Thoughts on Project Management, Technology, and IT

I have spent the majority of my professional career focused on technology and how the proper application of technology can not only greatly improve business processes and increase efficiency, but also improve the quality of life of everyone around the globe. We live in an age of great change and potential, and I absolutely love being part (a very small part) of that change and excitement. I believe Project Management as a discipline is essential to ensuring high quality project outcomes, and I think there are a lot of ways that project management education can improve. I discuss my thoughts on Project Management software, tips, tools, and techniques in this blog.

Technology Makes Placebo Study Possible

January 12, 2010 – 10:37 pm

As broadcast by Good Morning America last week, and picked up by over 150 news sources (according to Google), a recent study found that in mild to moderate cases of depression, a sugar pill is just as effective as many currently prescribed medications for depression. I will get to how this relates to IT, projects, and technology in a moment. But before we get there, a bit of background on the story is essential.

Here is the quote from the LA Times:

…the mere act of seeing a doctor, discussing symptoms and learning about depression probably triggers the improvements many patients experience while on medication. Only people with very severe depression receive additional benefits from drugs, said the senior author of the study, Robert J. DeRubeis, a University of Pennsylvania psychology professor…

This is not good news for America’s pharma industry, but, its not all bad news either. There was an article in Wired magazine from August 2008 that has a slightly different take on the matter. This is not exactly a new article in Wired.com, but I found it very interesting. Titled “Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why” , it discusses how the so-called Placebo Effect (Patients taking sugar pills instead of actual medicine and feeling better anyway) has become more and more effective over time. In a nutshell, the article in Wired is different from this latest story because it theorizes that while the act of seeing a doctor and discussing your symptoms and situation is powerful, the actual act of taking a pill and thinking that it will work is critical component. In any case, there are real impacts for how big pharma will do business in the future, and maybe even for how drug trials will be conducted. The increased efficacy of the placebo could cost drug companies insane amounts of money, as this is usually discovered in Phase II or Phase III trials, which is way down the development pipeline.

From Wired:

Ten years and billions of R&D dollars after William Potter first sounded the alarm about the placebo effect, his message has finally gotten through. In the spring, Potter, who is now a VP at Merck, helped rev up a massive data-gathering effort called the Placebo Response Drug Trials Survey. Under the auspices of the FNIH¹, Potter and his colleagues are acquiring decades of trial data—including blood and DNA samples—to determine which variables are responsible for the apparent rise in the placebo effect…

It would be one thing if it was just the fact that drug companies are currently developing less useful remedies, but that doesn’t seem to be the entire story. What really caught my eye about this issue twofold:

1) It is even happening with already approved drugs. It is surprising to me that this is even when using drugs the FDA has already approved. Does this point to faulty studies, inadequate sample sizes, or actually changing effects of drugs on a population?

2) CTMS (Clinical Trial Management Software) and database technology is a major driver in the research to find out why. CTMS software, and one of its key components, EDC (Electronic Data Capture) were technological breakthroughs which reduced errors and decreased the time required for analysis of findings in clinical trials. They also had a large side-effect: after the studies were over, the data was still stored electronically and easy to access for additional analysis. The major underpinning of these findings is that large amounts of clinical trial data, either captured via CTMS systems, or eventually entered into databases, is what makes these studies possible in the first place. This underlines the true importance of technology in clinical studies, and how that technology can help investigators rapidly diagnose problems and patterns in the data, across multiple studies. Previously, something like this would not be possible. While CTMS systems are the norm at pharmaceutical companies, they are often not available for university and NIH funded studies at Academic Medical Centers. The bottom line is that as more universities install their own CTMS systems, we will get even more interesting studies comparing large data sets with interesting and important results.

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Sharepoint Forms and Wordpress Custom Forms

January 5, 2010 – 10:13 pm

A while back, I was using Sharepoint 2007 to create some custom forms for data collection. Basically we wanted to capture customer feedback on a proposed design. We had a series of meetings and workshops with users, then after the meetings, I sent out a form to all attendees. I know what you are probably thinking, ah the dreaded “feedback form” that teachers or presenters often collect after class or the lecture is over. But these needed to be a bit more complicated then asking the users to rate the instructor on a scale of 1 to 5. We needed actual feedback on certain screens and designs for the application. Sharepoint’s forms worked OK for this, but they were a bit cumbersome so use, and required programming skills to truly take advantage of all the features Sharepoint offered. And of course, Sharepoint is expensive.

