Master Project Manager Module ... the Real World

We are ready to embark on a major project and I realized that much information and design was scattered on many docs, spreadsheets, pdf's, and maps ... what to do to help being not overwhelmed as the project moves forward ... I have uncovered many sources of nuts and bolts for managing projects and have all the software, but I keep coming back to the flexibility of a mind map ... read a great article on using maps to manage by INNOVATIONtools that gave me the kernel I needed to think this through in my situation ... (I got there by looking on a great resource site ... The Mind Mapping Software Weblog ) ... taking this idea and creating a framework suited to my situation I have come up with what I call my Master Project Manager Module for lack of a better title ... this map will be my container for all the bits and pieces that go into assembling a project and getting it going. Along the way there are numerous resources and ideas that can be thrown into the mix and kept for ready reference or having a plan B when things go wrong. Importantly, all the information is then on ONE map for quick focus ... as the work progresses to the final project implementation, the map will also serve as an archive to all that went into it. Valuable is the ability to bore down on a task or item or looking at the big picture by expanding all items ... you can have as much granularity as you like and still maintain the ability to grasp the big picture .... this is the beginning framework ... I will post more as the concept gets fleshed out and put to use ....

Mind Map Meeting Presentation ...

I have just returned from a critical meeting and used mind maps to convey a tremendously complicated situation and information rich presentation to a very important partner. As you can see the varied topics of discussion it is an extraordinary amount of information to be conveyed ... Look closely at the map and you will see links to other maps ... there were a total of six submaps in the presentation that branched from here and from the subs. I was able to let information and proposals distill from the main map down to the specifics of each. There were also links to spreadsheets, pdf files, docs and pics ... all included in this one sheet ...

The presentation showed the value of this method ... this was a one on one meeting that more or less created a face to face environment to an associate that we had been courting for years and we are finally ready to move forward on a project ... I tried here to create a general framework and flow as we had only a few hours ...

Real world 101 ... I laid everything out meticulously and printed out each map and supporting document and assembled them in a folder to create hard copy, I kept the tablet with me and loaded both mindmanager and gobinder ... I took notes in gobinder as the meeting went on and wrote down notes ( more on this in a later posting ) ... the value of doing things this way was that I let my partner talk first and he actually fleshed out several concepts that were covered in the map, so I showed him the reference and he immediately got the concept as I had fleshed it out ... seeing the picture of the specific in context of the overall flow is an incredibly empowering tool for discussions ... it allows you to immediately convey direction and focus and it gets your ideas and points out in a quickly digested format ... as the discussions continued several more references were fleshed out in other maps that I had printed and we quickly came to agreement and created a process to go forward (which I incidentally mapped on the plane trip back). I could not work without using the mindmapping tool anymore ... it gives you a tightness and focus that cannot be done with any other means ... I could have used the tablet PC to supplement, but just having the printouts to scratch on by both of us was incredibly valuable ....

Great Product, Great Service ....

I am about to go on a quick trip and always tweaking the "mobile" configuration of my machine ... a wonderful Motion Computing M1400 ... there are a couple concerns and annoyances when I travel and just happened to be reminded of a product I had seen a while ago. I had bookmarked the SlateGlove site and went back to it ... let me tell you, from the word go, they were super responsive on the order and were willing to go the extra mile ... very refreshing in this day and age. I am in Hawaii and most shipping calculators do not do the charge correctly, so they worked with me to get it done at a more reasonable cost and they got it out that day !!!!!

Let me digress to tell you what the problems are for me ... I travel with a thinkoutside bluetooth keyboard and always have the problem of how to support the unit ... I have travelled extensively and was using the old plastic motion stand that I got with my first machine ... not elegant, but served its purpose ... when I saw the website, I immediately had to order the unit as it would support the tablet on a table both in landscape and portrait ... problem no 1 solved. Second problem, I carry the tablet in a top loading briefcase and am always gingerly first finding the grip and then applying a "death" grip so as not to drop the unit ... the SlateGlove gives me a secure surface on the back of the machine to grab comfortably ... prob no 2 gone.

There are many obvious things if you go to the website that the attachment will do, including a much better way of holding the slate securely ... ie, probably where they got the name ... the product does not interfere with docking or battery changeout, so it is a wonderful solution for a Motion owner (have all models now including the LE1600 - no 800) ... The workmanship is superb and documentation is detailed and thoughtful ... I really like attention to detail, and let me end with a little something that blew me away ... you install the unit by taking two case screws out and adding on the nicely designed tapered unit that will fit snugly into the case holes ... we in the hinge section is a machined spot to put the original case screws so they will not be lost when you take the unit off ... that attention to detail is indicative of this product ... highly recommended product and company behind it ....

Quick Daily Take on the World ...

My daughter had an interesting assignment in a creative writing class recently ... the proposition was the ubiquitious nature of advertising of which a case was to be made pro or con .... she threw it out for discussion to which I replied ...

"Ubiquity can help one to implement selective focus… you learn from the constant and ubiquitous stream to discern importance and to focus on relevant and consequential products, services and ideas… in the older days, you would be wowed and that was that, mission accomplished… now because everything is WOW… one must learn to discern… that is not only helpful but can serve to create a better flow to life in a modern society where knowledge is everywhere, but wisdom is learned."

This led to an extremely lively discussion and a great paper (if anyone would like to read it, email me and I will send you a copy), which leads to today's post ... how to selectively bombard yourself to benefit from the ubiquity of information and yet not get overloaded to create brain lock .... here is my working flow (please use this as a beginning and modify to your own purposes as this is an individual pursuit) ...

