But What’s the Point?
Last week, I mentioned that yes, the world really does need another project management system. I hinted at the reasons, but it seems like a good idea to outline what really makes eManagr different.
In a nutshell, even after half a century of design, far too many applications are mere notepads. You supply the thinking and the labor, and in return, you receive a report…which gives you more work to do. I don’t like it.
That was a substantial goal for eManagr. If it was to roll out, it absolutely had to be useful. Not content with reporting, a modern management system needs to be a manager. That’s especially true in the current economy, where managers can and should be pressed into service where they can do the most good (most of them in my field want to get their hands dirty, too).
How do we do it? Yes, there are some minor algorithms and formulas that help with dispatching, but we also spread out the burden to where it can be resolved most easily.
The “Web 2.0″ world calls it “crowdsourcing” and then misapplies it. Where the rest of the Internet asks everybody to contribute whatever they like, eManagr asks workers to supply work estimates. More importantly, long estimates are no good–we want to build all schedules from bite-sized units of labor. Likewise, we ask everybody on the team to vote on features. That information available, eManagr then offers decisions to guide the team most efficiently–short, popular tasks give you the most bang for the buck, so to speak.
However, there’s another important issue, here. By looking at your schedule under a microscope–individual rooms rather than an entire house–everybody is set to thinking about the work in detail. Likewise, the smaller the workload, the estimate will be more accurate.
The result, after we apply the aforementioned formulas and algorithms, is that eManagr can give you a more solid schedule and keep your team on track. That leaves your workers to do their work, and your managers to mentor the team. Leave the scheduling to us and let software work for you, for once.
Tags: Principles
December 22nd, 2009 at 23:17
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