Scheduling Software suggestions?

[ookete]

I am a software developer, and I have been given the additional task (opportunity?) of being in charge of scheduling/prioritizing projects for my team. I am temporarily using an Outlook calendar to track everyone's projects and timelines, and am looking for a more permanent solution.

I haven't used MS Project before, and I think that might be fine, but I am not a Project Manager and am not sure if this will fit my needs. Does anybody have any recommendations?

 

[grooke]

I'm a long suffering team member who has been monitored by several techniques.

As an alternative to MS Project try looking at

http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/

It takes a bit of getting used to and appears to be overkill for small projects. But perservere and you will find small subsets that can be used very effectively.
It is effectively a bug or issue tracker, modified to work well for project planning and mangement as well. There are no complex pert charts etc, but good diagramatic reviews of almost everything. Being an 'Issue Tracker' it works better than MS Project for monitoring progress. MS Project is better for putting up a project plan. I prefer to work under Jira because I update the progress on MY work..

Other people may be able to recommend something simpler than both. Maybe MS Project can be used very simply, but I have never seen it used this way.

Gil