Project management software- comparison analysis between Binfire & Basecamphq

Basecamhq is well established as leading online project management software in the market today. It is easy to uses and it is not very expensive.  The conventional wisdom says when shopping for online project management you need to compare the available options. I have evaluated basecamphq against another service which I use offered by binfire.

Basecamphq provides simple to-do list, a text based whiteboard and a chat service called Campfire. The app is easy to use and the interface is simple and basic. For large projects, the tools are too simplified. For example there is not relationship between tasks like which one should finish before others can start etc.  Also there is no way to use top down task design methodology. This is especially important in larger projects when you want to break down a project to high level tasks and then break down each task to smaller tasks and so.

Binfire on the other hand is a more robust project management application and delivers more value for the money. It provides complete task management including WBS and the ability to tie tasks together (task dependency), plus supporting top down design for breaking tasks to smaller tasks. It has built in status reporting mechanism which basecamp does not, plus a host of other features like interactive whiteboard supporting text, drawing and images, group chat with chat history, content  management  to enable collaboration, collaborative markup tools and more. But what really sets Binfire apart is the use of social features throughout the application. These features make managing and collaborating on a project much simpler. As an example if you are interested in the status of a file or a task, by one click you can “star” it. When you do so, you will get notification every time the status of the object you starred is changed. For example if you are waiting for the latest version of a document which is being worked on by you colleague, just star that document. Every time your colleague updates the file, you get notified. The collaborative features enhanced by social media set Binfire apart from other project management applications. Binfire covers the 3C’s of project management applications namely to coordinate, communicate and collaborate.

In terms of pricing, for $99 / month you get 100 projects and 30GB storage in Basecamphq. For the same Dollar amount, you get 100 projects with more advanced features and 100GB storage in Binfire.

Conclusion- Binfire is a better value when compared to basecamphq when it comes to project management software. It is more sophisticated and provides tools needs for managing a project. The use of social tools in the application makes it an even more attractive option.

Collaboration: The Evolution

The word ‘collaborate’ originates from the Latin word collabōrāt, which translates to ‘work together’. A fairly simple and broad concept, the norms of collaboration are ever-evolving and have taken great leaps in the wake of the twenty-first century. As globalization emanates and communication migrates ever more to the web, web collaboration becomes increasingly crucial. In this post, we will track some of the milestones in the evolution of collaboration and assess the impact these developments have on business.

The introduction of basic emailing services changed the landscape of collaboration by bridging the physical gap and transforming the norms of communication in the workplace. At the click of a button, information could be shared with colleagues across the world almost instantaneously. This capability effectively shrunk the world and directly catalyzed collaboration on a more international level.

But as communication evolved, the need for real-time solutions became a priority. Thus, consumer-based instant messaging was born and ushered into the international workplace. This tool enabled coworkers to communicate in real-time, increasing productivity and exposure. As the web developed, along with server capabilities, VoIP became an integral part of countless company platforms (introduction of Skype and its permeation throughout small businesses). The evolution of communication consequently led to video conferencing, file transferring platforms, etc. 

These advances in technology and communication have fundamentally changed the way that we work, share and socialize. These tools have become industry norms and operating without them proves to be a huge disadvantage. An immense portion of the global economy today is essentially a ‘collaboration economy’; one in which the main commodity is communicated information and ideas. As the global mobile worker population heads towards 1.19 billion by 2013, the tools with which we collaborate will advance at an incredible pace. In the following posts, we will outline what the growing demand for collaboration means for the tools we use and what needs to change.

Attache files to tasks and more

I have been talking with folks at  my favorite online project management software and they are coming out with a few really good features which I have been asking for. In the new version coming soon they have added the following:

• Attaching files to tasks
• Attaching files to comments
• Attaching files to status tweets (report)
• Shout box, which lets you contact them from with application real easy
• Adding tags to files
• Free form search in the file folder using file name and tags.
• Imports from Basecamp and other PM programs

You can check  collaboration Corner blog here.
Happy collaboration
PM Coach

The latest version of binfire is released!

