Bizmoding Project Management
Ok so our first workshop example is the creation of a bizmod to handle basic project management. This should be able to record the events of a given project and it's parts, it should also be able to report into other roles such as accounts and ease communication internally and externally with the project partners.
One of the most important parts of project management is communication and events. To manage the events we will use GCal and for the communication we will use a combination of feeds and email, using Google reader and GMail. many of these services can be swapped out according to your own preferences. We are working internally with a service provision package called Google web apps (GWAD) for domains, this neatly packages up the main services we require. It also marries nicely with our existing infrastructure based as it is on Google web apps.
The first task is to create the project management role, log into GWAD as the administrator (your would have been asked to create this account when you first registered). The administrator is just like any other user it is in fact a 'Role' itself. Create a new account called 'Projects', this account represents the project management role and encapsulates it's function and storage. In many businesses we tend to perform multiple tasks, the role idea is designed to encapsulate this. So myself (Al) will also be the project manager for Folknology for now (this could change later). I will therefore need to have the keys (password etc..) to lo into GWAD as the project manager. I should not have to do this very often but it will be required for setting up projects initially and occasional management of projects, this really depends on how good the helpers will be.
In creating the Projects account within GWAD, we have provide project management with it's own calendaring, email, docs and spreadsheets (as well as others), this will prove useful for it's functionality. Lets also start our first project by signing in as the 'Projects' (you may have to agree to the terms and fill out thecaptcha) and create our first project lets call it 'Bizmod-ws1'. We can do this by going into the calendar and creating a new calendar (click on the plus symbol next to 'My Calendars') by this project name. You will have to fill in Name, description timezone and sharing. For sharing it depends on the project, but for now chose a user to share it with in your domain using the add person button, give them the ability to make changes. This can be tailored later to include individuals outside of your domain (third parties) and or selected parties inside your domain, you can even make them globally available (public). The sharing part is important as it enables you to connect with the others involved in the project, such as clients, internal staff, remote staff and third parties involved in the project. Occasionally you may wish to create temporary accounts with roles like 'Coder', 'Designer' or 'Techie' which could be used by outsourced contractors etc..
Right next lets get the project moving, still signed in as Projects create some milestones, these tend to be general targets in time to meet some criteria, they tend to be a day rather than a time and are really there just to help manage the project timeline, they are like rough targets. Switch to week view and locate the week for the and the day for the milestone click on the upper bar (just below the day date) a popup menu appears and type in the milestone name in the what field and select the Bizmod-ws1 calendar (or project which this milestone belongs to) and click create event. repeat this process for all required milestones.
You can also enter items such as weekly project reviews (using repeat functions) or anything you need for the project, but make sure they get entered as purely dated events rather than specific time events, as we will need to separate these out later.
Ok log out of Projects (or use another browser, I keep one for admin and project etc..) and login as your user account (the one you shared the project calendar with) you will have an email in your inbox indicating that the project calendar has been shared with you and has been added to your calendars, click on the link to go to it, of no link is provide just go to your calendar and it will be added (you may have to refresh if it was already open). I can then go and add any work (time spent) on this project directly into the calendar, as can anyone else whom the project manager shared with (given correct permissions). All of the activity will be entered directly into this calendar by it's collaborators, other observers (with read only access) may also get a picture of how it is progressing etc..
Here is what we have achieved so far :
- Ability to create new projects
- Ability to add collaborators and third partioes to a given project
- Ability to insert project manangement events such as milestones and reviews
- Ability to allow collaborators to enter time spent on a project
In addition the collaborators (and PM) can manage this through their existing calendar and email functionality, there is little new to learn here so the learning curve is fast. there is also a number of hidden features such as an RSS/Atom feeds for the calendar (As well as XML and ICal feeds) which can be provided to third parties or management for monitoring. Also the system benefits from the functionality of GCal like agenda, daily, weekly and monthly views etc.. We also have collaborative GChat and GMail to help ease the project communication as these are build in.
Well that wraps up part 1 of the project management bizmod, already you can see we have fairly advanced functionality towards our basic requirements of project management with GWAD. What is more we haven't even needed to code yet , not bad for a few minutes of admin work, and perhaps you can start to see the sort of possibilities available. The next parts of this workshop will advance the functionality further and we will look at joining up with other roles. If you have any questions please leave a comment.
Technorati Tags: Bizmod, Bizmoding, Business2.0, Enterprise2.0, SAAS, service