Here is a shot of my Netvibes page I have found this is my basic sieve as I take what I consider to be good providers of information and it highlights for me any new articles that are unread ... from there I can simply click on any article and then I normally hit the read all button to then move all the articles to the read status ... this gives me an extremely fast way of scanning the feed but yet enables a much deeper read if I want (just another window away) ... then I will bookmark to del.icio.us the page with cross references for future digestion and deeper meaning. The page also provides a quick glance at my yahoo and gmail boxes, a little note section, and weather forecast for Makawao, Maui (pretty brutal lately). This one page gives me the quick view I enjoy to start my day and provides VALUABLE information as it occurs ... one area especially useful is the mindjet blog that has on more than one occasion given me helpful maps to work on and great papers for thinking. I like to read as much as I can, but because that can be spotty as far as time goes, this gives me a quick start whenever I can sneak a peak ... there is a new feature that I am going to use on the road next week to try and that is the boxnet storage ... file storage on the page gives me access to key files like the yahoo briefcase .... could be very handy ....

To Synch is Divine ....

In the last week or so I went back to one of my old friends ... GoBinder the 2006 iteration ... after repeated forays into other methods of taking notes on my trusty Motion m1400 tablet PC, I keep coming back. I will go into a more in depth use of GoBinder in a later post, but let me go into the particulars of what I have now that works great for me.

I use Outlook as my hub as it seems most applications have some sort of synch capability with Outlook. Not to disapointed, there is a great mobilizer built into GoBinder that handles my critical apps ... Contacts with copious notes and Appointments on the calendar .. I use the notes function on the Contact screens to create contemporaneous notes of conversations or critical pieces of information that are tied to the contact. These are critical to my work flow and I need to insure that all is well and updated ...

I also use Airset on my desktop always opened in a browser window as I find that using the airset application is actually faster and easier to use than loading Outlook and hogging all the resources necessary. Airset allows me to enter appointments and notes and other information in an incredibly quick and efficient way ... So what I do is use either GoBinder or Airset to enter information and synch to Outlook functioning as a hub of sorts ... works for me ....

I will follow this in the next day or so with the features of the new GoBinder and why I have chosen this over the other numerous note taking choices ....

Another Quick Business Application of Maps ...

Yesterday during a long conference call it was determined that I had to meet with a partner in Seattle in a weeks time. The meeting was to discuss various items including some immediate collabortations and long term planning. Normally a meeting of this nature would tend to ramble because of the breadth of discussions and needs of the two parties.

This is how I prepare and plan for meetings and trips by utilizing the tools and techniques that I have been talking about here. The sample of the map was done in 30 minutes this morning as I was gathering my thoughts ... you can see that already I have linked two other maps (for illustrative purposes dealing with strategic vision and specific future proposals), powerpoint show (use the show, you need to save the presentation as a show, and you will go right through the presentation and return to the map), and a word document ... all of these give you the supporting information. By trip time, there will probably be dozens of attachments, this is to give you all your resources in one place, no more fumbling or searching. This is the key concept here, you take any and all pieces of information that you MAY need and logically put them into areas of discussion. If you go there and need these things, you are a click away .. if you don't it just looks cool ...

I do all my meetings this way and find it invaluable. By preprocessing what may happen, you are much more prepared for the twists and turns that happen in meetings like this. When you use it to create an agenda, you ensure a TIGHT presentation with the ability to fill in info as needed ... once you try this, you will never go back ....

Evolution of the Map

I thought it would be instructive to show you how the map evolves to manage the project. The new figure shows the inclusion of a spreadsheet that is actually linked to our main project submission and contains key elements that are cross linked to working estimates. This dynamic spreadsheet window gives me key numbers used in negotiating that will be up to date and easily modified. Also shown here are the dates and resource use as entered in the task pane ... I use the dates to give me not only deadlines, but aging as required with the specific item. The resource field gives me a way to keep tabs on all the items that are assigned to different members at each juncture. An extremely valuable adjunct is the ability to craft a negotiating stance based on the project being fleshed out ... at a glance using this technique and also highlighting with color it enables you to quickly realize what is a give up and what is critical in a negotiating meeting. All of your details and documentation can be carried by linking key docs and sheets and even presentations to this one map portal as I like to call them ...

I will post later how I tie in the GoBinder inking solution to meetings as I print this map to an ink document to carry into meetings ... and how all the tasks and scheduling are handled in GoBinder linked to Airset via Outlook ....

Practical Project Management

or How to Keep Your Sanity in the Information Age .... as I toil through multiple projects all with a sense of urgency, my methods for managing the tasks, information, resources and people are constantly evolving, but I seem to have hit a sweetspot in the tools that I use ... I think the obvious beginning is at the hub of my projects and for that I use MindManager, time and time again it has allowed quick and ultimately useful sketching out of the idea and what needs to be done, it then evolves into the repository of communications and tasks. I use the note feature to cut and paste emails and random information into a particular topic. I use the task feature to show me the start dates and finish dates to items, this is particularly helpful when you use it as an aging system to see how long a particular item has been going. It becomes easy then to have a simple archive node that serves as your done folder, I take a finished item and simply move it to archive, so you never lose anything that is finished and it does not clutter up the main map. The example I have here is a project that needs many loose ends followed up on and details to be taken care of using other resources and people along with key analysis that must be done once the info is gathered ... did this in less than an hour this morning and have sent out emails, etc based on this ... as the project unfolds, detail is added and things such as spreadsheets and documents are attached to this screen to serve as the project hub ... more to follow on the use of gobinder and the web to complement this ....