2 years later, and the options for easy to use, custom forms have increased dramatically. While there are many online programs that let you easily create dynamic forms (aka surveymoneky and clones), I just discovered that many programmers have also released free widgets for Wordpress that function in a similar manner. I stumbled upon these while simply looking to re-create my contact form, and was surprised by the variety and amount of options that some of these widgets presented. With the ability to create custom forms using most of the garden-variety form controls you can think of (drop-downs, radio buttons, text input, even file uploads), you can create most any form you need. Some of the widgets also give you the ability to either email data from completed forms, or store it in a database. I created two quick forms below with 2 of the most popular form widgets from the Wordpress site, and this is just scratching the surface as to what is possible.

I see these Wordpress widgets as a very useful tool, with potential implications in a range of industries. While Worpress is not usually in the domain corporations or enterprise deployments, it can be a useful tool for many small businesses and entrepreneurs. Putting cheap and easy-to-use electronic data collection (EDC) into as many hands as possible is bound to be useful in a variety of industries, even with potential implications in healthcare and other data-intensive sectors, if security considerations can be ironed out. If you have positive experiences using these in your business, I would love to hear about it!

My Customized form in the widget “cforms” (v10.2)

cforms contact form by delicious:days

My Customized form in the widget “Contact Form” (v7)

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Custom Forms, EDC, Microsoft Sharepoint, Project Management Tips, Project Success, Web Software, Widgets, Wordpress | Comments (0)

Basecamp.com 50%-off Discount Coupon Code

January 5, 2010 – 8:14 pm

I just received an email from Jason Fried of 37-Signals (Basecamp, Highrise, and other popular web-based applications) announcing a temporary 50-off coupon code that expires on January 15, 2010. Here is a quote:

New Year’s Special: 50% off a new account or an upgrade!

Sign up for a new account, or upgrade your existing Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire plan and receive a 50% discount on your next bill when you use coupon code Hi2010. This coupon expires on January 15, 2010 so don’t miss out.

For those of you thinking of Basecamp.com, or other web-based project management software, check out my review of project management software. Happy New Year!

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged BaseCampHQ, Coupons, Discount Code, Sharepoint Alternative, Small Business Tools, Web Software, Web-based Collaboration Tools | Comments (0)

Goto Meeting Review – Web Conferencing Made Simple

November 18, 2009 – 7:53 pm

GotoMeeting is one of the leading online meeting software suites available today. I happen to think it is one of the best available.

Ease of Use

GotoMeeting is easy to use because the sign-up process takes less than two minutes, and is very straightforward. Once you are registered, you can start using GotoMeeting for Free right away. Because WebEx registration took over 24 hours, I was expecting Goto Meeting to take just as long. This instant registration was nice surprise. It comes with an industry standard 30 day free trial, which is good, because it gives you a chance to determine if the product really meets your needs or not.

Features

The feature set of GotoMeeting has almost become an industry norm. If you have never used Web conferencing tools before, you will be in for a nice surprise. You can share your entire desktop, or only individual screens on your desktop, which is great. I usually only share programs I want others to see, since it could be embarrassing or worse if the entire conference sees some private email or IM’s. But having the choice is nice. GTM also offers integrated chat features for meeting participants, “total audio support” which basically means they give participants the ability to dial-in to the meeting from any standard telephone, or use the VOIP support so users can join the meeting and hear the call all via the computer.

I also personally love the ability to Record Meetings. This is a great tool for documentation purposes, or to record important conversations in case there are questions later on. This has saved my butt a couple times, I highly recommend it.

Pricing

Pricing of Goto Meeting falls right in the middle. As I talked about in my post on Fuze (which is the low cost option), and WebEx, which is the high cost option, Goto Meeting has the sweet spot right in the middle at $49 a month.

