I just read the newest post from Gina Trapani on the Harvard Business blog. She makes a good point that sometimes it just makes sense to pick up the phone and deal with an issue directly. We are in the business of online project management software. As such, you might expect me to preach that everything should be tracked and maintained through the centralized trusted system for project work – Pelotonics.

There is tremendous utility and long-term efficiency that comes from the proper and frequent use of a system like Pelotonics, but sometimes there is no substitute for a face-to-face conversation or a phone call.

Email is asynchronous; that’s a positive and a negative. I am sure that all of you have been party to the never ending email string where everyone contributes just enough information on each response to push it forward to no conclusion. Some of these endless email strings can be cleared up and clarified in a quick five minute real-time interchange.

Let’s not forget technologies like Skype! The phone is great, but it is not reliable. Skype gives a tremendous view into the availability of coworkers and, if not abused, can provide instant access at appropriate times. It is still quasi asynchronous so it has the benefits of email and none of the draw backs of the phone. I am about to hold a call with a remote worker across the country via Skype. In my mind, this beats a phone call and email at the same time. We get the benefits of a phone conversation injected with file sharing, text-based information and video if we are feeling like it.

Gina’s points are well taken. It is amazing that we live in a world with such amazing technologies that allow us to increase the efficiency of communication. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get on a Skype call with a team member of mine!

What do you use to communicate with team members?

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First I would like to thank everyone for making this such a great year for Pelotonics. We have been growing like gangbusters and have really enjoyed getting to know our user base more deeply. If you didn’t already notice, we have recently upgraded the look and feel of Pelotonics under the direction of our esteemed advisor, Gina Trapani.

All I can say is, “what a great move!”. We recieved numerous positive comments from you, our users regarding the change. The re-design was focused on making things easier to access and manipulate. Aside from making it look more modern, Daniel added AJAX capabilities to the numerous filters that exist throughout the application. If you want to just see Tasks on the calendar for instance, just click the box and it happens immediately. No clicking on another button to perform that task! I hope you enjoy the new streamlined nature of the application.

Now, with that having been said, we are studying out the possibility of including an enterprise wiki into Pelotonics. This wiki could be used as a standard intranet for a company or organization as well as tie in directly to Pelotonics. Imagine being able to add wiki pages to your projects. This capability would give you the ability to store information and enhance communications with your project members. We want your feedback.

Are you using a wiki today? Do you have your eye on a wiki in the near future? The integration that we are contemplating would provide you with a simple wiki as part of the standard subscription packages with Pelotonics. We would also offer an upgraded wiki option that would provide enterprise features like LDAP connectivity and many other connectors to databases within your organization.

Pelotonics is evolving into a tremendous tool. I was just up at Warner Brothers last week and I was truly amazed at how many projects they are managing on Pelotonics! We feel that migrating to a more enterprise option is something that we would like to explore. I am interested in your take! Let us know what you think…

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We are constantly thinking about what the future holds for Project Management. It is clear that groups are changing the way they manage projects. New highly available tools like Pelotonics are helping groups and organzations get a handle on what needs to be done and where things are at.

A friend of my mother contacted me on Facebook recently and stated that she had a funny picture of my mom that she was going to send to me. Now, if this was just an email or phone-based promise, the chances of me seeing that picture go waaaay down. In my view, because she COMMITTED to send me the picture on a semi-public forum like Facebook, it happened like clock work! She scanned in the picture from the 80’s and sent it to me via email. A scant two years ago this same individual would have most likely not have done this citing it was too complicated or most likely she would have forgotten and moved on to other priorities.

It is my observation that a promise or committment made in public is much more likely to get done as stated. Leaving a Milestone or Task in Pelotonics assigned to a specific individual is a highly efficient way of getting things done; because they actually get done!

Do an experiment. Delegate something via email only and pay attention to the timelyness and accuracy of the output. Then delegate something in a public forum that has some legacy like Pelotonics, a Wiki or Facebook. You will notice that those tasks and deliverables made and agreed to in a public setting are much more likely to get finished on time and with more accuracy.

It is in everyone’s best interest to make Project Management a public and social endeavor. Over the next few months be looking for more social aspects to the Pelotonics platform!

Give delegation in a public forum a try! I would love to hear the outcome of your experiments.

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CoTweet’s purpose is very similar to Pelotonics in that it helps a group collaborate–but specifically on Twitter. We’ve set up CoTweet on the Pelotonics account this week. You can tell because Troy, Daniel, and I are listed in the background of the Pelotonics Twitter page with our personal Twitter accounts, and Pelotonics update signatures. Since tweets are limited to 140 characters in size, each signature is just a ^ sign with our initials–so mine is ^GT, Daniel’s ^DM, and Troy’s ^TM, as pictured.

There’s a whole lot more under the CoTweet hood that makes it easy for several people to post to an organization or company Twitter page.

With CoTweet you can give your whole team access to your organization’s account through a unified interface. You can assign tweets to team members (like if I see something I think Daniel would be best to @ reply to, I can assign an incoming tweet to him), you can set up shared searches for keywords (like your product or company name), you can jot notes on a per user basis (like if you follow someone you met at a convention, you could note the convention name and what you talked about there). Team members can be “on duty” or watching the account for mentions at various times, and you can schedule tweets to go out at later times. Here are some screenshots.

