Will Kelly

New WWD Post: Project Management Tools: Beyond Gantt Charts

In my career as a contract technical writer, a project management pain point I’ve seen time and time again is in the communications of project schedules and status. The venerable Gantt chart is a project management staple, but stakeholders without formal project management training may find them difficult to understand.

via webworkerdaily.com

Recent Thoughts about Personal Information Management

One of the great things about writing for WebWorkerDaily is the exposure I get to the latest technologies and thoughts about Web 2.0, productivity, and web working. Professionally, it has helped me think deeper into some of my own personal information management issues and approaches.

Growing up with dyslexia always made personal organization a challenge for me. Also, I found out years ago that I am better organized electronically than I am in a traditional paper and filing cabinet method.

Building The Better Office 2007 Migration

The Microsoft Office 2007 system seems to be catching on in my marketplace. During recent interviews and meetings with prospective clients, the topic of Microsoft Office 2007 and its many new features has been raised more than once. A lot of the Microsoft Office 2007 questions I've heard also deal with Microsoft interaction with Microsoft Office SharePoint Services 2007.

Organizations planning a migration from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007 shouldn't take the migration lightly. While it is easy to dismiss Microsoft Office as just Microsoft Office, it needs to be known that Microsoft Office can be the center of an end user's primary work and business processes.

Google Tasks and Google Calendar Integration

Google Calendar  is my calendar of choice for tracking my personal and professional lives because I switch back and forth between multiple Windows and Macintosh PCs during the course of my work day. This means that Google Calendar is always open in one or another of my browser tabs during most hours of my online/work time.

One of the many bright spots to come out of Google Labs is Google Tasks. While its initial integration with Gmail was uninspiring but Google made the right move and took the next and proper step to integrate Google Tasks with Google Calendar.

Yojimbo and Me

It is safe to say that personally and professionally that I am a pack rat when it comes to papers and research so I've been looking for an electronic solution for the filing and indexing of my important information. While a paperless office might not be in my future, I am looking to cut down on paper.

Kelly's Laws of Non-Disclosure Agreements

I've recently had cause to rethink of the whole concept of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) as of late and I am finding the whole concept has been prostituted by tech companies (prompted by their attorneys) because they are way too insecure of their intellectual property (or lack thereof).

Checking out the MindJet Project Management JetPack

MindJet MindManager 8 has gradually found itself a home as a product management and project management tool in many organizations. Mind maps can help project managers and their teams to better drill down into the project lifecycle. Consider that mind maps can come into play during typical project lifecycle activities including:

• Managing project  information including individual tasks or sub-projects.
• Managing project requirements gathering and solicitation.
• Developing project communications including project kickoff.
• Facilitating project team  meetings and meetings with project stakeholders.

In response to the needs of product managers and project managers, MindJet offers the MindJet Project Management JetPack to help kick start project schedules and add a new visual dimension to typical project planning activities like project process overviews, business cases, software use cases, project scope, issue tracking, and project closure. The JetPack includes mind map templates and white papers. It costs $79.00 and is available for download.

Kelly's Laws of Document Templates

I still see a lot of  value in standardizing even though I've left technical writing and consulting. Document templates make the writer's life easier and help give a consistent and professional look to an organization's internal and external documents.

Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies

I've had some cause lately to look back at some of the projects I've worked on as a contractor, consultant, and freelance technical writer and read  Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies by Tom DeMarco, Peter Hruschka, Tim Lister, Steve McMenamin, James Robertson, and Suzanne Robertson because the synopsis from Amazon made it sound like a good read.

Are Project Managers Born or Certified?

Project management can be a dark art in organizations large and small. As organizations try to tighten up their delivery processes, they might be considering sending some of their senior staff and managers for PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from the Project Management Institute. However, often times it isn't as simple as just sending staff for PMP certification because a paper project manager can often times be more of a problem versus the solution.

Kelly's Laws of Wiki Implementation

Wikis should be a force for good. Unfortunately, my experience on client sites where they've implemented  wikis has always been very black and white. The user community is either craving a wiki or they find it too disorganized and difficult to use.

