements to the Home window

• Menu Bar
• Navigation Bar
• Directory Bar
• Status Bar
• Directory Buttons

Each bar has different options to make the project handling easier. For example, you can navigate to different projects from Projects Window in the Directory bar. You can create, view and manage the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) using WBS Window in the Directory bar. Likewise, different menu and window options help you planning, scheduling and tracking different activities of the project easily and effectively.

Once the tasks are defined, the relationships between different activities are established and the schedule is calculated by the software. While calculating the schedule, the total float values are also calculated automatically. Once this much data is ready, Primavera P6 is ready to generate reports. You can get the report you want like Early Start report, Critical Activity List report, Responsibility Schedule report etc. You can also generate graphical reports like Bar Chart schedule, Time Scaled Logic Diagrams etc.

Once the project plan is ready, you can easily determine actual project progress and create planned progress curves. You can also analyze and forecast project costs, material and subcontract costs, labor performance etc. Thus, you can reduce the risk of cost and schedule overruns.

By using Primavera P6, You will get a better visibility of the project and will be able to see what is going on with the project at anytime. You can get the information you need quickly and easily. You can find underutilized and overbooked resources and thus effectively utilize resources. You will be able to identify issues as and when they are introduced which allows better project management.

As Primavera P6 allows you to visualize the whole project, decision making becomes easier and faster. Primavera P6 helps you optimize management of all resources for maximum return on investment. Altogether, project planning, execution and management becomes a lot easier with Primavera P6.

Primavera P6 Software Features

• Plan, schedule, and control large-scale programs and individual projects
• Secure multiuser access to schedules
• Open and schedule multiple projects simultaneously
• Adaptable views
• Team member interfaces for gathering status updates
• Optimize resources to keep projects on track
• Role and resource optimization, demand, and capacity planning
• Communicate resource requirements and decisions throughout project lifecycle
• Explore scenarios with what-if analysis
• Graphical analysis of resource and role utilization

More information on Primavera P6 Software can be found at the Oracle website.