JobWarden

Online Presentation of the Casework Module

Now you can view an online presentation of the Casework module.

Presentation of the Casework Module now Online

Feedback appreciated

Converse to Manage and Manage to Converse

Very few of us have the luxury of being able to maintain a total focus on the job or project at hand. This why we think it is important to treat a project or job as an ongoing conversation which might have to be interrupted from time to time, without losing the thread. It is quite difficult to do so if all the participants are not privy to the entire conversation, including the asides and occasional mutterings - requirements that applications such as E-mail and most middleware systems simply do not facilitate.
Formal project management systems tend to fall apart when smaller teams try to use them, for the simple reason that they impose overheads that do not contribute materially to the successful pursuit of the jobs at hand; either that or they become a frustrating distraction.

Wethink that most small to medium sized operations have perforce tooperate in the fluid environment which Paul describes, and that is whywe designed JobWarden to be conversational in nature - conversations can be started, stopped, interrupted and the subject can be changed at will. Most importantly, all participants have a voice.

Try that with a Gantt chart!

Now for the Two Small Details

What Paul fails to mention (because it is totally obvious to the enthusiasts who use the ExpressionEngine product) is the critical need to keep customers andother stakeholders informed. In this regard:

He and Rick handle their customer information interface perfectly, serving customers all over the world. Through the simple devices of their forums, a wiki and their website, they provide up-to-date information on every conceivable subject relating to their products. Technically therefore, these things are ALL part and parcel of their "project management system."
On the other hand, he does not mention his incoming logistics problems (if indeed he has any) such as those which roofing contractors, legal offices, dental labs or municipal projects (for example) have to contend with. These require that suppliers also need to be fully in the loop without their conversations necessarily being visible to the business's clients or to each other. Nor should the clients' conversations neccessarily be visible to the suppliers. In other words, some conversations may have to be more private, but they must be conversations nevertheless. Which in turn necessitates an ability to easily excerpt or edit private conversations for use "across the divide" so to speak.

We have designed JobWarden to these needs with special attention to the environment in which smaller operations have to survive, by ensuring that the overheads are as low as we can make them, while covering the main bases. You can find more detail here if you would like to see how we provide a simple but effective tool for keeping project participants of all kinds informed and involved in the conversation.

A Word on Project/Job Terminology

When I contract with a plumber to install or upgrade a bathroom, both of us treat the ensuing effort as a JOB and we both refer to it as such. But for some reason if I tackle the same JOB myself, it magically becomes a PROJECT. There is not much logic to this, other perhaps than the fact that I expect the job to take up more time if I do it myself, and because it may stretch my skills, whereas my contractor will do the job more as a routine and to a familiar rhythm. It seems that project management systems are not referred to as "job management systems" because of some inherent quality of projects. We think this is a bad assumption.

For this less than weighty reason, JobWarden uses the terms "job" and "project" interchangeably.

We though you might want to know.

So, Let’s Have It!

We are interested in your thoughts on project management, particularly as they pertain to conversations between customers and providers and/or between team members.Here's how you can air your opinions: Browse our site and make comments wherever you see a "comments" link Click on the "MORE..." link and add your comments via the "comments" link e-mail us using our contact link To limit the ever-present threat of spam, you will have to be registered before you can make an entry in our forums ... we hope you understand. We pledge (and it is our policy) to not disclose your name or contact details to any third party. It is up to you whether you choose to publish your e-mail address or any other details about yourself in the various comments areas on the main site.We will regularly select insightful contributions to publish here with a link to your website if you include one. Entries will be monitored and vetted. Spam and abusive or off-topic communications will be deleted, and the writer will be blacklisted.

A New Module for Jobwarden

We welcome any comments and suggestions relating to the newest addition to the JobWarden capabilities.

JobWarden System Development

Many months have gone by since we last had anything to say about JobWarden - well, the time has come to change that.We have been beavering away to implement the following major improvements and developments:Voila! a New ModuleWe are proud to announce the availability of a new module, the Casework Management Module . The module is available in a number of variations to suit different kinds of casework - you may visit our Cases Demo area, which shows the module in it's Mediation Casework format. We have prepared a 1 page graphic (PDF format - so make sure your PDF reader is ready or download one ) illustrating the Features and Benefits of this module. Improvements to the Jobs Management ModuleWhile developing the Casework Module, we learned a few lessons about interfacing a long-ish list of activities. We have now updated the Jobs Management Module to take advantage of the interface we developed for the casework module. Visit the Jobs Demo. We hope you like it and we look forward to any comments and/or suggestions.

What is Conversational Project Management?

