I recently had a company come to my home to quote for installing new windows. The estimator came, measured up and as he was leaving told me to expect the quote within 5 to 7 days, depending on the vagarities of New Zealand Post.

This got me thinking; surely there is a better way to do this? If the estimator had a wireless enabled tablet he could have logged into his estimating tool remotely, worked it out on site and emailed it to me directly. I could have then looked at the email and asked any questions there and then. Not only would this have sped up the estimating process it could have a positive impact on the sales pipeline as customer decisions are sped up.

Being a mobile project manager presents similar challenges to that highlighted in the above example; how do you manage your project when you’re always out and about and don’t have access to your project artefacts? Do you take time out to go back to your office on a regular basis, try to manage it without systems or invest in mobile technology?

I decided to do an experiment and run one of my projects using Psoda via a tablet. I experimented with both an iPad2 and the CL900 Windows tablet from Motion Computing. (Thank you Dale from Simms International for the loan of the CL900.)

Both tablets worked equally well with Psoda and performed exactly as they were supposed to. The iPad was lighter than the CL900, making it easier on the arms while standing. The iPad’s touch sensitivity was also better. The CL900 however was a more robust tablet with dust and water protection making it more appropriate for use outside at a dusty site. The CL900 also comes with a stylus for writing and precision control.

I was out of the office one day and a supplier phoned to let me know that a crucial piece of equipment was going to be delayed and needed to know my drop-dead date for delivery. As I had my tablet with me I was able to log into Psoda, view my schedule and make an informed decision there and then about when I needed the equipment by. I was then able to amend the schedule and bill of materials and Psoda sent an email to all of the affected project team with the updates.

If I didn’t have my tablet I would have been forced to either a) make an off the cuff decision which could have had an extremely negative impact on my project or b) wait until I was back in the office to make the decision, which would have caused additional delays.

What do you think? Is mobile technology just another way to keep us chained to our desks 24/7 or will it revolutionise the way we manage projects?

I had the pleasure of attending the last Wellington PRINCE 2 User Group Meeting of the year last week. It’s a meeting that I had always intended to go to but other things kept getting in the way, but if last night is anything to go by it will be a permanent addition to my calendar.

The topic of discussion was lessons learned, with the floor being opened to the attendees to share their most important project management related lessons of the year. Read the rest of this entry »

I tentatively proposed that we should have a user group meeting. To be honest I was expecting it to be a couple of months (at least) down the line and something that may or may not actually happen.

Boy was I in for a shock!

Barely a day after making the suggestion we had a venue, a guest list, an outline agenda and our first bunch of acceptances for what is shaping up to be a pretty awesome event. We’ve even managed to persuade some of our customers to talk about how they use Psoda.

So here you have it, the first official announcement of our inaugural Psoda user group meeting:

When: Friday 26th August 2011
10:00 – 12:00 user group meeting
12:00 – 12:30 lunch
12:30 – 15:30 system administration training

Still trying to decide if you should attend? Here are 4 great reasons for coming along:

• It’s free, including the lunch
• Come and hear how others are using Psoda
• A chance to influence the Psoda roadmap; get the features you want to see
• A chance to network with some great people

AND

• Free system administration training worth $450!

If you’re interested in coming along, get in touch at info@psoda.com.

Rhona

One of the first tasks I was given when I joined Psoda was to find out exactly what our customers thought of us.

What a great way to learn about our customers and the business!

I spent time with people asking what they thought of Psoda instead of sending out survey questionnaires and the responses were enlightening; I learned that:

“The Psoda service is second to none”

Our “responsiveness is beyond reproach”

“Nothing is too much trouble”

Psoda “punches above its weight”

That our release cycle is impressive “I asked for a new feature the other day just to learn that it was already available.”

I really enjoyed getting to spend one on one time with our customers and learning about their experiences with Psoda.

Rhona

As usual CeBIT was full of all 3, with loads of technology and cool things to play with.

Emotiv brain to computer interface – I was really looking forward to seeing this in action, but when I went past the stand it wasn’t working.

ReadCloud – This is being touted as the world’s first social ereading software and is designed for schools and libraries to allow teachers and students to share text, pictures or videos within ebooks.

Chargebar – The free mobile charging station was a godsend.

NEC prototype tablet cradle – It turns your tablet into a phone. Pretty cool.

Given that, I was really disappointed in the lack of decent WIFI access at the event. They only allowed access to CeBIT Twitter and even that was ridiculously hard to do. I could have used the 3G facility on my Vodafone mobile, but at NZ$1 per MB it was just too expensive.

I’m just back from CeBIT Australia 2011, held last week at Darling Harbour in Sydney.

Being the 10th anniversary of the Australian event it was being touted as a must attend event and overall it didn’t disappoint.

So, in no particular order, here are 11 snippets I heard at CeBIT this year. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve just finished user testing our brand new Enterprise Architect integration add-in and it’s had rave reviews from all of our testers.

The add-in lets you import requirements and use cases directly from EA into your projects in Psoda, so there’s no need to manually transfer data between the two systems.

It gives you full end-to-end traceability and flags any changes made to your data in EA automatically the next time you synch the systems, meaning you don’t have to go in and manually check for changes.

Here is an example of a traceability matrix in Psoda:

You can learn more about the Psoda EA add-in over on the main website.

The EA integration add-in is available now. You need a Psoda account with Requirements and Test Management to access it. Login if you have an account already or sign up to get one.