Checking out Zoho Projects

Project management applications can be expensive with many features that go underutilized so third-party hosting of project management applications is an ideal option for organizations seeking an entry-level project management application that can grow with their needs and requirements.

Zoho Projects from the good folks at Zoho is one such hosted project management applications.  The Zoho Projects pricing model more palatable  than buying Microsoft Project licenses.

Many analysts and pundits see it as competing against BaseCamp from 37Signals. However, I see applications like Zoho Projects as taking project management to the people outside the PMO.

Checking out EverNote Beta

I came across EverNote last year when I had surgery on my right arm which is my writing hand and grew to really like it for capturing notes while I was in meetings and to capture ideas and other random synaptical misfirings on the fly. I especially liked being able to tag notes for later reference.

The latest version of EverNote is still in beta and a major upgrade to this useful note taking application expanding to Windows, Macintosh, Windows Mobile, and the Web. This means I can have EverNote clients on my MacBook Pro, client notebook PC, and my other home office PCs and can sync my notes via EverNote's Web component.

Working with Technical Editors

Working with technical editors can be a challenge for many writers and I've had cause to think about some positive and negative experiences during my career as a technical writer and writing for technology publications and websites to pull together the following thoughts:

Project 2003 versus Project 2007

The releases of Microsoft Office  2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system saw some of the greatest changes in the venerable Office suite. This evolution was good news to Microsoft Project because Microsoft began focusing on making Microsoft Project  more usable and their output more accessible to non-project managers.

 One of the drawbacks of project management applications like Microsoft Project  is the fact that their output only makes sense within the cubicle walls of a project manager and venture outside to developers, engineers, and the rest of the project team.

Project Management Apps for the Macintosh

My latest article entitled Macintosh Project Management Applications Roundup now appears on Project Manager Planet.

Reading GANTT Charts for Fun and Profit

My latest article entitled Reading GANTT Charts for Fun and Profit is now online at Project Manager Planet.

Hosted Project Management Applications Article

I just started writing for Project Manager Planet. My first article entitled Hosted Project Management Applications is now online.

TaskPaper

GTD beckons many of the disorganized and overwhelmed masses who then become overwhelmed by the available tools that are meant to get them up to speed on GTD. However, making GTD work isn't always simple at least until TaskPaper came onto the scene. Available for Mac OS X, TaskPaper offers an intuitive user interface enabling users to create projects and tasks right after installing TaskPaper.

Whether you or are a GTD noviate, practioner, or just somebody seeking an easy to use organizational tool for your Mac, TaskPaper fits all those bills. You aren't going to be handicapped with TaskPaper, if you've never opened a page on a David Allen book.  Rather, it is safe to call TaskPaper an organizational tool for the rest of us where you can separate out your ongoing projects and sub-tasks.

Unfortunately, TaskPaper doesn't sync with mobile devices like the iPhone or Blackberry which can be a dealbreaker to many people.

I was looking for an easy to use task list for my MacBook Pro independent of Entourage and TaskPaper fits the bill. There is an elegance in simplicity.

Mindjet MindManager 7 Templates

I came to use Mindjet MindManager  Pro 7  and MindManager 7 Mac through a roundabout way after feeling like I was running dry on new article ideas and needed a new way to visualize processes I was creating and documenting for my consulting clients.

Mindjet's user outreach is commendable because their template library shows they have rigorously researched and done use cases on how their customers put their products to work in a number of business scenarios.

Writing project requirements is a challenge to many organizations large and small. The Mindjet MindManager template for project requirements definitely goes against the staid and true MS Word project requirements templates that dominate the gathering and development of project requirements across the IT industry.

I can imagine a requirements gathering session where this template is put up on a large screen for the entire meeting room to visualize project requirements and their dependencies. While text documents are a comfort zone to many -- branching out into mind mapping for project requirements can help incite ideas in stake holders and end customers who are more visual and need to view a visual depiction of how the requirements are interrelated.