Dear Abe, I Have Just Been Appointed the Project Manager of My Group, Help!

Dear Abe,

My boss has designated me to be the Project Manager of my group. I have a basic understanding of what is required, but I am going to need some advice from you.

At any time my department has 10-12 projects on the go. I have a team of about 20 people that I have at my disposal.  I need to figure out how to balance these twenty individuals over the projects that are active, manage the individual project budgets, and keep everyone up to date on what is going on. I need some big help do you have any suggestions.

Concerned,

Matthew Lewis

…

Hi Matt,

I have some good news for you.  The answer is ConceptDraw Office. ConceptDraw Office is a product suite developed and sold by CS Odessa.  There are three products in this comprehensive product suite. All the products run in native mode on Apple OS X and Windows.

The three products in the ConceptDraw Office suite are ConceptDraw MINDMAP (brainstorming, constructing documents, building presentations, building a process, project management, and a myriad of other uses that will save you valuable time), ConceptDraw PROJECT (the project management muscle of this troika), and ConceptDraw PRO (the business graphics and diagramming portion of the suite).  Each is a useful standalone product that can be purchased separately, but together with their integrations they become one powerful solution.

I will give you a brief example. The ConceptDraw MINDMAP product helps you brainstorm and assemble the projects content.  Working with your team makes it much easier to attain consensus and to build the project structure.  Project phases, tasks, resources can be quickly organized by dragging-and-dropping the information. Launching a project has never been easier.

ConceptDraw PROJECT lets you manage any number of projects and balances your resource s over the tasks in your projects. This will work well with your requirement of having 10-12 projects and one pool of resources. There are a plethora of reports that keep track of how things are going, giving you the ability to track progress and report to stakeholders.  The reports are generated in Excel format so you are free to do additional number crunching and charting. Also ConceptDraw PROJECT can pass your project data to ConceptDraw PRO where dashboards are generated in the blink of an eye. Your project data changes, no problem.  Generate a new dashboard quickly. Everyone has a clear understanding of what is going on.

Also you will find that any of the ConceptDraw products is an economical solution for you and your team members. Detailed information on all of the ConceptDraw products can be found at http://www.conceptdraw.com. There is even a large video library on the web site that will get you up to speed in literally minutes. Matt great question, I am glad I had a solution for you. Now everything should be tickety-boo for you.

Best regards,

Abe

CS Odessa Announces that ConceptDraw PROJECT v6 now has the ability to import and export Microsoft Project files



ConceptDraw PROJECT 6 can
import and export MS Project files.



CS Odessa announces that ConceptDraw PROJECT v6 now has the ability to import and export Microsoft Project XML files, with new PROJECT EXCHANGE. Because of this ability to exchange data between ConceptDraw PROJECT and MS Project; users have increased flexibility on how to exchange project information with all members of the project team. The exchange of project data across different project applications keeps everyone informed and allows for quality collaboration among team members, as well as 3rd parties that have involvement in your project.



The ability to exchange project information is key to a project’s success. ConceptDraw PROJECT 6 has the ability to save to a MS Project XML file format so that ConceptDraw PROJECT files can be shared with users of MS Project (2003, 2007, and 2010) as well as any other project management tools that can accurately import MS Project xml file format. This allows users of ConceptDraw PROJECT 6 and ConceptDraw Office 2 (contains ConceptDraw PROJECT 6) to generate project content that can be shared with all team members.

Project participants also have the ability to import MS Project files into ConceptDraw PROJECT 6 and ConceptDraw Office 2. This gives users an excellent alternative on the way they manage projects, and assists in the interoperability of project information between team members who have Macintosh and PC computers.



The ability to exchange data between ConceptDraw Office and MS Project is a big plus for project members because they can then use the other the other project tools that are part of ConceptDraw Office. As an example, ConceptDraw MINDMAP 7, part of ConceptDraw Office 2, can be used as a project front- end to brainstorm, build processes, identify contingencies and organize information for presentations to brief team members and stakeholders. The PROJECT EXCHANGE can be found in the CS Odessa ConceptDraw Solution Park.



CS Odessa provides a range of professional project software tools that assist you during every stage of your project. ConceptDraw Office uses powerful ConceptDraw INGYRE2 technology to make all tasks as easy as pushing a few buttons. The top to bottom integration of ConceptDraw Office, which includes the innovative standalone ConceptDraw PROJECT 6 product, are valuable tools to help Project Managers work towards their organization’s success.

In addition, CS Odessa also provides many project management solution add-ins that can be downloaded from ConceptDraw Solution Park. The combination of ConceptDraw Product and ConceptDraw Solution Park, from CS Odessa makes for an unbeatable value in project management software tools.

Create a Project Dashboard

Step 1. Open your ConceptDraw PROJECT file.


Step 2. From the Reports menu, select Generate Reports.


Step 3. From the Generate Reports window, select Project Dashboard, and click Generate.


Step 4: Your project dashboard is generated and opened in ConceptDraw PRO.


Result: ConceptDraw Project Dashboard.

Use Project Dashboard Indicators

Step 1. From ConceptDraw PROJECT open a project file, such as the sample "New Product Launch".


Step 2. From the Reports menu, select Generate Reports.

Tip: Click the Generate Reports icon on the toolbar to run reports at any time.

Step 3. From the Generate Reports window, select Project Dashboard and click Generate.


Step 4. The Project Dashboard appears. Look through the dashboard to review reports and indicators that require attention.

For example, perhaps the Task Status Completion indicator shows that 11 tasks are behind schedule.


Step 5. From ConceptDraw MINDMAP, open the "Reports Guide" sample mind map. Find a report that is associated with the indicator that requires attention. From the Reports Guide, the select the Task Status Report mind map.



Step 6. From ConceptDraw PROJECT, go to the Reports menu, and select Generate Reports.

Step 7. From the Generate Reports window, select Tasks Status, then click Generate.


Result. An interactive mind map that assists in determining task status.