With the drive towards smaller and smaller projects, what we call "micro-projects" that may only last mere days or weeks are full-featured tools becoming passe? If your project team consists of three people working together for two weeks, is a collaboration tool really necessary? Please share your thoughts on how much tool is required for these types of projects and if you determine they are necessary, what are the minimal features required? Saving Changes...
Hi Michael, Thanks for the great feedback. I am not familiar with Placeware (will check them out today!) but we also use WebEx here for collaboration with our customers and internally. So I am familiar with the benefit this type of product can provide for sharing presentations, documents, etc. What do you use for keeping track of other details though like resource planning, cost estimation, calendar functions, etc.? Do you have other "free" tools you use for this? Saving Changes...
Anonymous
One thing that isn't mentioned here is that the same people working on the small project are often working on several others (small or large) at the same time or in a serial fashion... I find that in order to meet projected delivery dates, a clear understanding of the resource dependancies is critical. That is to say, when one of these "mini-projects" goes off track it often effects several others.
As a single unit, using big tools on a little project is probably overkill; but when you aggregate the little projects, there's significant benefit to more powerful tools. Saving Changes...
Neil CouttsPM Consultant| KPMGAlloa, United Kingdom
Just a general question about ICQ which i note is mentioned a number of times above. I have used this at home for personal use, and never understoon why organisations do not use it (or tools like it more actively). My company does not have ICQ - indeed there is no 'approved' collaborative tools here. MY question is how did you approach getting approval for it? How long did it take? Were you cavalier and just install it on your laptop, or did you actually address it as a mini-project implementation? I would be very appreciative of your views. Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Karen, we see a number of project organizations using collaboration platforms like Microsoft SharePoint. For the very small projects like you mentioned, the SharePoint Task List feature provides very simple and easy to use task management and team communication. For many this is a big step up from managing such project efforts via Outlook. Cheers. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
