Planning with uncertainty

 Palm Desert, Calif.--Project planning software has proved itself to be a useful, but not particularly precise tool in predicting when a project will actually come to fruition. That may change with the beta release of LiquidPlanner announced here this week at the DEMO '08 conference. According to Jason Carlson, vice president of engineering at LiquidPlanner Inc. in Bellevue, Wash., his software embraces what other project planning programs eschew: uncertainty. Each task owner in a project gives a range of time when a task will be completed, from best to worst case. Carlson claims that the linear regression math in the software can then calculate a true delivery date with 98% probability. That's way better than anything else on the market, says CEO Charles Seybold. He adds that when a project manager sees each task owner's range of uncertainty to complete their work and the cascading effect it has on a project, he or she can see where and when to distribute resources to keep the project on track. The hosted service captures all of your projects' histories so you are able to review how well similar projects or project teams performed in the past. The beta is free now. Ironically, neither gentleman would predict when the LiquidPlanner project would be completed.