Thanks to the folks at CoTweet for making a useful tool, and to Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein for bringing CoTweet to my attention on page 198 of The Twitter Book (which I highly recommend for anyone wondering what the heck Twitter’s all about).

CoTweet is in private beta now, but you can request access on its homepage. Of course, if you’re not already, be sure to follow Pelotonics on Twitter.

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Chunking is a great concept that I use to make sure that I complete my projects when things get overwhelming. When your task list seems insurmountable, try chunking it into smaller portions that you sprint to completion in a vaacume. I set up a “Chunk List” in Pelotonics and use that as my base of operations for the day.

I personally choose three items at a time that I can complete in about 2 – 3 hour’s time and drag them onto my Chunk list. You can obviously mix it up depending on the time requirements, but try not to chase down more than three things at once. (remember, we are trying to overcome that feeling of “I have too much to do!”)

Once you identify your three items that you want to complete, turn off Twitter, your email, your phone, your IM and any other form of interruption. Sprint to absolute completion of the tasks at hand and check them off.

Next, check in with your email, etc. and then rinse and repeat with three more taks.

How do you handle it when you feel overwhelmed? We’d love to hear your take!

Here’s our most recent vodcast on the subject:

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What a great question! I can’t believe that we have not highlighted this before. Everyone on the Pelotonics system can have a “drop box” of sorts by working with the Evernote integration. Once you enable the integration, you will be able to copy emails out of your Outlook with the click of a button OR forward emails into your account by using a unique email address. Here’s how you do it:

Step 1

To start, you will need an Evernote account. You can sign up for Evernote at their website.

Step 2

Go into Pelotonics and find your profile in the Global Contacts section or in the Contacts section of any project. Edit your profile and look right under the Dashboard tab to find the “Evernote Settings” link.

When you click on the “Evernote Settings” link, you will be prompted to authorize communications between Pelotonics and Evernote. After you authorize this, you will then have an Evernote tab on the Dashboard level of the Pelotonics Interface. All of your notes will be presented within the Pelotonics application!

Step 3

Once you install Evernote, you will be able to get your unique email address from the Settings menu within Evernote.

Once you have this address, any emails you send to it will automatically be inserted into your Evernote account and by extension, your Pelotonics account as well!

Step 4

Evernote also provides you with an embedded button in Outlook that you can use to clip your emails to Evernote rather easily. Once you clip your emails or forward your email on to Evernote, they will be available for you in Pelotonics to assign out as tasks or turn into messages.

GTD Fest

We have noticed that many of our users are GTD enthusiasts. Using the email forward to Pelotonics will allow you to get all of your relevant emails into your trusted group system. Once in the system, they will be out of your head and you can focus on more important things!

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Scoping out and defining the end goal of a project is the most important part of planning and project management. It seems like most people know this, yet the practice is sorely missing from many organizations. Do you scope out your projects with sufficient detail for your team? Are you scoping out your projects before your team tears into the details?

In this video I lay out the top three benefits of proper scoping and defining of your projects. Let me know if you have any other ideas!

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I am often asked about my technique of using frequent status reports to manage projects effectively. The bottom line is that it works extremely well and can accomplish the following for your group:

1. It will shore up the cracks in your organization. The little details that typically get forgotten about and otherwise overlooked will be better managed.

2. Allow you to manage by exception.

3. Shorten your status meetings.

I recommend that you create a template in your group’s trusted system for status reporting. Without a template, it is too easy for this activity to become too cumbersome and not provide you the value it should. Your team should be able to bring up a template that might look like this:

Today’s Status Report

Things of note that I accomplished:

• x
• x
• x

Challenges I encountered but overcame:

• x
• x
• x

Challenges I encountered and did not overcome:

• x
• x
• x

It’s very simple, but very effective. I don’t recommend soliciting more than three categories of information. It needs to be dead simple and easy or it won’t be done right.

With this information coming into your perview every day, week or month, you will now have the correct view you need to manage the project. You won’t need to spend a large amount of time in your status meetings because you are already in the know on most issues.

Bonus tip: Use a coding system for every input on the status report. I prefer to use the following:

AR = Action Required

NAR = No Action Required

These codes allow you to see exactly what your team feels you need to deal with directly as the manager. The majority of the items will be NAR, but for those items that need your special attention, they can use the AR tag and alert you accordingly.

It is very simple, but VERY effective at keeping you in the know on all your projects. Implement status reporting in your group and your productivity will definitely increase.

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Here’s a screencast I put together to show you how it works. Now, you can easily get a content only view of a page, clip it to Evernote and then turn that page into a task or message within Pelotonics! It is very easily done and helps cut through the clutter that we normally have to fight through.

Try it out and enjoy!

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So, what do you do when that key employee and all of that knowledge walks out the door?

My friend was pouring through this former employee’s Outlook file to review emails and notes for key information that would give her an idea of exactly where he was at with each of her clients. She had to get her hands on this knowledge to avert a disaster. Unfortunately, searching through the silos of email and personal notes was a very difficult way to go, but it was the only option.

When groups work in a project-based system like Pelotonics, status, conversations, committments, and everything else related to those engagements become accessible pieces of knowledge for the group as a whole, not just one individual. Picking up where another team member left off is all the easier and predictable.

How exposed are you and your business to organizational knowledge walking out the door?

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