Editor's Note
Welcome to the December issue of the Inside Collaboration
Newsletter. It seems to be a somewhat mixed holiday season this
year. With US casualties mounting in Iran, the economy turning
around and even high tech investing seeing some signs of life, 2004
is looking much better than 2003. In Sillycon Valley, the Oracle-PeopleSoft
soap opera is still running with Larry Ellison vowing to acquire
PeopleSoft, it seems at almost any price. But now a few state and
even country governments are taking a close look at this transaction.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, CS analysts are as busy as Santa's
elves. If the amount of requests for work in Q4 is any indication
(or a leading indicator) of an economic recovery, we here at CS
can clearly say that the recovery is star ting .. at least in the
tech sector. We have even seen signs that investors and VCs
are starting to invest in start-us again. Although the IPO
market is still quite tentative, selected stocks in the last few
months have done well. Which bodes well for a rapidly rebounding
economy in 2004.
All the analysts here at CS (Mike, Bob, Dave, Lewis, Jennie, Michael
and David) want to wish you all a "happy holidays." Since
we have been as busy as Santa's elves, we have had to push the publication
date for the Microsoft Collaboration Strategy report back to March.For
a detailed look at Microsoft's Strategy for Collaboration see the
report
description and outline .
In The Guru’s corner" this month I discuss
the evolution of program management. Much of the content for this
article has come from ongoing interviews we have been doing with
program managers over the last few months. This will be the
first of a series of articles on program management, and will look
at how these software tools have (or have not) evolved from desktop
scheduling tools, into some of the web native tools that are being
introduced today.
The Guest
Editorial this month, is co-authored with Ron Koenig, CEO at
Viack, and looks at some of the bandwidth considerations necessary
for multi-media collaboration.
We have added to our "Technologies to Watch"
list , this month by adding Sopheon's Accolade 5.0, which was just
announced a week or so ago. This tool is in one of the areas we
have identified as an outgrowth of the DPM market, and is focused
on NPD (new product development). Sopheon, unlike many of
it's competitors (PTC, MatrixOne, CoCreate, etc.) has taken more
a knowledge management approach to NPD, and we think has come up
with a unique set of capabilities that makes for one of the most
interesting solutions we have seen in this area in a long time.
You can read more about Accolade in the DPM section of announcements,
where we will even through in a bit of our analysis and comments
on this product CS analysts were recently briefed on.
Over the last few months we have expanded our news and announcements
section into two sections. The first section "Quick
Hits" covers much of what happens in the collaboration
market in a very concise format with just the news headline and
a URL for more information. News and Announcements on the other
hand takes a look at some of the more pivotal announcements that
occur each month in more depth and also include the CS analysis
of the event.
CS Collaborative Technologies Taxonomy
Collaborative Strategies has revised its functional
taxonomy in 2002 and in 2003 we are working on expanding our taxonomy
not only into sub segments but we are also endeavoring to map the
collaboration space (at least 1000 vendors) with our ongoing TAXONOMY
PROJECT. If you are a vendor of collaboration technologies
and you have not briefed us in the last 6 months please get in touch
with us ASAP so you can be included in this listing of collaboration
tools.
In the past we have had eight categories in our taxonomy, we now
have seven, however, we believe the current seven categories cover
a much wider range of technologies involved with collaboration.
The figure below illustrates CS’s functional taxonomy for the e-collaboration
marketplace. We believe there are now seven discrete yet interrelated
software and service groups that comprise this evolving market space.
These technology segments are placed on a spectrum between synchronous
and asynchronous functionality; as well as what size groups utilize
these technologies.
While technology plays a critical role in terms of how organizations
collaborate today, technology is, in general, an enabler of the
interpersonal interactions that comprise collaboration. Economics,
corporate culture (behavior), and internal politics (leadership)
also significantly impact the efficacy of such implementations.
