It’s hard to believe it’s July already, but a new month means it’s time for a new survey.  This month, I’d like to get a feel for what we use for project scheduling and how we use it.



The survey is available now through late July at this address:



www.bradegeland.com/july-2010-survey.html



So, for question #1 – I want to know what tool you’re using.  There are a lot of tools out there so I’m just looking for the name.  You don’t have to tell me if it’s web-based or not – I think we’ll get into more of that in the next month or so.



Questions #2 & #3 – let the readers know how close to the vest you keep the project schedule.  Does just the project manager revise and distribute the schedule?  Is it a collaborative effort with the project team – do you let others go in and revise task status on percent completes and effort estimates?  And do you let the customer do anything but look at it?  Are there ever any projects where you allow update capability for the customer?  I’m assuming this is probably almost never, but who knows.



Question #4 – Do you use the project schedule to actually track project costs?  Are the hourly rates of the project resources and costs for materials entered into the project schedule or do you track project costs through a different mechanism?



Finally, question #5 – how do you use the project scheduling tool to manage resources?  Do you assign one or more resources to a task just to show ownership in the schedule?  Or do you actually use resource leveling and track resource hours in the tool?  Or does it depend on the size and complexity of the project or possibly even the requirements of the customer?