Running a project should not be mismanagement by email

If you have ever run a project, or even been on the blunt end of the tasks coming out of a project manager, you'll understand how difficult effective tracking of communication can be. The tracking of individual tasks on the GANTT prove hard enough, with many projects resorting to a printed copy that gets a thorough paint-job with a green highlighter at regular intervals. Now try and track the implicit communications and requests that make up the tasks on the plan (or often outside of it), and you'll prove to yourself that there really has never been a good way to track your project related conversations and responses, many of them getting lost in email. So, for my newest consulting project, I decided to 'drink my own champagne / eat my own dog-food' and use Consected to manage the structure of my project, track the communications with the joint teams, track the project plan and record the masses of notes that I normally expect to generate or receive.

What did I want to achieve? First for the good of the project I wanted to make sure that all of my project information was carefully organized so that I could find it at any time, and so I could track follow ups with the client and vendor (I'm sitting in the middle, trying to clean up a messy project) without driving myself make sure that all of my project information was carefully organized so that I could find it at any time, or the post-it notes into crisis. Second, I wanted to get a better handle on the strengths and shortcomings of using the Consected solution for a project that doesn't have a lengthy business process or workflow.

What is the outcome? The project appears to be picking itself up well, due to (or despite) my last minute introduction to it (the aim being to pick it up by the scruff of the neck and beat it into shape). And Consected has proven what a great fit it is for this type of unstructured or semi-structured project management or case management work. Even better, it now has a nice, simple, but powerful ready-to-run solution for managing consulting projects, or likely many ad-hoc projects you see in typical organizations.

Does this sound like something you could use to track your projects and communication better? Great, because this is a preview that Consected will offer this Consulting Project service, and some accompanying solutions for immediate sign up and use in the coming weeks. If anyone is interested in signing up for the free, public beta of this ready-to-run solution, drop me an email at phil_ayres @ consected.com or go to the contact page of www.consected.com, so I can add your name to the list of people to notify on release day.

A post from the Improving It blog

To implement workflow and process automation in your business today, visit www.consected.com