Most news events in the e-collaboration and KM spaces focus on products
and services rather than the more complex human issues associated
with these tools. We believe that a true ROI for collaborative technologies
requires a holistic or systemic approach and need to examine three
areas: people, process and technology.
CS Publications and Services
CS has a program for ongoing industry and customer research and
has produced reports on several of the functional technology markets
identified here.
Reports that are currently available include:
Refer to the CS Web site (www.collaborate.com)
or call (415-282-9197) for more details on these reports, or to
give us feedback on this issue of Inside Collaboration.
CS Service Offerings:
CS currently has three types of service offerings
for collaboration vendors:
- Strategic Engagement: This is often how we get started working
with a collaboration vendor, and is a short-term engagement that
focuses on one specific issue or problem.
- Selling Collaboration: This is a longer-term engagement focused
on the creation of specific sales process content for a vendor's
sales force to be able to use immediately for qualifying prospects,
identifying the economic buyer, controlling the sales conversation,
establishing credibility and closing the sale.
- Partnering Program: This service is for those organizations
that want to leverage CS's knowledge of the collaboration market,
technology expertise and relationships. This knowledge and relationships
can be used to help create marketing partnerships, develop sales
channels, or for M&A. This program is longer term and is based
on a small retainer with a performance bonus.
CS is currently working on service offerings for end-user
organizations. If you have suggestions on services you would like
to see from us, or are interested in any of the services listed
above, please contact Mike Dressler at: miked@collaborate.com.
Technologies
To Watch:
CS analysts are always getting briefed on new collaborative products,
releases and services. In addition we are working on the TAXONOMY
PROJECT to map the collaborative space (over 1000 vendors). Once
in a while, we see some new or emerging technology that we think
is exceptional, either in concept or implementation. We decided
to start a list of these vendors and products, and the May Issue
of Inside Collaboration, lists the charter members for the
TTW list. Since then we continue to add one or two vendors each
month, that show us technology interesting and unique enough to
make the list. If you believe your company or software should be
on our TTW list, please contact me directly to set up a briefing
with one or more of our analysts at (davidc@collaborate.com).
- Accolade 5.0 from Sopheon - a very thoughtful approach to the
problem of new product development (www.sopheon.com)
- First Virtual’s Conference Server 7.0 - interesting integration
with MS Server 2003
(www.fvc.com)
- Séance Software - elegant integration with PBX for e-meetings
(www.seancesoftware.com)
- Kubi Software- e-mail oriented collaboration (www.kubisoftware.com)
- Hyperwave - eConfereincing Suite - moving into the e-meeting
space
(www.hyperwave.com)
- Imanage - WorkSite - an interesting combination of asynch/synch
collaboration
(www.imanage.com)
- SiteScape- the addition of process oriented templates/modules
to the newest version of this e-meetings tool. (
www.sitescape.com)
- Truereq - Thoughtful collaborative requirements gathering
tool for project management (www.truereq.com)
- Collaboration CONTROL!- DYS Analytics provides an interesting
management tool that takes the next step in the collection and
reporting of data and metrics for Domino and Exchange management.
(www.dysanalytics.com).
- EReview - By Web4 is an elegant document, review and markup
program that meets many of the CS e-meeting criteria. (www.ereviewonline.com)
- Ever want a really simple screen sharing solution? Glance's
minimalist, but well thought out approach, is also reflected in
their commodity pricing,900 customers in six months, and profitability.
For more information, or a free trial see (www.glance.net).
- BrainEKP 3.5- helps you to create, manage, and find content
in a graphical, relationship-oriented metaphor. See: www.thebrain.com
- e/Pop Web Conferencing by WiredRed, takes a presence-oriented
approach to web conferencing and offers good audio and video support;
see: www.wiredred.com
Options For Sponsorship:
After two years Inside Collaboration reaches about
7000 interested readers. We are looking for some vendors that
might want to sponsor this newsletter. We believe this to be a
cost effective way to reach a very targeted audience.If interested
we can provide you with newsletter demographics. Sponsorship will
also include a chance to be part of our guest editorial, as well
as your logo on the newsletter. We are looking at a trial sponsorship
that would involve 3 sponsors for 3 months. if you are interested
please talk to David Coleman, the Inside Collaboration editor
at (415) 282-9197 or davidc@collaborate.com.
