Spider Project is a

project management software Project management software are computer programs that help plan, organize, and manage resources. Depending on the sophistication of the software, it can manage Software development effort estimation, estimation and planning, Schedule (workplace) ...

, developed by a company, called ''Spider Project Team''.

Introduction

Spider Project is primarily a tool for project and portfolio

scheduling A schedule (, ) or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things ...

and associated resource, materials, cost and risk management. It does not have features like project-related communication management,

issue tracking An issue tracking system (also ITS, trouble ticket system, support ticket, request management or incident ticket system) is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of issues. Issue tracking systems are generally used in collab ...

, and

document management A document management system (DMS) is usually a computerized system used to store, share, track and manage files or documents. Some systems include history tracking where a log of the various versions created and modified by different users is r ...

. According to Spider Project's publisher, the product provides CPM functions and metrics, and can calculate

critical path drag Critical path drag is a project management metric developed by Stephen Devaux as part of the Total Project Control (TPC) approach to schedule analysis and compression in the critical path method of scheduling. Critical path drag is the amount of ...

, which tells the user how much each critical path activity delays project completion. Spider provides automatic scheduling, driven by

resource allocation In economics, resource allocation is the assignment of available resources to various uses. In the context of an entire economy, resources can be allocated by various means, such as markets, or planning. In project management, resource allocatio ...

and

resource leveling In project management, resource leveling is defined by '' A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge'' (''PMBOK Guide'') as "A technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource limitation with the goal of balancing d ...

, and does not stress manual scheduling features. Spider Project's publisher says it is closely linked with "Success Driven Project Management (SDPM)" —a methodology, developed by Spider Project Team, which describes how scheduling-related

project management Project management is the process of supervising the work of a Project team, team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project initiation documentation, project documentation, crea ...

is done. Other project management software tools can use SDPM methods by adjusting the method to match that tool's functions. Spider Project Team promotes

in general, as well as PMBOK Guide specifically in Russia. General director of Spider Project Team Vladimir Liberzon is a vice president of the PMI Moscow, Russia

Project Management Institute The Project Management Institute (PMI, legally Project Management Institute, Inc.) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit professional organization for project management. Overview PMI serves more than five million professionals including over 680,0 ...

Chapter. Spider Project Team is a PMI Registered Education Provider. Members of Spider Project team have spoken at several PMI and International Project Management Association (IPMA) Congresses and Conferences.

Historical roots

Spider Project began in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The Soviet economy was characterized by several factors: * It was a centrally

planned economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...

. As a consequence planning methods and techniques, and their mathematical background were subjects of high importance. In 1963, a

Central Economic Mathematical Institute The Central Economic Mathematical Institute () of the Russian Academy of Sciences is an economic research institute located in Moscow. It focuses on economic theory, mathematical economics and econometrics. The CEMI was established in 1963 as an i ...

was founded with the main goal of "introduction of the mathematical methods and computers in the practice of planning, creation of the theory of the optimal control of the national economy. " * In the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, the Soviet Union had to compete with much more economically powerful and resource-rich western countries. This required efficient use of available resources. In 1975,

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

Leonid Kantorovich Leonid Vitalyevich Kantorovich (, ; 19 January 19127 April 1986) was a Soviet mathematician and economist, known for his theory and development of techniques for the optimal allocation of resources. He is regarded as the founder of linear programm ...

won a

Nobel Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

for his work on the optimal allocation of scarce resources. Spider Project Team claims that Spider inherited some of those planning methods developed in the Soviet Union. As an example, they say it is distinct from similar project management tools because of its resource planning and

levelling Levelling or leveling (American English; see spelling differences) is a branch of surveying, the object of which is to establish or verify or measure the height of specified points relative to a datum. It is widely used in geodesy and cartogra ...

algorithms and related features that target optimizing constrained resources, materials, and finances.

Notable features

Resource Leveling

Resource leveling In project management, resource leveling is defined by '' A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge'' (''PMBOK Guide'') as "A technique in which start and finish dates are adjusted based on resource limitation with the goal of balancing d ...

is emphasized in most of publication about Spider Project. Though no academic-level report is available with comparison of the resource leveling algorithms of different project management tools, Spider Project has shown the best results among other tools compared in limited tests conducted by members of the professional Planning Planet forum (tests were conducted based on library of Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problems (RCPSP), made available by Technical University of Munchen).

Resource Productivity

Spider supports activities with type "productivity". When specific activity is marked to be a productivity type, user needs to specify productivities of resources, assigned to this activity. Duration on such activity will then be calculated by Spider and will depend on the combined productivity of resources, assigned to this activity.

Skill scheduling

In addition to conventional assignment of resources to activities, Spider supports assignment of resource Skills. In this situation user has to create table with relation between resources and skills. One resource can have one or more skills, equally every skill, can have one or more resources assigned to them. During project scheduling Spider automatically selects the actual resource, which will be assigned to activity. The decision which resource to assigned will be based on resource skills, productivities, costs and user defined priorities.

Variable Resource Assignment

In addition to conventional assignment of resources, when user specifies a fixed amount of resources assigned to a specific activity (e.g. Brick Layer 00%, Spider supports situation, when user specifies a range (minimum and maximum amount of resources) required for activity. In this situation activity will be ongoing if minimum amount of resources is available, and if and when more resources become available, they will also be assigned to this activity.

Market share and geography

No independent data Spider Project's market share exists. Spider Project team claims Spider Project is used in 37 countries, and believe Russia and Ukraine have the most installations. Having its head office in Moscow, Russia, as well as several representatives in Russia, Spider Project Team has also partners in the following countries: * Belarus * Kazakhstan * Brazil * Malayzia * Romania * Ukraine * USA * Australia The largest projects known to have used Spider Project are: * A portfolio of construction projects for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi * A portfolio of construction projects for APEC Russia 2012 summit * Spider Project site has a document, reportedly published together with Romtelecom, Romania at PMICOS conference, where a detailed report is provided on usage of Spider Project for managing of a portfolio of 1,600 projects, containing up to 170,000 activities.

Software releases

Between 2007 and 2013 Spider Project released an average of 1.8 releases per month.

Architecture

Though used for multi-user portfolio management, Spider does not have a server. It manages portfolios using the same software that manages individual projects. It does this with a distributed architecture, through software features and organisational procedures. This includes: * Consolidating individual projects over a computer network into a portfolio, followed by redistributing projects, in case information in them has changed. This procedure must be executed regularly, following a schedule update cycle. * Keeping information in "Corporate Reference Books, " which must be identical for all projects of the portfolio (e.g., resource information, resource calendars etc.). Corporate Reference Books should be protected by file system access control. If Corporate Reference Books are updated, those working on individual projects must synchronize them with their schedules (e.g., to use new resources, etc.).

Language support

Spider Project is available in English, Russian, Romanian and Portuguese and Spanish.

Software versions

Spider project is available in four versions, which differ in functionality and price: * Professional * Desktop Plus * Desktop Lite * Lite The Professional and Lite versions are also available in demo versions. The demo versions provide most program features and have no expiration time, but have a limit of 40 activities (though any number of project phases). A Spider Project licence lets users access and distribute to any number of other users a Spider Project Viewer. Spider Project Viewer can open and analyse Spider Project files and generate reports, but not modify the project file.

References

External links

* {{in lang, en, ru
Spider Project Forum on Planning Planet
Project management software Critical Path Scheduling