Support

Suppport is great, with both online, email, and phone options. I always appreciate the ability to actually talk to a real person.

Overall, I highly recommend GotoMeeting. Once you start using it, you may wonder how you got by without it for so long. Cut down on travel, bring together your team, and you will find it hard to not be more productive.

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Three Tips to Weed Out Procrastinators

November 17, 2009 – 8:32 pm

I just happened upon an interesting article in Psychology Today (PT) regarding Project Deadlines and their importance to project success. Interestingly, it also discusses a psychological aspect that, as project managers, we have all run across before: procrastination.

While we have likely all had procrastinators on our project teams before, I haven’t read much project management literature regarding an analytical study of how to best get the procrastinator to work more effectively. The usual advice for dealing with procrastinators usually ends up sounding very micro-manager to me, and because I have a strong aversion to micro management techniques, I end up disregarding this advice. However, I like the recommendation from PT regarding “Temporal Norms”:

“…Research has shown that talking about time in task groups facilitates the establishment of temporal norms and this discussion can foster a focus on task activity. Taken together then, similarity of pacing style and temporal reminders can promote shared temporal cognitions which should improve the functioning of the group and the timely completion of group tasks. This is exactly what Gevers and her colleagues hypothesized in their study…”

Basically, get the group together for an active discussion (read, NOT a lecture) regarding individuals working styles and a group consensus, and even more importantly, group pressure, is likely to emerge. The important part of this study shows that groups tend to coalesce around the working style that most members share. So if most group members are procrastinators, then that is how the group will function. Worse (or better) yet, how the group acted for their first shared assignment tends to reinforce how they will act for the second assignment, and so on.

This has several important conclusions for the project manager:

If you have a choice over the members of your team, including even one strong individual who generally gets their work done early or on time can have a big difference on the team efficacy.
Having a conversation upfront with a new team and setting your expectations may help prevent the team from lapsing into procrastination mode.
If you notice procrastination tendencies, act early, as these problems have now been proven to only get worse, and if left untreated, may poison your entire team and ensure that your project is late.

Manage your projects and deadlines better with Central Desktop, you should get yourself a Free Trial:

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Accountability, Best Practices, Deadlines, Pr, Project Success, Working Remotely | Comments (0)

Central Desktop – The SharePoint for Small Business?

October 29, 2009 – 7:45 am

Microsoft has made tremendous progress with their SharePoint collaboration suite during the last 5 years, making it the cornerstone of productive teams. However the expensive price tag kept this software out of reach of all but midsize-very large companies. There are new less costly options that provide enterprise level features at small business prices. Read on to find out how they stack up…

Get a Free Trial of Central Desktop, the best Small Business SharePoint Alternative

SharePoint was once the ugly step child application that didn’t have a clear spot alongside MS Project or the favorite Project Shared Folder, it has become a mainstay of some very effective teams. Those teams that figured out how to get the most from SharePoint (a different article thread entirely) are often able to dramatically increase their efficiency on projects. I have personal examples as both a Project Manager and a Team Lead that also have shown there is a right way and wrong way to get the most out of any tool, including web-based collaboration suites. Some of the main benefits my team saw by using SharePoint included:

Centralized location for project information
Less time searching for documents
Fewer mistaken edits to the “wrong version” of important team documents
Improved searching
Greater management visibility to work output
Improved customer / client satisfaction
Easily created forms and surveys

Until just recently, there were not a ton of other choice on the market if you wanted SharePoint features. Sure, there were some companies that offered shared MS SharePoint hosting (and there still are), but SharePoint often proved a bit unwieldy for the small to mid size business sector. Now, there are a plethora of solutions that are perfect for small companies looking to get their business process in order. Let u s review the best:

