What I consider when selecting a project management tool, which tools and templates I have found useful, and a look at my processes. This was presented as a webinar by request of one of our partner institutions.

1. Project Management Tech Tools
Kathleen Ludewig Omollo
Certified Strategic Planning Professional
Candidate for Project Management Professional (Expected 2019)
Senior Project Manager, UM-CIRHT, University of Michigan
January 3, 2019
Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY SA) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

2. Situation
● As project managers, site coordinators, and other roles within project
management, we each have to manage some aspect of the scope (deliverables),
timeline, and budget for our work within our grant.
● This requires us to coordinate and monitor resources (people, equipment,
documents) across locations and organizations.
● We need to communicate progress to various stakeholders - team members,
principal investigator(s), partner institution, and funder.
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3. Project management - free general templates and guides
● My bookmarks: http://www.pinterest.com/kathleena2pins/project-management/
● GirlsGuideToPM.com - simple guides and checklists for women and men
● MindTools.com - some free, some paid resources available
● ProjectManagementDocs.com - free project management templates
● PMIEF.org - free, Project Management Institute (PMI) Educational Foundation
● ProjectManagement.com - user-contributed content from PMI, mix free & paid
● Project-Management-Skills.com - free templates and newsletter
● PM4Dev.com - free, Project Management for Development Organizations
● OERCommons.org/courses/managing-projects - free course, Managing Projects
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4. Considerations when selecting project management tech
1. Ease of access - do you need to create a new username & password? Does it offer
single sign on so people can use existing login? Can you access by link only?
2. Email integration - can you turn email reminders on/off? Can you update or add
information from within email?
3. Filter - can you filter information by person, by topic or other key variable ?
4. Import / export - can you import and export as spreadsheet or general format?
5. Version history - can you track when and by whom information was updated?
6. Online / offline sync - are you able to view and/or edit information/files from your
computer or phone when there is no Internet and sync when there is Internet?
7. Security - is it encrypted (https)? Does the system comply with privacy/security
requirements for your organization? Does it offer two factor authentication ?
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5. Tips for selecting project management tech
● Keep process and tools as simple as possible to keep you on track.
● No single tool will be perfect. Select the one(s) that fit(s) best
● Commit to use for project phase or entire project period.
● Accept you will be the most active user on your team of whatever tech you select.
● The Project Management Institute estimates that 90% of our role as project
managers is communication - written and verbal, formal and informal.
● Tech can capture the raw data and automate some of the analysis, but to make it
meaningful to report to stakeholders, you will need manually write summaries.
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6. Tech options: Managing schedule
Determine when people are available:
● Doodle.com - determine availability across time zones
● When2Meet.com - determine availability within same time zone
Confirm time:
● TimeAndDate.com - Event Announcer that converts across times
● GoogleCalendar Settings > World Clock - display multiple time zones in your ca
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7. Tech options: Managing schedule
Shared calendar
● TeamUp.com - Free shared calendars, share by link in edit mode or view only.
Example uses: for milestones, for reserving conference rooms, out of office or
travel, major event.
● TeamWeek.com - Free, for creating Gantt charts. Example uses: showing
sequential activities, duration of activities, and coordinating team member
handoffs and availability
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8. Tech options: Managing scope
● Integrated tools - for tracking and assigning tasks as lists or boards
○ Asana.com
○ Zoho.com/Projects
○ https://blog.capterra.com/9-best-basecamp-alternatives/
● Google Suite - for sharing print-friendly versions, compatible with Microsoft
Office
○ Documents
○ Spreadsheets
○ Slides
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9. Tech options:
Managing scope -
dashboards
Example from
PresentationLoad
Templates - traffic
light indicator and
text summary of key
areas. 9

10. Tech options:
Managing scope -
dashboards. This
one could be done in
5 minutes for
summary but does
not provide detail.
Free Example from
GirlsGuidetoPM.com 10

11. Tech options: Managing budget
● Google Drive Spreadsheets - free
● Zoho.com/Projects - free up to certain number of users
● Box.com - Free up to certain storage level
● DropBox.com - Free up to certain storage level
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12. A deeper look into my own project management process:
the tech I use
and
how I communicate reports
12

13. 13
The tech I use -
my mobile apps (all free), organized as folders

14. 14
The tech I use -
my mobile apps (all free), organized as folders

15. a dashboard in
GoogleSlides that
I manually update
after reviewing
Asana, written
documents, and
verbal
discussions
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How I communicate reports -

16. after our project
team members
travel, I do a verbal
debrief for 15-45
minutes after trips,
which I write and
store in Box.com
16
How I communicate reports -

17. 17
revised work plan in the
required format by our
organization, which I
share every 6 months as
appendix to narrative
status report; table is
exported from Asana as
CSV and formatted in
Excel or Word
How I communicate reports -