The latest release of Psoda has gone live, this one has significantly enhanced the portfolio management functionality and has sorted out some behind the scenes browser compatibility issues – particularly with IE.

Portfolio Management Stuff

We’ve added a radar plot for each programme and/or project within a portfolio, giving the portfolio manager a real time snapshot of the current status of their portfolio

After feedback from our users we’ve changes the portfolio chart tabs to show grouped charts rather than a table.

Browser Stuff

We’ve changed the inline editing descriptions to 40 characters and you’ll also notice that the radio buttons have been replaced with drop-down lists.

We’ve also made changes to the way timesheet tasks are updated to make things faster.

Have you ever tried to explain your role as a project manager to someone who has no project management experience and make a case for your organisation to invest in a decent PPM tool?

I had to have that “interesting” discussion a while back and after some considerable thought (and frustration on both sides) I hit on the analogy of an orchestra and described the project manager as the conductor and PPM tools as their baton.

Like conductors of an orchestra, project managers bring together all of the varying personalities and disciplines needed to make the project successful and when it works, beautiful music is the result.

Similarly, when it goes wrong a cacophony ensues.

Great project managers make the delicate balance of running a project look easy, resulting in people thinking that anyone can do it. In my experience, the opposite is true. It takes a very special person to be a great project manager, and I say that as someone who has discovered they are NOT one.

What do PPM tools bring to the table? To reuse the orchestra analogy – I think of the tools as the baton that enables the conductor to produce the beautiful music. The tool is the place where the project manager goes to get all of the latest information on the project, run reports and make any changes to schedules, logs and project documentation.

Like the conductor’s baton the PPM tool should be flexible, easy to use and configurable. Most importantly, it should be able to do its job without adding additional burden, either to the project manager or the project team.

Was I successful in explaining the role of a project manager? Yes. Did I get a decent PPM tool? Not on your life! They were still running the programme using spreadsheets and post it notes when I left, which is a shame when there are so many great PPM tools available. Including but not limited (I wish) to Psoda.

How do you explain your role and tool needs? Share your stories here!

We’ve just finished a major refresh of the Psoda UI, which went live over the weekend.

We changed the font colours, dashlet headers and asset details displayed in the main area of the page.

We’ve also added a user preference to auto-hide the navigator on the left hand side. To enable this, go to preferences and select auto-hide. Your navigator will start out hidden. Move your mouse over the orange navigator tab and it will slide out.

You can now change the width of all of your dashlets and also force them to start on a new line, allowing you greater flexibility in changing the layout of your dashboards.

To see all this in action check out the video below:

New UI – Quick Intro

Click on the cartoon to see a full size version. Happy Friday!

Are you trying to build a schedule that works? Do you realise the importance of a great schedule, but have trouble taking actionable steps to improve it?

Whether you are just getting started with project management, or have been at it for years, this e-book offers useful tips to create beautiful schedules.

This free 7-page guide covers 5 scheduling mistakes and shows you how to fix them.

Click here to download your e-book: http://www.psoda.com/cms.php/5-scheduling-mistakes

What are your tips for creating better schedules? Leave us a comment below…

We’ve been asked by one of our customers to postpone the server upgrade scheduled for this weekend as they are going live with a business critical project and need to be able to access Psoda.

To accommodate their needs and minimise disruption we’ve postponed the Psoda server upgrade to Sunday 19th February 2012 at midday.

If you have any questions or if upgrading the Psoda server on the 19th will cause you any problems, please do not hesitate to contact us on support@psoda.com.

We’re growing again! Thanks to our ever-expanding customer base we need to increase our server capacity, so on Sunday 12^th February 2012 at Midday NZ Time (see this in your time zone), we’re performing major infrastructure upgrades to Psoda. We anticipate this planned outage will be between 2 and 4 hours.

Details about the upgrade:

We’re quadrupling our server capacity and implementing load balancing to enhance the server response time and availability.

All Psoda services will be unavailable during the upgrade

We will do our absolute best to perform this operation as fast as humanly possible and keep the disruption to a minimum.

Due to the nature of the outage, please ensure that all of your staff have logged out on Friday afternoon your time.

If you have any questions or queries please contact us on support@psoda.com