2004 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies
and Systems (CTS04) January 18-23, 2004 in San Diego, California,
USA. (David Coleman will be doing a keynote and tutorial at this
conference).
See: http://www.engr.udayton.edu/faculty/wsmari/cts04
IIR's Braintrust International 2004, February 8-11, Scottsdale,
AZ
See; www.iirusa.com/braintrust
5th International Conference on Information Communication
Technologies in Education" , July 2004, Greece
See: http://www.ineag.gr/ICICTE
Interwoven Aids Canadian Post and Partners with Aquent
as well as Offering a New Change Management Solution
See: www.interwoven.com
OpenText Acquires XIOS
See: www.OpenText.com
Davenport & Company LLC Chooses WiredRed's e/pop for
Secure, Company-wide Instant Messaging,
See: www.wiredred.com
Cosworth Racing Deploys Documentum eRoom to Collaborate
with Supply Chain
See: www.documentum.com
Rainbow Technologies Enables its Channel Sales with Centra
Web Conferencing
See: www.centra.com
Ultimus Receives NCEITA Software Company of the Year Award
See: www.ultimus.com
SMART Board 580 interactive whiteboards Used
at Pearl Harbor
See: www.smarttech.com
IVR Technologies and NexTone Communications
Complete Interoperability
Testing See: www.ivr.com
Now Up-to-Date & Contact Supports Both Calendar
AND Contact information Sharing Across a Mixed Mac and PC Network
See: http://www.nowsoftware.com/
WelcomHome 3.1 Project Portal Available
See: www.welcom.com
SST Chooses Oridus' Spacecruiser Web Collaboration Solution
for Online Communication with Its Offshore Design Centers
See: www.oridus.com
Genesys Adds Video Conferencing to Its Automated, On-Demand
Portfolio
See: www.genesys.com
CONFERENCEGATE and SPOTMAGIC debut MediaSync Conferencing
See: www.conferencegate.com
VIACK Offers Real-Time Security Toolkit
See:www.viack.com
Global Crossing Offers iVideoconferencing
See: www.globalcrossing.com
Forgent Integrates WebEx
See: www.forgent.com
Network Appliance Selects ePeople to Manage Customer Interaction
to Improve Support Resolution Times and Response Quality
See: www.epeople.com
Intelliseek Boosts Market Intelligence for The Agile Enterprise
See: www.intelliseek.com
IntraLearn Enables Verizon Literacy University to Offer
Free Literacy Programs Online
See: www.intralearn.com
Kubi Software Integrates with Salesforce.com On-Demand
CRM to Enhance Collaboration in Managing Customer Relationships
See: www.kubisoftware.com
DYS Analytics Names Stefan Mehlhorn as New CEO
See: www.dysanalytics.com
FVC Announces $10M Private Placement
See: www.fvc.com
Sonexis Announces ConferenceManager 4.0
See: www.sonexis.com
|
News
and Announcements
(Based on the CS Taxonomy and additional analysis) |
Collaborative
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) |
Compoze Software Enables Collaboration
in CRM Applications for the Integrated Circuit and Financial Services
Industries
Among the challenges facing successful CRM application implementations
today is accessing the most accurate customer information on demand.
According to META Group, the proliferation of disjointed CRM data
and numerous technology choices will impede the creation of a single
view of the customer. Collaborative infrastructures that enable
real-time data integration are needed.
To meet this challenge, Compoze Software is working with both CRM
software vendors and end customers to provide real-time integration
to groupware systems such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino.
Within these systems, Compoze provides bi-directional access to
email, appointments, contacts and tasks, and integrates them with
CRM applications.
