Tools to manage small project teams
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All of life is one big To Do list. I personally spend most of my time managing project teams for the various projects that I am responsible for.
I have been looking for some time for a more efficient way to track the progress of my teammates. I have used Microsoft Project in the past, but it is elephantine overkill for the vast majority of projects. The folks at Project Kickstart were kind enough to send me a copy of their project management software ($129.95), which is specifically designed for smaller-scale projects.
Key Project Kickstart functionality (from their site):
+ It’s fast and easy. Your plan is ready in minutes.
+ Plan with confidence. Nothing overlooked. Nothing forgotten.
+ Schedule any way you want. Your choice. Use Project KickStart’s built-in Gantt chart for small to mid-size projects. Or “hot-link” to Microsoft Project or other software.
+ Runs on Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT / 2000 / XP and is networkable
Project Kickstart is a very basic project management tool, which is particularly appropriate for highly disorganized people. It will walk you through the basic steps you need to take to create a project plan, and will help you to track what happens when. It is particularly helpful for people who have a task to do, and are inexperienced in how to convert a task into a step-by-step action plan.
However, you can replicate most of the software’s functionality (without the Gantt charts) in Excel or another spreadsheet program. I played with Project Kickstart for a while, but now I use a project management tracking spreadsheet that I developed with counsel from my coauthor Scott Allen. I think this is more useful and flexible for many purposes. To download it, click here.
Each week, my team members update the spreadsheet with their progress and send it back to me. It is useful for them and for me to track the progress of our various obligations.
I welcome any feedback you might have.
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What do the filled in spreadsheets feed into? I tend to use one spreadsheet which lists all the tasks for the project, regardless of who is scheduled to perform them – (the theory being) it gives everyone an idea of what there is to be done, and what other people are doing.
Then, once a week, I get the team together for a brief meeting where we quickly go round each team member and fill in what they’ve done for the week. The added benefit being that you get everyone together providing an opportunity to raise issues and generally improve communication within the team.
Comment by Adrian — 7/19/2004 @ 11:10
I also have a master project plan for the entire organization, which I share with everyone. The individual spreadsheets are sent to me as the overall project manager.
Comment by David Teten — 7/19/2004 @ 11:17
how about a wiki or a discussion forum?
Comment by Peter Caputa — 7/20/2004 @ 19:35
David, has anyone mentioned BaseCamp to you (http://www.basecamphq.com/)? I’ve seen product a few times and think it is great online tool for smaller companies to manage and communicate project progress. Not quite the same as “managing the team,” but important for smaller businesses who need to communicate with their clients.
Comment by Jack Vinson — 7/20/2004 @ 22:37
It is interesting how we tend to always come back to the simple tools to get the job done. The ubiquitous spreadsheet is used in so many places where custom built software exists to do the job. The reason this is so is that we want to manage the work/team rather than the software.
Do you ever have a problem to bringing in the different distributed spreadsheets to writem them back to the master control Project Planner spreadsheet.
If other people are doing what you are doing and have a promblem here is a tool that I have found. I’ve blogged it at:
Posting Name – Beating Spreadsheet duplication blues -
The link is
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/bi/spreadsheet/archives/000628.asp
Again it comes back to managing the people and the work that they have to do rather than get bogged down in software/spreadhseet issues.
Comment by Don McDonough — 8/7/2004 @ 09:35
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Trackback by Thinking Out Loud: Thought Leadership from an Enterprise Architect — 9/30/2004 @ 06:25
You can also have a look at LeadingProject (www.leadingproject.com) software. It allows managing multiple projects, control resources and generate reports quickly and easlily. Program also works on both Mac and PC
Comment by Igor — 8/26/2005 @ 05:47