Quick and Simple Brainstorming
| Situation: You're a incredible facilitator, but have the handwriting of a 3 year old. Bubbl.us is about as simple a brainstorming tool as you'll find anywhere. Mind Manager it's not, but with a laptop and a projector, this software could be better than a marker and flip chart. As long as you don't skip over the instructions when you first open it up, it's incredibly easy to use. If you skip the instructions (like I did at first) you're kind of hosed until you go back and read them. Try this tool if: - you don't have a good way of capturing the output of your brainstorming session. (let's face it, paper and white boards are a pain because you have to go back and transcribe everything later) - the person you really want to facilitate has bad handwriting (if you can't read your own scrawl later, that's a problem too) While you're at it, take a look at the following gantthead techniques wikis: Brainstorming, Idea Qualification, and Displayed Thinking . |
Picking PM Software
| Situation: You need to make some choices about PM solution providers, but don't know how to compare them. Here are a few quick resources to help you pick software to support your Project Management efforts. Schedulers Some of the information seems to really be from last year, but if you're looking schedulers, this Project Management Software Review brings out some interesting points of comparison. Wikipedia's definition of Project Management Software, also gives you a good list of characteristics that you can consider when making a purchasing decision. PPM Software Projects @ Work (gantthead's sister publication) offers a great PPM Software Evaluation Tool that is both comprehensive and free. You must register to download it. This tool is completely vendor agnostic. Project Management Training The same type of tool as the one above, Projects @ Work's Training Vendor Evaluation Tool will help you make a training investment that you can feel good about. You must register to download it. This tool is completely vendor agnostic. |
Answers to General Questions
| Situation: You need answers (and potentially new ideas) |
I've been playing with Check Out The Niche Stuff Before Deciding...
| Situation: Your need PM Software for some unusual project challenges Most of us looking for project management software limit our range of choices to the big names. Whether or not we end up choosing a big name or highly specialized package, its a good idea to look at the niche offerings. They may not end up being what you need, or integrate well with your other efforts - but giving them a look will likely refine your thinking about your unique needs. For example, consider RoboHead marketing project management software (think highly repeatable best practices, short and simple projects). These guys could care less about gantt charts, dependencies, etc. Workflow, document management, integrated reviews REALLY matter a lot in this context. Once you've taken the tour here, it makes you look at MS Project in a whole different light. ATC Professional project management software is incredibly specific - designed for dealing with industrial plant projects. These projects are non-stop, complex efforts that require very detailed tracking not only of progress, but effort and compliance with government regulations. This may sound like a simple thing, but many people never think of Googling "[project type] + Project Management". That's likely to be your best first step on the road to understand what your specific needs are. |
Wow - Outlook Integration with MS Project 2007!
| Situation: You want to get a lot more out of MS Project with less effort A few weeks ago, the MS Project folks gave our team a briefing on the 2007 version that is now a part of MS Office. There were a lot of terrific improvements. I'll touch on the EPM (UMT) components later, but the most important thing that they've done (IMHO) is integrating Project with Outlook. There's also a timesheet component that's worth considering as part of the whole Outlook-centered world Microsoft has created for you. What if... - your project team interacted with you directly from Outlook, where they live every day? - small project leads werent forced to use full blown MS Project, when they just want to work with a list of tasks? I think you end up with better data, less administrative overhead, and tools that fit what you really need. The graphic below shows you how an MS Project Web Access task looks within Outlook 2007. |