Two industries in particular talking advantage of this customer
data integration are the integrated circuit and financial services
industries.
In the integrated circuit industry, Compoze's Harmony Component
Suite is bringing real-time calendar and contact information into
channel relationship management solutions. One of Compoze's customers,
an Austin, Texas-based software company who has deep domain expertise
in the integrated circuit industry, has developed a solution for
sales channel management and collaboration designed for this industry's
unique requirements.
In the financial services industry Compoze is making tremendous
strides in delivering on a "single view of the customer." A Swiss-based
software firm, who specializes in products for banks, insurance
companies and other financial service providers, uses Compoze Exchange
Connector for a business management tracking application that allows
customers to schedule appointments and create meeting invitations
that will appear in both the business application and their individual
Microsoft Outlook calendars. For more information see: http://www.compoze.com/news/news_111903a.html.
The goal of Compoze;s Harmony Component Suite, is to provide
tools for collaboration that can be integrated into specific vertical
markets and process. In the examples above Compoze has focused on
communications with customers. Critical communications that should
be accessible to the whole account team are often stored in one
persons's Outlook or Notes files. We think that the goal here is
correct, but are not sure about the implementation. There are a
number of different collaborative solutions out there that range
from embedding collaboration directly into MS Office products like
Advanced Reality Presence-AR™ Adapter for Microsoft Excel, which
enables enterprises to add real-time collaboration capabilities
to any copy of Excel running in their network to PerpetualBudgetXL
which supports asynchronous collaboration in Excel spreadsheets
for budgeting, to those products that allow collaboration from the
server side like Microsoft's own SharePoint. However, a CRM solution
chooses to do it, we believe that collaboration is a critical component
of CRM that has been ignored for too long.
| Tacit
Knowledge Management, Intellectual Capital |
Convera, Announces its new Taxonomy Workbench.
This new offering allows the creation of customized taxonomies
and is being marketed to government entities for compliance with
the E-Government Act of 2002. Through customized taxonomy creation,
the Workbench allows agencies to improve the way public information
is organized on government Web sites.
A complete set of tools for organizing large amounts of disparate
government data, the Taxonomy Workbench reduces the time and expense
required to comply with Section 207 of the E-Government Act of 2002.
User-friendly and interactive, the Workbench is designed for easy
use by information managers, librarians, and subject matter experts.
Using the Workbench to create taxonomies, key agency personnel can
integrate their collective knowledge and expertise to organize vast
quantities of data in an automated environment. For more information
see: http://www.convera.com/Press/pr_120203.asp
Have you ever tried to find some critical bit of information
or a specific form on ANY government web site? Sometimes it can
be a daunting task. But what the government givith, the government
takith away. Last December, the E-Government act of 2002, Section
207 in particular states that a government organization must preserve
government information by classifying diverse data into efficient
taxonomies. The government has given it's agencies 2 years to comply
with this law (by the end of 2004). To see the full text of this
law see: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ347.107
). Providing an easy and graphical way to create a taxonomy
for information may allow users to navigate these government sites
more easily, but in general taxonomies reflect someone's (a librarian,
the web master, etc.) view of reality, and if that view does not
match your own, no taxonomy is going to help you in navigation.
One idea is to have the viewer or end-user, create their own taxonomy
or way of organizing the information, then it would be in a context
or world view that is familiar and has relevance to them instead
of relevance to the content and information only.
| Portals
and On-line Communities |
The ROI of Social Networking
Gun shy venture capitalists have begun to trickle investment money
back into the high tech arena in a most unlikely pl ace...
social networks. Social networking sites Friendster, LinkedIn, Tribe,
and others have received recent investments see:: http://news.com.com/2100-1024-5111924.html?tag=cd_top
; Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32066-2003Nov12.html.
Microsoft, not to be left out in the cold is also considering entering
the social network fray with it's "Wallop" product. See:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,61095,00.html
. Does that mean that there is "gold in them thar networks?"
