Project Management 2.0
by Dave Garrett
New technologies, concepts, and Web 2.0 tools are popping up everywhere. How can you use them to help your project team collaborate, communicate - or just give your project an extra boost? [Contact Dave]
Recent Posts
Are You Prepping For The PMP 24/7?
Are You Just Too Darn Busy?
Eliciting Requirements... Creatively!
What To Expect When Your Stakeholders Are Expecting
8 More Templates to Save You Time
Categories
Advice,
Certification,
Collaboration Tools,
Decision Making,
Estimating,
Interviews,
Learning,
Management Approaches,
New Templates,
Personal Productivity,
PM Software,
PPM Software,
Presentation Tools,
Reporting Tools,
Requirements Management,
Research,
Risk Management,
Scheduling Software,
Security,
shameless self promotion,
Techie Tools,
Time Killers,
Time Tracking Software,
Training,
Virtual Team Tools,
Web-based Tools,
workshops
Date
Situation: Need an (hourly rate/pricing) point of reference for outsourced development
I'm not sure that this is something you actually want to try, but it's an interesting point of reference from a pricing perspective. What does an outsourced .NET developer cost these days? Check ODesk and find out.
Here's their description of who they are:
oDesk enables buyers of services to hire, manage, and pay technology service providers from around the world. Buyers choose oDesk for top global talent, comprehensive management tools, and a flexible hourly payment model. Service Providers choose oDesk for challenging jobs and guaranteed payment. Every day, thousands of buyers and providers work together through oDesk - a unique company at the forefront of reinventing work. |
Posted on: November 20, 2006 07:43 AM
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Situation: No Software $, No Training $, No Corporate Restrictions on installing software, Need a simple PM tool
I get this question about once a month. Where can I get a low or no cost tool for drawing gantt charts? If you have Excel, you can use that, but there are also tools out there that are free or near free and actually do a pretty good job.
Everyone in the simple project tool space repeats the mantra that 80% of MS Project users use 20% of its features. An example of one such tool is GanttProject.
GanttProject is a scheduler driven by gantt chart and resource load chart views of your project. So you've got your basic what to do and who is doing it views. Task dependencies and some simple reporting functions are available as well.
Support is provided by Gantthive, an online discussion area fo issues and future plans. A number of developers have also created third party add-ons that facilitate web page integration and add some enterprise functionality. |
Posted on: November 18, 2006 11:24 PM
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Situation: We really just need a calendar...
Let's face it, many people deal with small projects that don't require a professional tool jockey. They just want a simple calendar with deadlines. 30 boxes is about as simple as it gets. Just create a calendar and share schedules among the people you work with. Tie in blogs and other information stores and you have a basic way to drive simple projects forward. Try out the sample calendar at the bottom of the page. It'll give you a feel for what the tool can do. |
Posted on: November 16, 2006 10:47 AM
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Situation: My presentation includes a video, but needs a little something...
A good friend of mine (and co-founder of gantthead), Kevin Murphy, used to deliver these amazing business presentations and my favorite was one that walked through Apollo 13 as a project management case study. He embedded video from the movie in powerpoint slides and audiences really ate it up.
When I saw this new product from Mojiti it made me think of Kevin. Video alone can make a world of difference in your presentations - but being able to focus your audience's attention on some small part of the action is even more valuable. Mojiti essentially let's you place a "lens" over the part of the video that supports the point you are trying to make and allows you to include captions that can really spell it out for the audience.
Take a look at the video below and you'll see what I mean...
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Posted on: November 13, 2006 11:01 AM
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| Situation: Loved ABT's WorkBench - where did it go?
Many of us remember, about a decade ago there was a very popular scheduler called Project Workbench. Loyalists were a lot like Apple users are today, consistently touting the superior features of their favorite scheduling product. One of the more popular PM conferences of the day was the PLC, which was very much focused on the use of PW.
Then Niku bought ABT and absorbed the scheduler into its more enterprise focused (pick your buzzword) resource management suite. Eventually Niku was bought by CA and now the larger enterprise software package is known as Clarity. In a pretty cool move, they pulled the covers off of the Workbench source code and created Open Workbench.
You can tell this isn't just a "cheap way to go" package by looking at the philosophical differences in the comparison between OW's approach and what you see in the 2003 version of MS Project. Now MS Project 2007 is completely rebuilt from the ground up on the SharePoint platform and some of the new features incorporate some of the thinking you see here. The whole "task-driven" approach is something they've taken a hard look at, but we'll talk about that in a later posting... |
Posted on: November 12, 2006 07:33 PM
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"Intelligence is not the ability to store information, but to know where to find it."
- Albert Einstein
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