	Central Desktop	BaseCampHQ	MS SharePoint
Price	Free to $99 a month, all inclusive Try CentralDesktop	Free to $149 a month, all inclusive Try BaseCampHQ	About $40,000, not including servers, rack space, or tech support
Core Features	Document Storage, Search, Workflow, Task lists, Chat, Web Conferencing, Databases, Forms	Document Storage, Search, Task lists	Document Storage, Search, SharePoint Workflow, Task lists, Forms
Unique Features	As many or as few features as you need. Built in web-conferencing	Clean and super simple while still powerful	Easy integration with other MS products
Ideal Company Size	1 person to enterprise level	1 person to midsize company	Midsize to Large company
Customizable?	Yes, most customizations can be made an easy to use interface. Some customizations include company “templates”, databases, and workflows	No, can only add company logo	Yes, very customizable if you hire programmers
Free Trial?	Yes, No credit card required 30 days	Yes (credit card required) – 30 days	No

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged BaseCampHQ, Central Desktop, Group Collaboration, Sharepoint Alternative, Sharepoint Hosting, Small Business Tools | Comments (0)

Qtask – Online Collaboration Platform Designed for Accountability

October 27, 2009 – 2:35 pm

Qtask, the online collaboration platform with the motto “Share Collaborate Achieve“, just sent me a press release today announcing 4 new features, including:

1.    Synchronize your Qtask Calendars with Outlook 2007.
2.    Upload and download your files directly to/from Qtask by simple drag and drop via WebDAV. (You can now read them from your iPhone or BB!).
3.    Easily collaborate on online document, a.k.a Wiki, thanks a our new WYSIWYG editor and a lock mechanism avoiding access conflict.
4.    Work on your preferred browser as we now equally support all four: Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome and Safari.

Lets review the features. From an overall standpoint, these features make using Qtask a lot easier. On the other hand, with the exception of Drag and Drop files, however this really just gets QTask up to speed with BaseCampHQ and Central Desktop which both allowing Outlook calendar syncing, WYSIWYG editor, and multiple browser support. Drag and Drop files is a really handy feature, and maybe the other online collaboration platforms will take note.

How is QTask different than the other platforms? With many of the same features as Basecamp, and not as many features as Central Desktop (read my full reviews), QTask has a unique spin on the goal and benefits of collaboration: namely Transparency and Accountability. Of course the other platforms discuss it, but not as their number 1 benefit. QTask goes as far as to even quote a supreme court justice in its Opening Paragraph! “In his controversial book “Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It” , Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis” Now that is not exactly light reading, but it certainly works well for certain clients.

Check out QTask at Qtask.com, or read their full press release here.

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Accountability, BaseCampHQ, Central Desktop, Cloud Computing, Group Collaboration, Large Business, Medium Sized Business, Microsoft Sharepoint, Small Business Tools, Web Software, Web-based Collaboration Tools | Comments (0)

Fuze vs Web-Ex vs Go-To Meeting – Online Meeting Software Reviewed

October 26, 2009 – 12:36 pm

I used to be skeptical of using online meeting software. The first generations were somewhat cumbersome and a bit slow (although that was also likely a factor of lousy internet connections). These days, I couldn’t imagine living without online meeting software. They have saved me countless hours of travel time, and reduced unnecessary trips. Are they good for every possible meeting type? Of course not. But for certain uses, they are invaluable.

The Gold Standard Web-Ex (by Cisco) and Goto-Meeting have long dominated the Online Meeting marketplace. I just recently heard about a recent newcomer, called Fuze meetings. I like it because it doesn’t require participants to download any plug-ins, and it can even support HD content (the geek in me thinks thats pretty cool). Also, the price point is pretty attractive. Coupled with a 30-day Free Trial of Fuze, sign-up and see how it stacks up for yourself.

What are Web-enabled Online Meetings good for? In my experience, they work really well for:

Sales and product demonstrations
Training workshops and seminars
Client Demos and Q&A sessions with participants in multiple physical locations
Project update meetings and working sessions (depending on topic)
Adding more life to conference calls
Ensuring everyone is literally “on the same page”

Online Meetings are a great way to save money and get work done remotely. Here is the breakdown (from Fuze.com) of Fuze vs. Goto-Meeting vs. WebEx.