Maybe?
Is Social Networking the new metric for web advertising? In
the past it was "eyeballs" now we are considering the
whole person, and their connections? The logic of this system is
that word of mouth advertising is usually the most highly valued
and often one of the fastest ways people find out about something.
It is also a more "trusted source" which is really where
the on-line advertising problem is. However, the goal of an
online community is to connect people, these social networks have
taken it a step further and connected these connected people to
products and services. The issue here is context. Although A is
a friend of B and B is a friend of C, and C likes the movie "Under
a Tuscan Sun" and through the social network recommends it
to B, that does not mean that B will necessarily recommend it to
A, because B knows A is not into "chick flicks" and would
rather see Terminator 3 instead. B knows A's context because A and
B have (some sort) of relationship, and they can create a context
of likes and dislikes from that information, and make recommendations
based on that context. Let us hope that these new social networks
also allow this same (people) network based filtering to occur or
they will have lost the basic value of the network.
| Collaborative
Document/Content Management w/LMS and LCMS |
New Software Offers
Correspondence Tracking for Government Agencies
Open Text™ Corporation provider of Livelink® collaboration
and content management software for the global enterprise, and Momentum
Systems, Inc., an Open Text Global Alliance Partner, said today
they will introduce a correspondence management and collaboration
software solution that helps government agencies improve communication
and comply with laws designed to move government online, such as
the U.S.'s Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA). In September,
Open Text announced that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC) was deploying the solution as a first step in complying with
the GPEA see: http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.html?id=1396
.
The solution, called Correspondence Management with Livelink, offers
tools for capturing, tracking and managing correspondence with the
public, with legislators and other government agencies. Correspondence
Management lets organizations track correspondence from a variety
of sources, including scanned letters, e-mails, faxes, electronic
documents and hand-written notes, and manage them through automated
processes to ensure proper handling of requests and a timely response.
“With governments now online, the biggest challenge is responding
to the enormous volume of requests each agency receives,” said Campbell
Robertson, Director of Government Solutions at Open Text. “In many
cases, responses require the expertise of multiple people dispersed
throughout the organization, and must follow specific processes
to meet regulatory obligations. Working with Momentum Systems, we've
created a comprehensive correspondence management system that gives
government agencies a central place to manage communication, integrated
with processes that tie in all the people needed to respond.”
An obvious solution, wonder why no one thought of it before?
Couple this with the automated Taxonomy for government web sites
from Convera and you might have a government web site that is contextually
relevant (i.e. you can find what your looking for) and one where
if you ask a question, you might event get a reasonable reply before
you retire or die (which ever comes first). We expect to see a number
of other products emerge that support collaboration around content
and within process for better access to government information.
| Distributed
Project Management and Virtual Workplace and Process |
Percussion Software Introduces
Rhythmyx Express Portal for Workgroup Project Management
Percussion Software, known for its content management functionality,
introduced Rhythmyx Express Portal, designed expressly as a workgroup
- as opposed to enterprise - offering. Key capabilities of the new
offering include out-of-the-box personalized content delivery, a
library of pre-built and sample portlets, project collaboration
capabilities and content integration
through a content capture feature.
Portals have quickly become a preferred interface for collaborative,
dynamic Web sites, providing an efficient means to access and contribute
content. Enterprise portals have become part of the core IT infrastructure
to meet this demand, but often require a significant investment
in time, money, and resources before results are obtained," said
Michael Maziarka, Director at CAP Ventures, Inc. "However, many
companies and workgroup teams need a solution that is easier and
faster to deploy. We expect solutions, such as Rhythmyx Express
Portal, to meet this critical but over-looked need of workgroups
and organizations not yet ready to make the investment in an enterprise
portal."
