Projectplace (translated review by a happy user)

This post was originally posted by Christian Willoch in his blog CIO Speaker's Corner. It's been translated from Norwegian.

I've got a new icon at the top of my screen, always residing there. As areminder that there is a place where I can stay on top of all the projects that I am in charge of or participate in. A click on it will bring up shortcuts to various parts of my projects. Best of all - it's all in the "cloud" - the new IT buzz-word these days. But these people have been in the cloud for many years.

Welcome to projectplace.com.

As I have written before, I'm trying to increase the maturity level for project methodology in my company. I have also been on the lookout for a good tool to support this. Some of the tools I've tried out include: 

• Microsoft Excel - with templates based on Goal Based Project Management developed by Erling Andersen and Kristoffer Grude. The so-called PSO model has it's advantages, but Excel is not optimal as a collaboration tool.
• Goal Director from GDPM Systems - their own application for Goal Based Project Management. Seems a bit unfinished.
• Microsoft Project - Mega system, incredibly rich on functionality, but for me it's like a "shooting a sparrow with a canon"-application compared to the size of projects I'm currently involved in.
• MindManager, with JVCGantt - I'm a MindMap fanatic, but I'm really not really comfortable using it for Project Management.

All the above software and solutions are functional but what I really needed was something with adequate functionality that in addition would increase the understanding of project methodology.

Projectplace is a web-based software that I believe has the 'correct level' of functionality. In addition it addresses the need I have for collaboration in the projects and in the project tool itself.The threshold for getting started is low, and it has a lot of functionality that contributes to a good process flow in the projects. It's also ingenious to have it running "in the cloud", especially when I'm involving external suppliers/vendors.

Some of my favourite features of this tool:

• 
  Good process support for collecting time and status reports from all the involved resources
  
• Automatic reports to all project participants
  
• Simple version management for documents
  
• Process support for document comments
  
• Good user interface
  
• Sufficient functionality. Keep it simple.
  

Of course there are some things I miss which are available in full scale project management tools.

But those tools are not collaborative. With this you can be. Both because it is easily accessible and because it facilitates collaboration. Remember to install the Plug-in.