P5 to P-Sixes: Transition from P5 to P6

摘要

Primavera Systems has established itself as an industry leader in construction project management CPM) scheduling software. Consequently, when it announced its upgrade from the standard Primavera Project Planner (P3) format to P3 e/c version 5.0, (referred to as P5), P3 users took note. P3 worked successfully for thousands of clients for many years, but there were limitations that could be improved. These improvements, coupled with Primavera's announcement that it would discontinue support of P3, drove the migration from P3 to P5. Subsequently, in August 2007, Primavera released its first major overhaul of P5. Because of the number of changes, Primavera opted to release this version as Primavera 6.0 (referred to as P6) instead of a service pack. Primavera touted the new version as "...the best thing that's ever happened to project management!" Newly added features include web-based project management, interactive Gantt charts and screen layouts, resource "buckets" and "dashboard" user interfaces. This paper is written in third person of a mythical person we'll call "Tom." Tom is educated in his trade, is an experienced CPM scheduler and has used P3 for many years. He works for a company who has successfully used P3 for many projects. His company recently upgraded to P5 for a project and has been dealing with some of the bugs and features of the software for several months. He is reluctant to upgrade to P6, because, for all of the advertised benefits, Tom is concerned that he does not have the time or resources on the project to learn new software features. Finally, after waiting several months, Tom has decided to make the switch, hoping that that P6 will resolve some of the issues of P5. Indeed, Tom represents many of you, the readers, who likewise fit Tom's description.