Rhythmyx Express Portal is designed for organizations that need
a rapid implementation, enabling them to realize results in a matter
of weeks. Using Rhythmyx's first-of-a-kind De-Coupled Delivery capability,
it provides a user-aware framework for personalized, dynamic delivery
to Intranet's, extranets or Internets. For more information
see: http://www.percussion.com/news/PressReleases/534.htm
Portals for project management
are not a new idea. CS has covered about 60 vendors in our last
DPM report that do this. What is interesting here is that
another content management provider (OpenText, Documentum, iManage,
etc.) is trying to provide project management capabilities where
the focus is still on content. What are called Project collaboration
capabilities by Percussion include: discussion forums, bulletin
boards, team calendars, to-do lists and file-sharing. Which CS sees
as the standard collaboration fare. What Percussion should do is
include a PM (project management) module from one of the DPM vendors
that tightly integrates into their portal infrastructure, maybe
as a portlet. It is only then, when they can show Gantt chart use,
resource tracking and scheduling as well as WBS and dependencies
that CS will see this content management vendor as a player in the
DPM market.
Real
Time Collaboration:
Audio/video/web conferencing and Virtual Classroom |
Dell Selects Microsoft
Collaboration Technologies To Enhance Real-Time Communications
Microsoft Corp.has announced that Dell has implemented Microsoft
® Office Live Meeting and MSN ® Messenger Connect for Enterprises,
enhancing its real-time communications and collaboration capabilities.
The ability to integrate managed public instant messaging (IM) and
Web conferencing capabilities into the new versions of Microsoft
Office and Microsoft Office SharePoint™ Portal Server 2003, used
by Dell for internal company portals, played a role in Dell's decision
to select these technologies. To complete the real-time infrastructure,
Dell plans to deploy Microsoft Office Live Communications Server
2003, which adds internal enterprise IM and an interactive communications
platform for these internal applications. For
more information see: http://www.microsoft.com/rtc/
The Microsoft marketing Juggernaut rolls on. With WebEx as
the market leader, and PlaceWare getting acquired by Microsoft,
it is now a horse race to see who will be the market leader in RTC
at the end of 2004. Microsoft with HUGE marketing muscle and budget
may overtake WebEx over the next year. We expect that Dell is only
the first of these announcements from Microsoft. Besides WebEx,
there is SameTime from Lotus/IBM who also has a huge war chest and
has run up against Microsoft (and lost) before. But we believe that
this will be more of a fight. Where as WebEx, with no debt and money
in the bank, is a great acquisition target for one of the larger
players, probably in the Telecom market, like AT&T or Sprint
(both of which are VARs for PlaceWare (Microsoft), or someone like
PeopleSoft (if they ever get out of the fight with Ellison) where
they can add RTC capabilities to their ERP application. SAP
acquired a collaboration company a few years ago (although we have
heard nothing more about it since then) and claim to support collaboration,
leaving PeopleSoft as one of the only ERP players left that does
not.
| Unified/Wireless
Messaging and Collaborative Infrastructure |
Avaya to Resell Polycom
Joint development efforts on converged networks will help businesses
to collaborate more efficiently, reduce costs and simplify
network management. Avaya to sell and service Polycom products globally
through broadened reseller agreement. The companies will collaborate
to jointly develop and market new Internet protocol (IP)-telephony-enabled
video solutions that will make desktop and group video communication
as simple as a phone call. The result is intended to help
businesses communicate more efficiently, reduce costs, simplify
network management and make real-time video a significant component
of enterprise communications. The companies also said Avaya
plans to sell and service Polycom products globally – significantly
expanding the companies' existing strategic reseller relationship
in North America that includes more than 10,000 video implementations.
The joint development initiative between the two companies
will combine Polycom's market leadership in IP video communications
worldwide and Avaya's global leadership in communications networks
and services for businesses, including the rapidly growing market
for IP telephony. The companies said the open, standards-based solutions
will enable them to respond to the growing market for video communications.
