SOCIAL: PM software (free) recomms?

E. Grace Gellerman egracia at well.com
Tue May 22 11:37:24 PDT 2012 

Hi, SOCIAL

I am a project manager, and I love the analog 
brainstorming technique that Brian described in 
great detail.

The one extra bit I would throw in is for all 
those people in the room or their exec sponsor to 
put together a flexibility matrix on what they 
can vary in the way of scope, schedule or 
resources.

Does it have to, have to ship on September 8?

Could we wait until Q4 2015 to release just the right thing?

Is there any wiggle room in the budget?  Can we 
throw money at the problem or do we have to 
jettison features instead?

You could also vary quality to achieve your goal, 
but that's not usually the best option.

The Project Management Institute deems that scope 
is the variable that informs the rest of the 
project.  But in the real world, I have found it 
to only ever be schedule.

Cheers,
Grace


At 10:50 AM -0700 5/22/12, Brian Rice wrote:
>Full disclosure: I didn't design that 
>project-design methodology. It's just what I was 
>trained to do. This company in San Mateo called 
>IPS offers a 2-day onsite class that teaches the 
>basics of project management. They've been 
>around for a whileŠ I first took their course in 
>1998 or so! I had the good fortune to do it 
>again in 2005.
>
>If anybody's building out a team of project 
>managers, or trying to infect a team with 
>project-management-think, this training would be 
>a good arrow to have in your quiver. Check 'em 
>out. <http://www.ipslearning.com/>http://www.ipslearning.com/
>
>Brian
>
>On May 21, 2012, at 9:35 PM, Ellisa Feinstein wrote:
>
>>Wow...that's quite the brainstorm/PM session 
>>you designed there. Fortunately something that 
>>I don't have to do right now (my project is 
>>very well-defined) but something to use for 
>>future non-defined projects.
>>
>>
>>
>>From: Brian Rice <<mailto:brice at bigloops.com>brice at bigloops.com>
>>To: Ellisa Feinstein 
>><<mailto:ellisafeinstein at yahoo.com>ellisafeinstein at yahoo.com>
>>Cc: Mike Kosim 
>><<mailto:mike.kosim at mac.com>mike.kosim at mac.com>; 
>>Social Social 
>><<mailto:social at deeptrouble.com>social at deeptrouble.com>
>>Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 5:59 PM
>>Subject: Re: SOCIAL: PM software (free) recomms?
>>
>>
>><soapbox>
>>
>>In my humble opinion, the choice of 
>>project-management software is not nearly as 
>>important as the project-management 
>>methodology. Project-management tools are great 
>>for MANAGING projects, but they are terrible 
>>for designing and scoping projects.  The best 
>>tool for the latter task isŠ the sticky note. I 
>>am serious. Here is my project-management 
>>approach:
>>
>>1. Get everybody who will be contributing 
>>(work, requirements, or expectations) into a 
>>room.
>>2. Give each person a stack of sticky notes.
>>3. Everybody brainstorms all the tasks they can 
>>think of and puts them on the whiteboard. One 
>>task per sticky.  Should be total chaos.
>>4. Everybody winnows the tasks, consolidating 
>>duplicates and roughly organizing them into 
>>general phases.
>>5. People with an interest in each phase 
>>identify dependencies (especially, 
>>finish-to-start dependencies).  These get 
>>marked on the whiteboard with an arrow between 
>>stickies.
>>6. People who will be doing the work write 
>>rough estimates of effort and duration on each 
>>sticky.
>>7. A walkthrough review occurs (in which everybody can SEE the long pole).
>>8. People take lots of cellphone camera pictures of the whiteboard.
>>9. Pizza and beer are consumed.
>>
>>NOW, at last, one is ready to type stuff into a 
>>project-management tool and track the tasks' 
>>completion.
>>
>>It is commonplace to bash Microsoft Project, 
>>but frankly the people I know who most hate it 
>>are those who tried to do their project design 
>>in it. However, designing a project in any 
>>software tool* risks the one worst thing that 
>>can happen to any project: lack of buy-in. 
>>Getting everybody into a room as I suggest 
>>above gets the human beings on board with the 
>>project from the get-go.  "Yes, we are gonna 
>>finish this by September 8, because I helped 
>>write that plan."
>>
>>*Any software tool, that is, that's less 
>>interactive than sticky notes and a whiteboard.
>>
>></sorry for the rant>
>>
>>Brian
>>
>>On May 21, 2012, at 2:16 PM, Ellisa Feinstein wrote:
>>
>>>Thanks, Mike.  And this is the problem - so 
>>>many choices! Hard to tell which ones are good.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>From: Mike Kosim <<mailto:mike.kosim at mac.com>mike.kosim at mac.com>
>>>To: Ellisa Feinstein 
>>><<mailto:ellisafeinstein at yahoo.com>ellisafeinstein at yahoo.com>
>>>Cc: Social Social <<mailto:social at deeptrouble.com>social at deeptrouble.com>
>>>Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 12:58 PM
>>>Subject: Re: SOCIAL: PM software (free) recomms?
>>>
>>>
>>>I just saw this page with a bunch of them -- 
>>>looks like there's an immense choice of free/ 
>>>donation based project management software.
>>><http://mastersinprojectmanagement.org/top-25-open-source-project-management-apps.html>http://mastersinprojectmanagement.org/top-25-open-source-project-management-apps.html
>>>
>>>Let me know what you end up going with.  I'd like to use one myself.
>>>mike
>>>
>>>
>>>On May 21, 2012, at 12:48 PM, Ellisa Feinstein 
>>><<mailto:ellisafeinstein at yahoo.com>ellisafeinstein at yahoo.com> 
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hi - Does anyone have recommendations for 
>>>>free project management software or online 
>>>>app?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks,
>>>>Ellisa
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Social mailing list
>>>><mailto:Social at lists.deeptrouble.com>Social at lists.deeptrouble.com
>>>><http://lists.deeptrouble.com/listinfo.cgi/social-deeptrouble.com>http://lists.deeptrouble.com/listinfo.cgi/social-deeptrouble.com
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Social mailing list
>>><mailto:Social at lists.deeptrouble.com>Social at lists.deeptrouble.com
>>><http://lists.deeptrouble.com/listinfo.cgi/social-deeptrouble.com>http://lists.deeptrouble.com/listinfo.cgi/social-deeptrouble.com
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Social mailing list
>Social at lists.deeptrouble.com
>http://lists.deeptrouble.com/listinfo.cgi/social-deeptrouble.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.deeptrouble.com/pipermail/social-deeptrouble.com/attachments/20120522/018e5749/attachment-0002.htm>

More information about the Social mailing list