Binfire.com just released its most sophisticated Project Management Program . This new version is packed with great social software features. All pages are live and updated in real time, Object starring and commenting has also improved. In addition to social features, the task management got even better in binfire.com.
Visit binfire.com or their blog collaboration corner
Happy Collaboration
PM Coach

Choosing the best project managemnt & Collaboration program

The days of using MS project are over. You need a cloud base collaborative project management program.In this blog I will show you why I believe there is a hidden gem that needs to be discovered  and is called binfire.com. To show you what I mean,  I will compare Binfire against a well known program, namely basecamphq.com.
Basecamp has both free and paid versions, like binfire. Basecamp provides simple to do list and calender. You can connect your account to highrise (a separate chat program from 37 Signal) to be able to communicate with your teammates.This is what you get for free from basecamp and Binfire.

                                                BaseCamp                    Binfire
Projects                       1                                     2
Storage                        10MB                            2GB
Chat                             No                                 Yes
Whiteboard                  2   (*1)                              No limit
PDF markup                 No                                 Yes
File version                   No                                 Yes
Task(WBS)                   No  (*2)                             Yes
Gantt Chart                   No                                 Yes
Status reporting             No                                 Yes
Instant updates              No (*3)                             Yes
WEB 2.0 features         No                                 Yes

Even if you buy the most expensive option from basecamp, you will not get any of the advance features Binfire offers for free. Binfire paid versions give you more storage, projects and users per project. It is not feature vs. feature which makes Binfire a much better options, but the way every function is tied together using web 2.0 features to make a intuitive, simple to use online program. As an example you can Star a file or a task. By doing so, you will follow the file or the task and get notified any time they are changed. Another feature is the capability of placing comments throughout the site.

Binfire offers task management based on WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) recommended by PMI, plus interactive Gantt chart. These are features found in only more advance products. On the other hand, Basecamp offers simple to-do list and small storage. Binfire in addition project management is an online project collaboration site.


(*1) Basecamp offers only a message board and not a real whiteboard, in contrast Binfire has a full fledged interactive real time whiteboard where you can write, draw and paste images and everybody in your project can participate and collaborate.

(*2) Binfire offers full task management with dependencies and WBS structure. It lets you breakdown a complex project to tasks and then each task to sub-tasks and so on. In addition you can use the interactive Gantt to view, modify plus report  your progress. PMI recommends this process. Basecamp on the other hand only offers just a to-do list.

(*3) To make a project collaborative, web 2.0 features are required.Binfire offers several collaborative features to make managing a project simpler. They include object starring, comments and instant updates.

References:
http://www.binfire.com
http://www.basecamphq.com

Happy Collaboration
PM Coach

Ten characteristic of a good project manager

It is not easy to be a project manager. To be a really good one is even tougher. The good news that you can learn from great project managers. Remember, the number one goal of a project manager is to finish a project successfully on time and budget. So what good program manager have in common? I have listed 10 characteristics the you need to be  a project manager

1. Communicate; you should be able to clearly communicate with your team, customers and upper management. Failure to communicate is number of reason for project failures.
2. Plan; you need to be organized, plan and document everything in your project. This is not for covering you back, but to have information available to all team members at all time and establish accountability.
3. Negotiate; You need to be a good negotiator. A major portion of your job is to negotiate between varying requirements, time constrains and your team ability
4. Solve problems; You need to be a problem solver. I don't mean to help a programer solve his / her coding problems, but being able to understand a problem and bring expert help.
   
5. Listen; You need to listen. What your team, your customer and you bosses tel you are important and you need to remember and correlate all data you get.
6. Honest; A leader needs credibility and you need to be see as an honest broker
   
7. Lead; You need to be a leader. You need to be firm but fair
8. Tenacious;You can't give up. When facing problems you need to keep the team together and find solutions
9. Gracious; give credit to those that deserve credit. It is not just your project, it is theirs too
10. Flexible; Be ready to change if the circumstances change. A good commander goes to war with a plan, but is ready to adjust as new information becomes available.