For more information see: http://www.polycom.com/investor_relations/0,1406,pw-4932,00.html
CS sees converged networks as prime real estate for collaboration.
With the recent acquisition of Latitude by Cisco, and the move towards
VoIP or IP based switches at central sites, it is not a surprise
that an IP telephony organization like Avaya has added IP video.
This is part of the multi-media convergence that CS has been talking
about for years. In the guest editorial, Ron Koenig and I talk about
some of the bandwidth requirements for multimedia collaboration.
 The
Evolution of Program Management
by David Coleman
As project management tools have evolved from desktop scheduling
to the Web and more complicated functions, they have evolved to
help project managers deal with more projects, and more complex
projects. But does that make them program management tools?
Computer-based project management (PM) tools have been around almost
as long as the PC, and mainframe based tools have certainly been
around since the 60's. The dictionary of computer terms defines
project management as “The process of planning, organizing,
staffing, directing and controlling the production of a system.”
Initially project management tools were developed for trained project
managers to help them individually in managing a project. A successful
project manager must simultaneously manage the four basic elements
of a project: resources, time, money, and most importantly, scope.
Because all these elements are interrelated, each must be managed
effectively, and all must be managed together if the project, and
the project manager, is to be a success. The software tools for
project managers are focused on providing critical information (Gantt
charts, resource lists, task sheets, etc.) the project manager needed
to manage a project. Currently Microsoft Project 2003 is the leading
tool in this area.
But somewhere along the way, more and more of the users of these
tools were not trained project managers, but rather knowledge workers
that found themselves in a defined series of actions moving towards
a specific goal… called a project. They did not have PMI (Project
Management Institute) training, and often the only training they
did have was the experience of being on a variety of different projects
in their past.
Often these new “accidental” project managers looked towards specific
software tools to help them manage the increasing complexity (and
number) of projects they were now dealing with. Often the PM tools
were as complex as the project its self and took an inordinate amount
of time and training to become proficient with the tool (See Figure
1). The example in Figure 1 shows a bubble chart view of projects
in a company's marketing and sales departments, and is from an older
version of a project management tool from Primavera. This tool in
general took 3-5 days of class to learn how to use it. Often this
learning overhead was too much and project managers resorted to
the tool of last resort… Excel. Which is great for a task list,
but not much more than that. There are no coordination or scheduling
functions built into Excel!
Figure 1- Complex PC-based Project Management
Tool Example
Project Management Software
As our information and communication infrastructure became more
sophisticated (the Web, broadband, Wifi, etc.) many PM tools began
to evolve in the 1990's from just desktop scheduling tools into
tools that were front-ended by a browser, like some of the earlier
versions of Primavera's TeamPlay. Eventually in the late ‘90's some
of these LAN-based tools were re-written to run only on the Web.
Or vendors developed new tools pm tools that only worked on the
Web. We began to call these web native project management tools
DPM -- distributed project management tools (See Figure 2) because
the Web architecture allowed any team member anywhere to access
project information and to collaborate with other team members inside
or outside the organization.
Figure 2 graphically shows the evolution of project management
tools, through today, were these tools are evolving in different
directions. Some PM tools are getting more process and industry
specific, and this group of tools has split off from the general
project management tools and are focusing in a specific niche like
AEC, NPD, PSA or IT/SW development (see: http://collaborate.com/announcements/announce_6.html
A second direction is for some of the higher-end project management
tools to keep adding functionality with the idea of evolving into
program management tools. The third direction is for vendors to
directly build a tool for program managers much like Cyntergy Technologies
has done with their Thumbprint CPM tool www.thumbprintcpm.com.
In 2000, Collaborative Strategies started tracking these project
management tools, as we saw a strong trend towards the introduction
of collaboration and team functionality into the technologies in
this area. We have produced an annual report on DPM tools since
then and try to track the three different directions these tools
are evolving.
