What I consider when selecting a project management tool, which tools and templates I have found useful, and a look at my processes. This was presented as a webinar by request of one of our partner institutions.
Farmer Representative Organization in Lucknow | Rashtriya Kisan Manch
Project Management Tech Tools
1. Project Management Tech Tools
Kathleen Ludewig Omollo
Certified Strategic Planning Professional
Candidate for Project Management Professional (Expected 2019)
Senior Project Manager, UM-CIRHT, University of Michigan
January 3, 2019
Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY SA) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
2. Situation
● As project managers, site coordinators, and other roles within project
management, we each have to manage some aspect of the scope (deliverables),
timeline, and budget for our work within our grant.
● This requires us to coordinate and monitor resources (people, equipment,
documents) across locations and organizations.
● We need to communicate progress to various stakeholders - team members,
principal investigator(s), partner institution, and funder.
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3. Project management - free general templates and guides
● My bookmarks: http://www.pinterest.com/kathleena2pins/project-management/
● GirlsGuideToPM.com - simple guides and checklists for women and men
● MindTools.com - some free, some paid resources available
● ProjectManagementDocs.com - free project management templates
● PMIEF.org - free, Project Management Institute (PMI) Educational Foundation
● ProjectManagement.com - user-contributed content from PMI, mix free & paid
● Project-Management-Skills.com - free templates and newsletter
● PM4Dev.com - free, Project Management for Development Organizations
● OERCommons.org/courses/managing-projects - free course, Managing Projects
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4. Considerations when selecting project management tech
1. Ease of access - do you need to create a new username & password? Does it offer
single sign on so people can use existing login? Can you access by link only?
2. Email integration - can you turn email reminders on/off? Can you update or add
information from within email?
3. Filter - can you filter information by person, by topic or other key variable ?
4. Import / export - can you import and export as spreadsheet or general format?
5. Version history - can you track when and by whom information was updated?
6. Online / offline sync - are you able to view and/or edit information/files from your
computer or phone when there is no Internet and sync when there is Internet?
7. Security - is it encrypted (https)? Does the system comply with privacy/security
requirements for your organization? Does it offer two factor authentication ?
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5. Tips for selecting project management tech
● Keep process and tools as simple as possible to keep you on track.
● No single tool will be perfect. Select the one(s) that fit(s) best
● Commit to use for project phase or entire project period.
● Accept you will be the most active user on your team of whatever tech you select.
● The Project Management Institute estimates that 90% of our role as project
managers is communication - written and verbal, formal and informal.
● Tech can capture the raw data and automate some of the analysis, but to make it
meaningful to report to stakeholders, you will need manually write summaries.
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6. Tech options: Managing schedule
Determine when people are available:
● Doodle.com - determine availability across time zones
● When2Meet.com - determine availability within same time zone
Confirm time:
● TimeAndDate.com - Event Announcer that converts across times
● GoogleCalendar Settings > World Clock - display multiple time zones in your ca
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7. Tech options: Managing schedule
Shared calendar
● TeamUp.com - Free shared calendars, share by link in edit mode or view only.
Example uses: for milestones, for reserving conference rooms, out of office or
travel, major event.
● TeamWeek.com - Free, for creating Gantt charts. Example uses: showing
sequential activities, duration of activities, and coordinating team member
handoffs and availability
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8. Tech options: Managing scope
● Integrated tools - for tracking and assigning tasks as lists or boards
○ Asana.com
○ Zoho.com/Projects
○ https://blog.capterra.com/9-best-basecamp-alternatives/
● Google Suite - for sharing print-friendly versions, compatible with Microsoft
Office
○ Documents
○ Spreadsheets
○ Slides
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9. Tech options:
Managing scope -
dashboards
Example from
PresentationLoad
Templates - traffic
light indicator and
text summary of key
areas. 9
10. Tech options:
Managing scope -
dashboards. This
one could be done in
5 minutes for
summary but does
not provide detail.
Free Example from
GirlsGuidetoPM.com 10
11. Tech options: Managing budget
● Google Drive Spreadsheets - free
● Zoho.com/Projects - free up to certain number of users
● Box.com - Free up to certain storage level
● DropBox.com - Free up to certain storage level
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12. A deeper look into my own project management process:
the tech I use
and
how I communicate reports
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13. 13
The tech I use -
my mobile apps (all free), organized as folders
14. 14
The tech I use -
my mobile apps (all free), organized as folders
15. a dashboard in
GoogleSlides that
I manually update
after reviewing
Asana, written
documents, and
verbal
discussions
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How I communicate reports -
16. after our project
team members
travel, I do a verbal
debrief for 15-45
minutes after trips,
which I write and
store in Box.com
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How I communicate reports -
17. 17
revised work plan in the
required format by our
organization, which I
share every 6 months as
appendix to narrative
status report; table is
exported from Asana as
CSV and formatted in
Excel or Word
How I communicate reports -