KEY FEATURES:

HD Content: Zoom in, zoom out, pan across the screen. All without losing image quality.
Mobile Meeting Access: Attendees can join a web conference from iPhone or Blackberry, and can host an audio conference with full controls.
User-Friendly, Intuitive Interface: Straight-forward features and accessibility. No special configuration is required.
Fuze Fetch: Start meetings on time, anytime. “Fetch” feature enables meeting hosts to dial attendees into a meeting.
Annotation Tools: Host and attendees can collaborate on projects to make changes.

Get a free 30 Day Trial for UNLIMITED meetings in HD, plus 2G of storage!

By Aaron | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Medium Sized Business, Online Meeting Software Review, Online Meetings, Pros and Cons, Small Business Tools, Web-based Collaboration Tools, Working Remotely | Comments (2)

When does Software as a Service (SaaS) Makes Sense

October 7, 2009 – 8:08 pm

I have received several questions from clients and readers lately, mainly around the theme of when Software as a Service (SaaS) applications are cost effective and a good idea for an organization, and when they are not. If you are wondering what SaaS is, in the simplest form it involves paying a monthly or yearly fee to rent an application from a vendor. Usually the vendor is company that developed the application. Major benefits include faster adoption time, no upfront infrastructure or high software costs, and often times dedicated support personnel.

But just becuase SaaS has many benefits, it is not always the appropriate or best choice. So here are 4 Easy Questions that can (hopefully) help you determine if a SaaS application will work for your company.

1) What kind of application are you considering for SaaS?

There are many SaaS vendors in all kinds of spaces, including retail, sales, pharmaceuticals, health care, office productivity, collaboration, etc. In each market, the maturity of the vendors differs dramatically. Before you can answer the other questions, you should take a good look at various vendors in your market place to determine if there is a good option. If there are only a few SaaS vendors in your space, and you work in a large or mid size company that is risk adverse, regardless of the amazing solutions offered by the latest SaaS vendors, the market may simply not be mature enough for your company to take the risk.

On the other hand, if you work for a small company, the competitive advantage of using a SaaS program may propel you to the next level of growth.

Get a free trial of one of my favorite SaaS applications of all time Central Desktop

2) Do you have a robust IT organization available in your company?

Just because the answer is yes, doesn’t mean that SaaS isn’t for you. Overhead costs in most IT departments are often overlooked, and the true total cost of ownership (TCO) is often hidden when an organization considers deploying a new application. On the other hand, Gartner’s research indicates that TCO for SaaS is usually only definitively lower during the first two years.

If you don’t have access to experienced IT folk, and especially if you have only a limited IT resource, then you should consider a SaaS based application, since you will not need to purchase servers, hosting, bandwidth, or spend countless hours installing, maintaining, upgrading, applying security patches to, or otherwise messing around with your servers on Saturday night at 8pm or other unfortunate times.

3) Do you have “flexible” business practices?

This question makes me laugh a bit, but is much more serious then you might imagine. I don’t mean flexible as in morally flexible, but flexible as in governed by any ordinance, law, or statue. For instance, when working with state or federal guidelines, many business practices are not “flexible”. How government business is run may be a matter of law, and will be different state to state, town to town, etc. Therefore, a vanilla application, aka one that comes off the shelf and works for most situations most of the time, will not work in these environments. Many, many, modifications and new features will be required. And when it comes to SaaS, modifications are generally a no-no.

(Quick sidenote: many clients often confuse configuration with modifications. Most SaaS applications can be configured and customized to meet your specific needs, but the actual functionality deployed cannot usually be modified. If they don’t have a feature you need, most times you are out of luck.)

On the other hand, many of the business processes in your company or organization may be more flexible then you imagine. Just because you always file triplicate backup copies of TPS reports every week, doesn’t mean you always have to continue to do so. Choosing to deploy a new application is a great time to evaluate your current business process, and make improvements. Some of these improvements may be enabled by the new SaaS application, and some may just be process changes away from the “way things have always been done before”. In my experience, business process changes, not necessarily technology changes, enabled by deploying a new application often make the biggest impact on company efficiency.

4) Does your potential SaaS application require integration with other applications?

