Up First Plandora [plandora.org]

By Gustav Toppenberg / Miscellaneous / Leave a Comment / August 3, 2011

Plandora PPM is an Open Source PPM powered by Sourceforge.net and is currently in release 1.10.4, and most recently updated in May 2011. The product can be downloaded and installed on your site. The site has an excellent demo that allows you to see all of the tools you would expect in a PPM tool.

The Plandora project was born to be a tool to help the software development process, from the customer requirement until the task conclusion, and consequently gather the “history” of project. The Plandora system can be useful for teams that have problems with resource bottle-necks, parallel projects, critical deadlines, necessity for scope documentation of tasks and requirements, etc.

The project started in December, 2003 with the requirement phase. In August, 2004 with the system analysis documents almost finished and some source-code implemented (infra-structure classes, build files, libs, etc) the project was available at sourceforge such as LGPL license (totally free for any purposes)

It is important to notice that a workflow tool is only a support instrument and demands a process with at least a little of discipline. By the way, for projects with chaotic structure (without any process or any formal development) the adoption of a workflow tool could even bring problems to development team. We consider the term “development process” a work routine (not necessarily a standard methodology such as PMI, XP, CMMI, RUP, etc) but something formalized, comprehended and accepted by the team.[i]

Source: http://www.plandora.org/index.html

The Plandora PPM boast a full-featured set of widgets allowing you to manage many aspects of your project, here is a list of some of them, with links:

If you are interested in checking out the Plandora PPM here is the link to the download site: http://sourceforge.net/projects/plandora/files/version/plandora-v.1.10.4/

Here are my ratings of the solution (0-10, 10 being best):

Cost: 10 (Free)
Functionalities & Features: 8 (loads of great gadgets)
Innovative solution: 7
Support & Updates: 8
Ease of use: 8
Ease of installation: 6
Overall Rating: 8

[i] http://www.plandora.org/online.htm

About The Author

Gustav Toppenberg

Gustav Toppenberg is a Sr. PMO Manager in Cisco's Communication & Collaboration IT group. Gustav is currently responsible for leading the PMO and driving project and operational excellence in his team. During his career at Cisco, Gustav has led several projects in change leadership, acquisition integration, and globalization strategy. He is also part of Cisco IT's transition to a services-oriented organization (technology, process, and culture), enabling a client-focused, value-driven, cost-effective alignment between IT and business. Gustav is a native of Denmark and serves on the board of directors at the Danish-American Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco and the NorCal chapter of ASP (Association for Strategic Planning). He has a background in strategy consulting, program/project management, and global change management. Gustav has an interest and passion for the convergence of business and technology; he is a natural change leader and constant disruptor. He continuously seeks to occupy the gap between business and technology, thereby leveraging technology solutions to strengthen competitive advantages in business. Gustav is an MBA graduate of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, ranked the #1 U.S. Business School for International Business by the Wall Street Journal and U.S. News and World Report. You can contact Gustav at [email protected] "Some of the individuals posting to this site work for Cisco Systems, Inc. Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not those of Cisco."

About The Author

Gustav Toppenberg

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