These ten characteristics are fundamental in making you a good project manager.You also need to select the right tools to succeed. A good Project Management Program is a must.
Happy collaboration
PM Coach

Modern Project Management

The project management's job is evolving and changing as fast as the technology is changing. Most project management books or courses teach you that as a project manager you need to have weekly or even better yet daily meetings to review the project status with your team.  This sounds reasonable until you consider the cost. It is time consuming and wasteful, it is annoying to listen to somebody else complaining or giving detail account of their tasks  for an hour or more and the result you get from these meetings is questionable. Most people forget what was said in these meetings and with globalization not all team members are in the same building let alone the same country. The use of voice or video helps but does not fix the underlying problem of too much time wasted. Just imagine in a large project which has 25 team members, every one hour meeting cost 25 man hours. This means at average salary of $75 per hour the company is spending $1875 per meeting. Multiply that by 50 and the company has spent almost $100K for status meeting.
Now I don't want to make to give the wrong assumption that the status meeting or gathering the team together for binding does not have any value, because it does and every program / project manager should try to get his  / her team together at least once a week. The difference is that in the meeting you don't need to go around the table and ask for everybody's status. Why you ask! because the status of every task and every member should be know to everybody in real time. When the right software is used, the status of the project is known to all. In the meeting, only the problems are discussed and solved.
Reference:
project management Institute
Collaboration



PM Coach
Project Management Program

Effective status reporting

In projects large or small, a plan is made, tasks are defined and assigned. This is the easy part, what is hard to have a pulse on the project progress at all time whiteout taking too much time and resources and annoying the heck out of team members by time consuming and most often unproductive meetings. So what is the solution? I think we have found a great solution in online project collaboration software by http://www.binfire.com. The tools is simple but very powerful. It is designed around a secure tweet like tool resident in the application. Each project member reports his or her status everyday. What is unique here is that there is only 140 characters for this reporting. The user needs to be brief and to the point. What he did today, what he will do tomorrow and if he is  facing any issues. That is all. Every tweet and comment is visible to all, so it encourages collaboration and teamwork. Everybody can comment and all this happens in real time.

PM Coach
Project Management Program

Collaboration in project management

Most people who have learned project management using MS project have a big disadvantage. Due to nature of of desktop applications, the project management tools where used mainly by the project manager. The PM would make the plan, print out huge posters and put them on a wall. Then he would get the whole team in in the room (called Project room or some fancy name like Pegasus as project code etc). The team would spend countless hours to review the plan. The PM or his / her assistant would take notes and would go and update the plan based on the review.  This time consuming process would go on week after week. No wonder most project end up late and over budget. The worst part is to update a plan, the PM needs to go around and ask for updates every week.
This is no way to run a modern project. New software like http://www.binfire.com makes collaboration an integral part of project management. It incorporates all tools needed to plan, track, update and collaborate on a project.
BTW, One of the project management blogs which I follow is by Glen Alleman. His herding cats blog is a great resource for new PMs.

PM Coach
Project Management Program

What tools help a project manager and the project team?

Managing a project is hard especially if it is a multi disciplinary project. The good news is that new technology is coming to the resume. It is all about collaboration and visibility. You need to collaborate to be successful and you need all in the project have access to all resources they need to accomplish their tasks.  A good project management tool should have all the follwoing:

• Tasks using WBS standard
• Interactive Gantt
• Interactive whiteboard for brainstorming
• Group Chat for instant communication plus chat history
• Search and starring and other productivity tools
• document collaboration for reviews
• Status reporting
• Project control panel for assigning new users and permissions
• Content management with file version and lock
• Online application accessible from anywhere

These tools will improve the chance of finishing a project on time and on the budget!

PM Coach
Online Project Collaboration

What is exactly the job of project manager?

What exactly a project manager does? We know what the development manager does, what the engineers or worker bees do, what functional manager do and so on. What is a good definition of project manager? This is an easy question, but hard to come by with a unified answer. The problems is that there are multiple expectation or job description for the PM rule. As the technology gets more complicated, no PM can have a good handle on all the technical disciplines deployed in a project. So he needs special skills. I have my list and based on my experience feel is as close as it gets to what a real PM does or should do.

• Communiator; a PM has to be able to communicate
• Planner; a PM should be able to take an idea and put a plan in place
• Decision maker, a PM needs to decide on limited information and time constraint
• Listener;  A PM should be patient and a good listener
• Coach, a PM should be viewed as a coach by the team, somebody they can trust and share issues as soon as they arise.
• Leader, a PM should be a leader, say it as it is and don't play games. Give both good news and bad to both the team and upper management
• Fair; to be able to judge and reward the truth

As you see this is a tall order and that is why so many project end up with huge time and cost overruns.

PM Coach
Online Project Collaboration

Project management resource

I will use this blog to help the PMs and project teams to get a handle on fine art of project management. I will use binfire.com , one of the better online project management and collaboration tools available today to illustrate the examples I will discuss in this blog.


Best,
PM Coach