Online Project Management At It's Best

Category: Blog

Written by Estevan Montoya

Whether you own a business, are a freelancer, managing a website, or just have a lot on your plate, it's always great to have a way to keep track of what you are doing in life or business. From a small to-do list to a full blown project management suite, we can benefits from keeping things in order. I don't know what you are trying to manage, but I want to help you get things done.

What is the best way to get things done?

Have a plan
I heard it said, “If you aim for nothing, you'll hit it every time”. That statement is TRUE! How can you, your business, or your website move forward if you don't have a set course? You need to find a course and move forward. Whether it's business goals, web goals, or personal goals, you need to have a plan to accomplish items and move forward.

Plan the work...work the plan
Another great quote on getting things done, “Nothing works until I do”. So, you have dreams of accomplishing great tasks, you have the plan, now what? Work the plan! That simple. Start working on your goals and projects.

That is really the key to getting things done, simply find out what you want to do, plan it out, and do it. That's how we do it at VivaNet2.0. We have meeting, figure out what we need to do, set goals, and then accomplish the goals in a systematic order. We manage all of this in what is known as project management software.

There are two types of project management software suites that we enjoy, which are web based:

Third Party Project Management
This kind of project management is based on a company that hosts your entire projects on their servers. They keep things up to date and have a lot of back end support. You normally have to pay to use such services and the price is broken down to the number and size of the project. You files and data is safe and can normally be trusted with paid project management companies. Sometimes, you can find third party project management sites that offer a free account, but is is normally limited in size, users, and projects.
Self Hosted Project Management
This type of online project management suite is normally open source. You usually have to create your own database, upload the files, and install it yourself on your own server. This gives you total control of your project. The only downfall is that if anything breaks, it's your responsibility (the joys of open source).

Enough about what an online based project management suite is, lets see what's out there!

37 Signals

This is the software we currently use for Vivanet2.0 and it is great! Not only does it manage your projects, but it is a full blown CRM. If you get the entire package you can:

Create multiple projects
Share files
Create to do lists for users in company
Send messages to users in project
Assign tasks
Keep track of clients via built in CRM
Add contacts with full client details
Add notes to projects, tasks, and contacts

Minigroup

Next in line in another third party project management suite that has great prices. You can create an entire set of projects for under id="mce_marker"00 year! You can add users, assign tasks, create goals and much more!

Do.com

This is a free online based to do list package. I personally use this for family goals and items I need to do. For my wife, it's my “honey-do” list. Basically, it's things I do for my honey (Love you Eileen!) You can create to-do lists, add tags, insert notes, invite people to lists, and more...all for free!

Collabtive

This is a free, open source project management suite that you host on your own server. What works best for me is to create a subdomain like “projects.domainname.com” and install it on that. I have personally used this for church projects that I manage (I am a geek by day, and a pastor by night). This work great for events, involving members, created tasks with deadlines, and so forth. It's easy to use, free, but you have to manage it your self, if that's what you are comfortable with.

Project Tasks

This too is free, open source, and self hosted. The only difference is that it is based on the blogging platform, WordPress. In WordPress, you can add custom themes, thus, adding this plugin will allow you brand/customize your project management suite. You can do like the rest: assign tasks, create to-do lists, add projects, create goals with deals, and much more.

Good Old Fashioned Google

This is where it all started for me. I didn't know much about programming and I was too broke to buy into third party project management suites. I used the simple calender offered in gmail, told it to remind me via email and added tasks. This is still something I use because I personally use gmail personally in in work. Since I have my gmail open all day long, it's easy to create a to-do list. I figured I'd throw them in, since many projects of mine have been completed through their software.