To answer that, we need to ask: What is a “conversational project?” And to answer that, we need to remember: "What is a conversation?” Many people believe, with some justification, that the art of conversation is lost. We do not agree entirely, but we have some sympathy for their point of view. Many “conversations” are really monologues - even two or more simultaneous monologues. And too many “conversations” are devoid of content - you know, conversations like: A says:- “(insert adjective) weather!” B replies:- “Yes, isn’t it?” So what exactly IS a conversation? For example, from wikipedia we get (the emphases are mine) A conversation is communication by two or more people, often on a particular topic. William F. Buckley’s Firing Line, the Dick Cavett Show, and many other television programs described as “talk shows” are exercises in conversation. Conversations are the ideal form of communication from at least one point of view, since they allow people with different views of a topic to learn from each other. A speech, on the other hand, is an oral presentation by one person directed at a group. Conversers naturally relate the other speaker’s statements to themselves, and insert themselves (or some degree of relation to themselves, ranging from the replier’s opinions or points to actual stories about themselves) into their replies. For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of contributions. A successful conversation includes mutually interesting connections between the speakers or things that the speakers know. For this to happen, conversers must find a topic on which they can relate in some sense So there you have it:Conversations are the ideal form of communication They allow people with different views of a topic to learn from each other Conversers naturally relate the other speaker’s statements to themselves For a successful conversation, the partners must achieve a workable balance of contributionsConversational ProjectsTo paraphrase what was said above, a conversational project should consist of interchanges in which all participants can bring their different views (preferably without merely descending into exchanges of differences,) where each can relate what the others are saying to themselves, and where each strives to make contributions which progress the project to mutual benefit. In my opinion, the most important and most elusive of these criteria is the one of recognizing and providing for the participants’ natural need to relate what others are saying to themselves. Unfortunately, too many projects are run more like secret societies, in which the conversations, if any, are incestuous in the sense that they are confined to the respective “in groups.” Suppliers, customers, teams, contractors, whatever, each converse among themselves about projects and run project management systems (if they run any systems at all,) by and for themselves, while throwing more-or-less limited bits of self-selected information over the transoms, rather than engaging in meaningful dialogues in which information is provided according to others’ stated needs.This is not necessarily or even usually malicious or negligent - it is out of culturally ingrained custom-become-habit that this happens, aggravated by the transference of the habit into both management and IT systems. For this reason we have extremely powerful project management systems which are almost completely unintelligible to laymen - even articulate and very well educated laymen. Systems whose steep learning curves, burdensome resource requirements, arcane jargons and stilted cross-organizational interfaces render them of no interest to ordinary busy folk. To quote a business associate, “I am drowning in gantt charts which tell me almost nothing I need to know to run my project. I get what I need to know by talking to everyone involved all the time.” Enter Conversational Project ManagementWithout the worldwide web, conversational project management without actually getting participants together physically, would be unthinkable. Imagine trying to manage a project using only a telephone? Yet many online project management systems do little to promote real conversations between participants. The most conversational phenomenon to take root on the web owes nothing to existing IT-based project management systems and everything to the conversational meme as articulated above - I refer to the phenomenon known as the weblog or “blog.” It is only a short step from the blog to the conversational project management system that is JobWarden If you take the time to examine JobWarden, you will find it is conversationally blog-like, with added project management features, such as: The ability to track project status The ability to assign action items to individuals and track progress/performance - call them time cards if you wish Clients and/or suppliers can add entries and all participants can comment on existing entries Access can be password-controlled for security Status can be tracked via a calendar A highly effective, concise graphical project status is provided using sparklinesTo explore further, poke around in our demo area, and please comment freely while you are there - we believe in practicing what we preach.

Let’s Face It - Its Overhead

There can be no doubt about it, project management systems impose an overhead on you which may not be justifiable because they are too complex and/or bureaucratic.But Sometimes, Absolutely Necessary There are some jobs which simply cannot be done effectively without a formal Project Management System (PMS.) Jobs like:Designing and building a hospital, a power station, an airliner or a nuclear submarine Organizing the London Marathon, staging a performance of Wagner's Ring Cycle or running a NASCAR raceImplementing major software projectsMaybe A Good Idea?There are jobs you can do without a formal PMS, but they tend to stress you out and you may end up with a crappy result because you can't stay on top of the "unforeseen happenings." Jobs like:Building a new home or small apartment blockInstalling an escalator to replace a stairway or refurbishing the air-conditioning for an office blockStaging a local rock concert or running a series of local league football gamesMoving a business to a another areaDon't Bug MeThere are jobs that are routinely and successfully done without a formal PMS, such as:Refurbishing an interior, re-roofing a home, rebuilding an antique car, landscaping a gardenCatering for or just planning a wedding, arranging a funeral, organizing a class reunionRewiring a home, adding an extension, painting the outside of a buildingMoving to another city or country, relocating your officeIt is easy to see that the higher the level of complexity, the greater the need for a formal PMS. For this reason almost all of the early project management protocols grew out of the need to formalize the management of projects which were so complex as to be almost impossible without them - projects like building the first nuclear submarines, the Apollo Missions and so forth. With such a heritage, it is no wonder that many of today's project management systems impose resource and know-how requirements, not to mention jargon, which frightens you, when all you want is some way to help with your conflicting pressures.So Is There Any Help?

What’s New - Online at Last

We have added a number of new features to JobWarden since we made this entry. While maintaining JobWarden's conversational character, you can now also: Set up teams, add team members and assign individuals to specific tasks Schedule projects/jobs with action items and milestones, and enter time sheets Track jobs/projects for on-time, early or late status We are just now adding the ability to also track the performance of team members against their assignments, and will post a more comprehensive "What's New" then.

Featured Demo - Dental

This may seem dull, but if you click on the link you may be surprised to see the power and flexibility of our job/project tracking features