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
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