A friend of mine posted a question to Facebook, asking for recommendations of online project management software. She works at a mid-size consulting company, but that's not what this was about. She's trying to get a non-profit group off the ground.
"Basecamp" replied another friend, a web developer.
"Yes, Basecamp" I added. "Or Actionmethod, which has many of the same features at half the price, and is free for non-profits."
This got me thinking about these new tools for project management. Where my friend works, like most consulting companies I'm familiar with, they rely heavily on people for project management. There is a designated project lead to keep everything on track, nag their collaborators both within and outside the office, and keep things on time and within budget. Then there is a section manager responsible for nagging the project leads, and so on. Sure, there is probably a central timekeeping and budgeting system, but actually planning what to do is spread across emails, meeting notes, and reference files on a big internal network. Maybe there is a shared calendar system, but I'll bet nobody uses it. Tools like you'll find in Basecamp and Actionmethod - shared task lists with transparent assignment and delegation, message boards instead of email - are absent.
In order for this to work, it depends on a lot of face time, email, and status meetings. There are two ways to look at this:
- New project management tools solve problems that you simply don't have when you're across the hall from your coworkers and the boss for eight hours a day, or
- The old ways work well enough, and the boss likes things the way they are, so there's no incentive to change things.
I wonder just how well something like Basecamp could be adopted in a small corporate environment with the kind of culture I described - would it actually increase productivity? I also wonder how much interest there would be if you made the case that you could spend less time standing in the halls getting people "up to speed," or exchanging email with the other side of the room, and more time actually making things.
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