Another trend we have seen since the late ‘90s is an increase in
complexity: in the number of projects, the difficulty of the project
and the number and difficulty of interactions between project team
members and those outside the organization. Add this to the fact
that most of those today running projects are non-professional project
managers, and we have a recipe for chaos and disaster.
Figure 2- Evolution of Program Management
Tools
To deal with this increase in project complexity many organizations
created the Project Management Office (PMO) as a central point of
information and coordination for projects. This increasing complexity
and the organizational response of the PMO has lead to the development
of a new discipline called Program Management (PGM). Program Management
tools not only have to deal with more projects, but more complex
and long-term projects. What is becoming even more clear, is that
PM tools need to be able to help the program manager manage the
interactions between (and sometimes within) project teams, teams
on a group of projects in a portfolio, or even teams working in
different project portfolios (see figure 3). Figure 3 shows an interaction
management cycle, or what happens to an interaction between two
or more people on a project team. Just multiply this by a 1000 and
you will get an idea of the complexity that a program manager needs
to deal with
Figure 3: Interaction Management Cycle
One of the biggest issues in PGM, is knowing what
information to look at, because there is now so much available you
can drown in it. Cliff Stohl, an astrophysicist, used to dealing
with the complexity of strange and charmed quarks, gluons and the
string theory of the universe notes that "Information isn't
power. Hey, who's got the most information? Librarians do! It's
hard to imagine a group of people with less power than librarians.
Information is power? The whole idea is false." Stohl continues,
"knowledge, dare I say wisdom, which we ought to be seeking,
is, for the most part, not information, but a sense of understanding,
a sense of judgment, a sense of when to ignore information."
( From Changing How We Work: The Search for a Simpler Way www.simplerwork.com
Copyright © 2000, The Jensen Group, Northern Illinois University).
In other words a PGM tool needs to not only manage data for projects
and groups of projects, but has to help manage the relationships
between project groups and team members. It also has to help the
program manager see what is happening at a high enough level so
that they can discern trends, see directions and head off disaster
before it occurs. One way to do this is to make sure the transfer
critical information (within context) occurs between projects so
that the transfer of learning from one team to another is facilitated.
In the past the only way this type of learning got transferred from
project team to project team was if one of the team members moved
from one team to another.
This combination of organizational complexity, the increased number
of interactions between team members within and between projects,
and the increasing number and complexity of the projects themselves,
has created what is called a “wicked problem” for the program manager.
“Wicked problems” are those where neither the whole problem
nor the solution can be defined at the onset of the project”. Because
projects often have changes to their goals and processes the further
along they are, tools that will handle and help coordinate many
projects need to include: project planning tools; project team interaction
tools; and project execution tools.
The next installment in January will look more closely at some
of the critical criteria for Program Management (PGM) and determine
which of the tools currently available meets those criteria.
David Coleman is the Founder and Managing Director
of Collaborative Strategies LLC. This column is his ideas and comments
and do not necessarily represent the views of all of the analysts
at Collaborative Strategies. If you wish to contact David directly
please e-mail him at davidc@collaborate.com
 Multi-media
Collaboration: Planning for Bandwidth
By Ronald I. Koenig and David Coleman
Even with all of the dark fiber out there, bandwidth always
seems to be an issue. As more and more vendors deal with the convergence
occurring in the RTC space (audio, video, and data conferencing),
the bandwidth issue becomes more pressing. With a push towards security,
and QoS that is necessary for VoIP bandwidth, or reserved bandwidth,
is even more of an issue. But there is hope. Some vendors have taken
the issue of bandwidth into account as they have built or extended
their real-time multi-media applications. … David Coleman
[read
more]
Collaborative Strategies makes every effort to bring you timely,
accurate information on collaboration and knowledge management.
However, we are part of a rapidly evolving market ourselves and
events occur during the publication of this newsletter every month
that we do not become aware of or that happen post-production. If
you know of such events, please contact David Coleman at Davidc@collaborate.com
so we can note these key events in the next edition of this newsletter.
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