With the recent push of many organizations to deploy common infrastructure components, such as LDAP, or require that data from one application is transferred immediately or nightly into another application, integration continues to be one of the most important things on client’s wish lists. However, integration is also incredibly expensive, and when many of my clients realize just how much it is going to cost to build a custom interface between two applications, they simply cannot justify the expense. So when you think integration is a set-in-stone requirement, you might be surprised how quickly you change your mind when confronted with a 7 digit price tag. On the other hand, the benefits of creating custom interfaces within applications can be tremendous, and often times, is worth it.

So if you are considering an application where integration is high on the priority list, does that mean SaaS is automatically off the the table? The answer is no. Many SaaS applications have the ability to interface with other applications, be it other SaaS applications or in-house hosted apps. Interfaces can also be manual batch uploads, or created via web services. Most SaaS applications will not support custom interfaces however, so a middleware layer may be required and lead to increased costs.

Hope that helps you decide is SaaS can work for you or not. Have some specific questions or looking for advice, send me an email.

By Aaron | Posted in Consulting, Software as a Service | Tagged Cloud Computing, Large Business, Medium Sized Business, Pros and Cons, SaaS, Small Business Tools, Software as a Service, Web Software | Comments (0)

Forrester Reviews Central Desktop

October 6, 2009 – 8:53 pm

Central Desktop just announced, via email from their CEO, that they have just been included in the latest Forrester Wave review of Collaboration Platforms (The Forrester Wave™: Collaboration Platforms, Q3 2009).

The email was largely upbeat, as Issac Garcia, CEO of Central Desktop, touched on the highlights of the report and some of validation that comes form being listed and compared to more traditional market leaders like IBM and Microsoft. Specifically, he said that:

As was noted in the report, “Central Desktop is the only pure software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering with a focus on small and medium businesses, as well as enterprise departments.”

Which is right on. From the small – midsize business standpoint, Central Desktop is no doubt one of the best collaboration solutions out there (read my detailed Central Desktop review here). What surprised me about the report, and what Issac couldn’t or didn’t say, is that some of the methodology used to evaluate those vendors was a bit unfair in my opinion, and didn’t quite do Central Desktop justice.

Was Central Desktop’s score, 2.82 out of 5, a fair score and an accurate representation of their product offering? I think it depends on metric. Like any third party score or report, its never going to be one size fits all. Ben, from the blog Cloud Ave, smartly notes in his article this exact point, when discussing the 3 out of 5 score for “Cross-platform support”:

One could be excused for expecting that Central Desktop, being a web based application, would score the highest marks in this area – unfortunately they didn’t, because their application cannot be installed on a plethora of systems…

Which is a great point. How on earth could a SaaS Web-based application score LOWER than Microsoft’s Sharepoint Service which must be installed on a Windows Server by experienced IT folk in order to operate correctly, when Central Desktop works via most any web browser on the market? That is pretty nuts, considering Central Desktop will work on any Mac or PC with an internet connection (it works on IE 7+, Firefox 2+, Safari 3+, and Google Chrome 1+).

Another interesting point from the report concerns Central Desktop’s Enterprise features. I think the Enterprise ability of Central Desktop is not getting the full respect it deserves. The same great features and collaboration tools Central Desktop offers to small businesses definitely apply to department, division, or enterprise needs as well. In my opinion, the two main drawbacks to wider enterprise adoption of Central Desktop are:

1) Lack of brand-name recognition. Without the cache of Microsoft or IBM, its hard to larger enterprises to choose to adopt the less known. As my friend in IT always likes to say, “Nobody ever gets fired for choosing IBM”.

2) SaaS Only: No version that IT folks can install themselves. In several organizations I previously worked with, this would be an automatic deal breaker.

Central Desktop is clearly making strides on point #1 with inclusion in the Forrester report. As for enterprise reluctance to adopt SaaS offerings, this one may take more time until companies actually realize just how much it costs to host their own applications, and if the extra price is worth it for them in the long run. I tend to see a stronger case for Software as a Service apps only getting stronger in the future.

Cental Desktop is offering the Forrester Report for FREE download, if you want to get into the details, get your copy there.