Why and When of Web Based Project Management?

If yours were a small project managed by a single person, a Web-based project management solution would be overkill. Web based project management solutions are ideal when yours is a large organization responsible for managing many projects and you are a specialist responsible for certain tasks under different projects.

Let us look at the issues in a little more detail.

What’s Special About Web Based Project Management?

A key facility offered by Web based solutions is access from anywhere with an Internet connection. Both the software and data are online at a Web server and you can retrieve information and do work from widely separated locations. Hence, Web based project management becomes an ideal solution when many persons, separated geographically, have to work on managing projects.

This could typically be the case in the case of a company that executes many projects at different locations. Many persons will be working on different aspects of each of the projects, and they would find it easier to collaborate and work effectively if all the details are available from anywhere they happen to be.

Another key feature is that Web based solutions can offer the latest versions to users. If you buy software outright and install it on your computer, you will have to buy any upgrades as they are released and install them. In the case of Web based solutions, you pay a monthly or other periodical fee and get to use the latest versions. The solutions provider will typically be regularly upgrading the solutions to take advantage of latest technology, and also to meet user needs better.

Project Management Issues

In a multi-project management environment, each manager will be handling a number of projects, and a number of tasks under each project. Under each task, there might be several issues that need the involvement of other managers to resolve. Hence the typical situation would be a manager selecting a Project->Task->Issue and posting a new one for attention of concerned managers, or helping in resolving an issue already posted and pending action.

It is this kind of collaborative working that is particularly facilitated by Web based project management. On the web, you can post issues to a bulletin board, or use email, instant messaging and voice chats to communicate. You can also conduct webinars or videoconferences where exhibits and files can be used to make issues clearer.

Conferencing Issues

While online meetings and conferences can help collaboration and resolution of issues that need involvement of several persons, they can also become meaningless rituals. To avoid this danger, you need to attend to certain issues:

• Define the role of each participant in the conference. Unless a participant has a specific contribution to make, it is better not to invite the person to the meeting
• Brief each participant in advance of the issues to be discussed, and what is expected of the person, so that the person can come prepared.
• Keep the conference issues action oriented and not just exchange of information (which can be done with less overhead). Deliverables and milestones, major change requests, and status reporting on these, should be the key focus.
• Don’t let conferencing eliminate personal contacts. Few things are as helpful to solutions as a detailed personal discussion between two persons involved. Find time for these. Such discussion can even be voice chats where distances make it impossible to meet in person.

General Project Management Issues

Our focus has been on the special issues of Web based project management. It is assumed that general project management issues have been taken care of. These include:

• Time scheduling of the activities involved in the project, considering the interdependencies among different activities
• Estimating the resource requirements, including manpower and skills, and arranging for their availability in time
• Allocating specific responsibilities to specific managers and to individual employees

It is when things get under way after the above kind of detailed planning that project management issues discussed in earlier sections come into the picture. And for organizations with many projects to handle, a Web based project management solution would be ideal to cope with the complexity involved.