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.

Projectplace Goes Social in the New Release

Conversations on Project Overview


The main feature of this release is the change on the Project Overview.

To understand why we are so excited about this release it's important to understand what we believe are the crucial factors to project success:


-We believe that the key to successful projects is to help people share information and manage their commitments.
-We believe that projects with the courage to open up communication and share information transparently to create trust will be the ones most likely to succeed.


This is why we introduce conversations on the Project Overview. For those of you who don't use Facebook, this can be a chance to see what the hype is all about. Use the conversations to:
-Inform everyone about important desicions
-Share tips and tricks
-Share ideas and inspiration
-Comment and converse about links, documents, pictures and videos
-Ask questions
-Keep everyone updated on the status of your work


Some of you have tested the conversations during the beta test. Thanks, your input is invaluable for the development of the final version. Here's some of the feedback that has been implemented in this version
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/56854-give-the-adminstrator-more-power-ig-to-delete-messages-in-the-discussion-forum
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/56246-post-erasure
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/53791-category-for-information-on-project-wall


Some other ideas are high on the list of features that we want to implement like:
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/55560-wall-indicator-updated-thread
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/56244-forum-topic-queue


So what is @referencing all about anyway?


@referencing is a way to notify and highlight specific project members in a post. The member shows up as a clickable link in the post and will also automatically be notified my email.



So what is hashtagging all about anyway?


Use a tag preceeded by # to organise your information and conversations. So to tag something, just type # followed by the desired tag, e.g. #requirements, #products, #risk. The tags show up under a special tab or you can just click on the tag to reveal all posts and comments that contain the same tag.





We have removed some features like the shout box for the Project Manager and the News section. The News will still be available, but only via the Project Site.





Upload several documents at once


Finally, I know that you have waited. But now it's here...the possibility to upload multiple documents through the "Upload file" button in Documents. You can also put the uploaded documents under version management all at once.



The following ideas can benefit from the new function:
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/52710-get-rid-of-the-plugin
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/50829-complete-folder-structure
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/48303-automatic-versionmanagement-at-upload-of-files-and-folders-in-a-folder-structure
http://ideas.projectplace.com/feedbacks/46533-upload-multiple-files




Define your project role per project


Most of our users are part of only one project at Projectplace, but an increasing number are members of many projects in which they have different roles. You can now define which role you have in each project. Just log in and go to the People tab in your project. Click on "enter project role" under your name and enter the role you have in that project. Administrators can update the role of any member.


As usual we are happy to receive feedback about the new release, both positive and negative, over on Projectplace Ideas.


Karolina

Garbage Can Projects Have to Be Transparent

Sometimes I remember snippets of my excellent and slightly eclectic education - a jumble of science, business and language. One of my favourite subjects was Organization and Decision Making and particularly the Garbage Can (or Dust Bin as I would like to call it) theory of decision making. In short it separates the various flows of decision making: Problems, Solutions, Participants, and Opportunities and at the decision making point you just take what happens to be in the "bin" at that point in time and make the best possible decision.

I think that I like the chaos of the theory. For me this is much closer to what reality looks like than many of the more structured theories about decision making. Possibly, this tells more about me than about decision making in general.

I could easily use it as an analogy for projects. This is why it's so important that the flow of problems, solutions and opportunities are as transparent as possible to the participants. So that we all have the same content in our garbage cans when it's time to make decisions in the project. That way, the decision making will be easy and the targets and goals evident to all stakeholders.

More about the garbage can theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_can_model

Projectplace Agile...ask our own scrum master Lena

As of today you can ask questions about Agile project management in general and specifically how to work as a SCRUM master in Projectplace.

Lena Lille is our in house Scrum master and in charge of the development projects, sprint planning, stakeholder communication and much much more.

If you have a question, go to http://answers.projectplace.com and Lena will answer:)