Project Management Tools: How Do You Keep Track of it All?

[joe.pistell]

Now I remember why I liked BaseCamp: Basecamp Demos: To-do Lists

CRM vendors should hire the BaseCamp crew to guide their product design.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Here's one for you Joe...HighriseHQ

Another 37Signals product but this is a personal/small business CRM. I use it for managing DealerRefresh advertising accounts.

The number one feature I LOVE (every CRM should have) is their "dropbox" feature. This allows you to BCC an email response to a specific designated Highrise email account. When you do this, Highrise will attach the email to the corresponding customer/account as long as the email address matches. If no email matches, It grabs whatever contact information out of the email and makes a new opportunity.

Example: a customer sends you an email to your outlook email account. Typically you would respond and "hope" to update the customer notes in your CRM. But with the dropbox feature you can respond, BCC your CRM using your dropbox address, and your email back to the customer would attach their opportunity in your CRM.

I know - not a Project management piece but a great feature.

Basecamp has a feature something like this where you can respond to a To Do or Project email alert via email while updating the project without having to login.

 

[Alex Snyder]

Things is my bible of GTD (Get Things Done) and EverNote is my game plan pen and paper. Both sync with my iPhone.

 

[Rob Fontano]

I am a big whiteboard fan, every member of my team has one. I also use Evernote to store photos of my white boards and even paper notes, all text in photos is searchable.

I have shared notebooks (evernote) with my team so we can all see what is going on up to the minute on our PC's or smartphones. A lot of the time we are thirty miles apart.

Just completed new text campaign POS this way and it went great. Now moving forward on other projects with same gameplan.

 

[Mitch Gallant]

I've been using Things for mac lately and it's been a GOD SEND. I don't have an iPhone but I've been carrying my iPod touch everywhere along with a blackberry more or less because of Things. Alex referenced it as his bible of GTD and I'm right there with him sitting in the front pew.

It's taken my scatterbrain and turrets like outbursts of "OHHHH this would be a good idea" and made me execute them. For project management it's maybe a touch week but in terms of general productivity it's helped me execute tons of little things I would have otherwise have completely forgotten.

 

[ed.brooks]

I came across an article this morning and remembered this thread. It's on Tripwire Magazine and titled 18 Online Project Management Apps To Get Your Business Under Control.

Here's the summary:

"Project management software is a term covering many types of software, including estimation and planning, scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, quality management and documentation or administration systems, which are used to deal with the complexity of large projects.

Project management apps are essentially meant to save you time and get on top of all activities going on in your business or projects. However it can be quite time consuming to implement and it requires some effort to use tools like these consistently. If you have a team who works with you remotely, then online PM Apps are ideal and may dramatically increase collaboration and efficiency. If you are a freelancer however, you will have to spend some time getting it all set up and as well for teaching your clients how to use and interact with the application you choose. First of all let’s start by explaining what my criteria for a project management application are. The application needs to have a sleek and smooth interface that is easy for the user to navigate and use especially for freelancers. The application must have a reasonable price tag, or be offered free. To make it in the list of the best the application needs to run fast and allow you to quickly do all your tasks. For this article I have prepared a roundup of some really great project management applications that I think is worth your time to try and investigate."
​

 

[joe.pistell]

If you’d like a tool for managing your time and projects, you can use this web-application inspired by David Allen’s GTD:

Gtdagenda.com

You can use it to manage and prioritize your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
Syncs with Evernote, and also comes with mobile-web, Android and iPhone apps.

Liked this one, but I need GTD and multi-team collaboration. Any suggestions?


p.s. I don't do Apple... ever.