Chris Bannister wrote:
On Sat, Aug 04, 2012 at 09:28:13PM -0400, Miles Fidelman wrote:So... I'd really welcome any feedback on the questions who cares about project management & collaboration tools, how to reach them, and what might motivate them enough to take a look at what I'm doing?Instead of "motivation" think "inspiration".
Good point.
Maybe people who already need that sort of thing already have it, and don't need to look further. I'm thinking gantt charts, pert charts etc. AIUI, a lot of project management is done using a whiteboard, diary, phone etc.
That's exactly what I've found over the years, and what inspires this project. It's really easy to manage a project when everybody can get together around a whiteboard every few days. As soon as people are spread across the net, it becomes a lot harder to do something as simple as maintain an action item list. It turns into:
a. send it out by email, immediately followed by 100s of messages containing questions and answers, details, updates, .... - which have to be reassembled manually, or,
b. put the list on a wiki page, a google doc, or a google spreadsheet, and deal with managing a host or relying on a service provider (and not being able to work offline, or make private notes on your copy of the list)
What I'd really like to have is something as simple as linked spreadsheets - but where the links actually work across the net, and aren't tied to MS Office. Basically, an action item list, stored as a local file, accessed through a browser, that syncs with copies across the net with a peer-to-peer protocol. That would solve 95% of my project management needs, and provide a platform that could be built on (like spreadsheet templates).
But.. how to make this message crystal clear, and put it in front of people who care... that's a challenge completely separate from writing the code. Sigh...
Cheers, Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra