Project Insight News

Project Insight Launches New Project Management Webinar Series

angelacastro — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:39:00 GMT

PMI-Approved Professional Development Courses Offer Latest Methodologies and Best Practices

IRVINE, CA--(Marketwire - February 9, 2010) - Project Insight, the leading mid-market project management software solution, has announced its new Project Management Webinar Course Schedule.

Project Insight project management training courses are offered by a Registered Education Provider of the Project Management Institute (PMI), the non-profit standards body of the project management industry. The training series consists of twenty two one-hour webinars following the framework known as A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge or the PMBOK® Guide. Unlike typical vendor-sponsored webinars, Project Insight courses provide a dedicated educational service to the industry and professionals may earn one PDU per course, applicable to a PMP or CAPM credential.

"Our webinar series is designed with today's project teams in mind, from experienced project managers to team members that may be new to project management. Because a growing number of companies in corporate America now realize that project management is not just a job function or task, but is a full time role that can positively impact the bottom line, being credentialed as a Project Management Professional (PMP) significantly increases the value of an individual to their organization," said Cynthia West, vice president, Project Insight.

View the complete 2010 webinar schedule and register today.

About Project Insight™

Project Insight web-based project management software brings project teams and management teams together to collaborate on projects in real-time. Project Insight is dedicated to developing and providing project management software and services according to the highest standards in the industry. Project Insight software follows Project Management Institute, Inc.'s (PMI) standards, and is compliant with the PMBOK® Guide (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge).

Project Insight Named Microsoft Front Runner Partner

CynthiaWest — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:16:00 GMT

IRVINE, Ca, November 10, 2009 — Metafuse, Inc. today announced it will launch a new version of its application, Project Insight, web-based project management software, which works with Microsoft Windows Server® 2008 R2 to offer customers enhanced security, as well as innovative user interface features and reliability improvements.

Project Insight, online project management software helps project teams collaborate on project schedules, share documents and assets, allocate project resources, and run real-time reports from anywhere in the world. “Our ISV community is alive with innovation, and we’re committed to helping our partners drive the next generation of software experiences,” said Ross Brown, Vice President of ISV and Solutions Partners for the Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft. “Adding compatibility for the latest Microsoft operating systems helps ISVs to stay ahead of the competition and give their customers access to cutting-edge technologies.” “Metafuse, Inc. has been a Microsoft Gold partner and developer for over 10 years. Offering our customers cutting edge technology on the corporate standard, which is Microsoft, keeps us ahead of our competitors,” said Cynthia West, Vice President. “Making our application compatible with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 helps us offer our customers compelling benefits, including improved security and reliability features.”

http://business.cbs2.com/cbslocal.cbs2/?GUID=10717769&Page=MediaViewer&ChannelID=3198

Project Insight Customer, Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR), Featured in National Geographic

angelacastro — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:26:00 GMT

India Rain

Published: November 2009By Sara Corbett

Photograph by Lynsey Addario

Farmers in India do a lot of talking about the weather—especially, it seems, when there is no weather in sight. During the month of May, when the land heats up like a furnace and most fields lie fallow, when wells have run dry and the sun taunts from its broiling perch in a cloudless sky, there is no topic more consuming—or less certain—than when and how the summer monsoon will arrive. The monsoon season, which normally starts in early June and delivers more than three-quarters of the country's annual rainfall in less than four months, will begin gently, like a deer, the farmers say, and later it will turn into a thundering elephant. Or it will start as an elephant and then turn into a deer. Or it will be erratic and annoying right through, like a chicken. In other words, nobody really knows. But still, everybody talks. Continue...

CE News - Highway expansion requires collaborative project management

angelacastro — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:27:00 GMT

By Cynthia Willman

With thriving manufacturing, commerce, and hospitality industries, Queretaro City, the capital of the state of Queretaro, is one of the most rapidly growing municipalities in Mexico. The neighboring city of Irapuato, 67 miles west of Queretaro, has about 500,000 residents, many of whom commute to Queretaro daily. This growth and the attendant traffic congestion led the Mexican government to initiate a project to improve and enlarge the existing highway between the two cities.

Project
Highway expansion, Queretaro City, Mexico

Participants
ICA (design-build-operate contractor)
DIRAC (design subcontractor)

Product application
Project Insight software provides efficient

management of a 57-mile-long highway

expansion project.

Effective project management software

allowed DIRAC and project participants

efficiently to control design and

construction on a 57-mile-long highway

expansion project in Mexico.

ICA, one of Mexico’s leading construction companies, was awarded the contract to design, finance, build, operate, and maintain the highway. Engineering consulting firm DIRAC was subcontracted to complete the design portion of the project for ICA.

Founded in 1956, DIRAC is a leading architectural engineering firm in Mexico specializing in infrastructure projects. The firm works with a large portfolio of clients, most often on infrastructure projects throughout Mexico. Its client list includes ICA, the Mexican Power and Water Commissions, PEMEX, and the Mexican Communications Secretariat.

During the last 10 years, infrastructure projects that were traditionally performed only by government agencies have been opened up to private companies. As large construction companies have been granted concessions to perform the design, construction, and operation of some infrastructure projects, DIRAC is often contracted to perform technical studies and on-site revision of quality control materials.

As CEO, Mario Salazar is ultimately responsible for the success of DIRAC’s projects, whether large ones such as infrastructure projects, or smaller ones involving commercial buildings and resort hotels. At any given time, DIRAC is performing 20 to 40 projects.

With so many projects in motion simultaneously, efficiency is important. DIRAC’s project managers had traditionally used Microsoft Project and were required to use Primavera as part of contractual obligations on certain projects. Managers needed a way to give their clients appropriate access to certain types of information on their projects, such as basic status and progress reports, but the tools they used were not that simple for clients to learn, and access controls were not as sophisticated as they would have liked. As a result, clients were forced to wait for weekly or monthly reports to receive updates about the status of work on their projects.

In addition, project managers found it difficult to perform accurate resource allocation across all of their projects. With efficient use of resources a major contributing factor to profitability, DIRAC recognized the need to have accurate, cross-project resource tracking.

Search for a project-management solution
The scope of the overall highway-expansion project included improvement and expansion of 57 miles of existing highway from two to four lanes. DIRAC was specifically contracted to design the following:

six main bridges;
eight new overpasses;
six new underpasses;
one new railroad overpass;
several new elevated walkways;
a 1.5-mile main boulevard along the highway;
nine new bus stops; and
signaling, drainage, and main intersections lighting.

Throughout the design process, close interaction was needed between the Communications Secretariat, ICA, and DIRAC. Participation of teams of architects, geotechnical engineers, structural engineers, hydraulic engineers, electrical engineers, and cost engineers was required. To handle a project of this size and to help manage the ongoing project load, DIRAC launched a search for a project management solution that would provide the following:

offer a user-friendly, web-based interface;
make it possible to give clients secure information on project progress at any time of their choice; and
enable up-to-the-minute resource allocation across all of their projects.

After a period of evaluation that included the use of an evaluation version, DIRAC chose Project Insight, a web-based project management software from Irvine, Calif.-based Metafuse, Inc. DIRAC signed up with Project Insight and rapidly began using it, finding the ease of adaptation quite helpful as users of other software began coming on board.

The company quickly saw benefits from its use of Project Insight. “The highway-expansion project was entirely managed using Project Insight, which was very good for us, because this was a 60-mile highway with a lot of bridges and interfaces with the client in terms of the right-of-way and all of the peripheral works,” said Salazar. “The client was able to see what the status of the design was at any time, and we were able to make the communication with the client more efficient, not only in terms of the progress of the design, but also the flow of the information documents, drawings, meeting minutes, and things like that.

“For the first time, our client was able to view the progress at any time,” said Salazar. “It wasn’t like he had to wait for a weekly report or a monthly report in order to see where things were. He could come to the web and see what the progress was and see the minutes of the meetings. The management level, especially, was more involved through having access to the information, and that was a very good benefit because, in general, all the project-management systems show progress, but in this case the aid to communication was very good, as well.”

Successful project elevates DIRAC profile
Currently in Mexico, engineers are in short supply because many infrastructure projects are in progress. “Some of the projects we’re invited to participate in we’ve declined because of our current workload and the lack of resources,” Salazar said, “We have a very good reputation for fulfilling our commitments in terms of time and quality, and we don’t want to lose that. Since resources are scarce now, the ability to manage resources and see project progress and find out when people will be available to undertake different responsibilities has been very helpful to us.”

The Queretaro City-to-Irapuato highway expansion included design and construction of six main bridges, eight overpasses, six underpasses, and one railroad overpass.

DIRAC completed the design work by mid-April 2007 after a period of 40 calendar weeks. The design works required a total of 72,125 engineering hours and, as a result, 2,426 detailed design drawings were issued and used for the construction, which ICA began at the end of 2007. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2009.

“Project Insight made this project more efficient for us in terms of project control, progress, and resource allocation, which saved us time and money,” Salazar said. “The ability we now have to be up-to-date with technology and to consume less paper is very, very good. And finally, the ability to schedule and manage different projects concurrently helps us because, before, each project had a specific tool or schedule, whereas in Project Insight, we have the ability to control all the projects at once.”

Cynthia Willman has more than 20 years of experience in the high-technology field, including five years in application development, documentation, and technical support for a software-development tools company. She writes for clients including Metafuse, Oracle, BroadVision, LivePix, Citrix, Logitech, Symantec, Xdrive Technologies, Hitachi Data Systems, and Uniloc USA.

View full web article in CE News

Project Insight Project Management Software Releases 8.2 with Custom Items and Enhanced Security

angelacastro — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:43:00 GMT

Irvine, Calif., September 29, 2009 – Project Insight, the leading mid-market project management software solution, announces the release of version 8.2 with the ability to create custom items that are assignable to users, departments, groups and companies. Now project teams may create their own project request forms or change orders, and leverage the team member pool for making assignments. Project Insight, project management software, helps project teams collaborate on project schedules, share documents and assets, allocate project resources, and run real-time reports from any location in the world.

Cynthia West, Vice President, remarks, “This release is a good example of our customer-oriented service. Most of the features in this release come directly from customer requests. Metafuse focuses on providing the best customer service, and being the most responsive vendor in the project and portfolio software market.”Other powerful, flexible features in this release include:

·         Setting up automatic status comments on projects, tasks, issues and custom items

·         Saving and sharing custom item reports

·         Improving security and controls with password definition and forced SSL

·         Defining unique types of non-working days for the global calendars

· Defining alerts on custom items

About Project Insight™

Project Insight 8.2 offers three editions for flexible, scalable project management, including hosted Workgroup, Professional and Enterprise. An installed option is available with the Enterprise edition, and requires Microsoft Windows 2003 Server^® running IIS 6.0+ and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or 2008^®. Browsers supported: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, Safari 3.0+, or Firefox 3.0+. Outlook Connector, Office Connector add-ons, and a mobile application are offered.

About Metafuse, Inc. Metafuse, Inc. is the leading mid-market project management software solution provider. Its flagship product, Project Insight, is targeted to experienced project managers that need powerful features, and want a solution that is easy for project team members to learn and adopt. Metafuse has performed software development since 1996 for its clients in the information technology, healthcare, manufacturing, advertising and other industries. Metafuse, Inc. is a Microsoft Certified Partner and Developer.

Project Insight and Metafuse are registered trademarks of Metafuse, Inc.
Other products or brands are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

USGS, Project Insight customer, embarks on an important project to rid the Florida Everglades of the non native Burmese python

angelacastro — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:05:00 GMT

Project Insight Customer, USGS, and the University of Florida want to enlist unmanned drones in the search for invasive Burmese pythons in the Everglades

By Stuart Fox Read the article and view a picture of researchers attaching a radio tracker to a Burmese python at PopSci.com

For years, Burmese pythons have invaded Florida's Everglades National Park, preying on indigenous species. Tracking them down has proven time consuming and difficult, so Park wardens have begun testing a new hunting method imported straight from the front lines of the War on Terror: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and thermal imaging technology.

David Hallac of The National Park Service already uses manned, fixed-wing aircraft to search the Everglades for birds, and he said moving to UAVs to cut down on costs is the natural next step.

Additionally, recent tests by the scientists at the University of Florida have shown that thermal imaging can detect the snakes, even though their cold-blooded bodies reflect the heat of their environment.

According to Frank Mazzotti, an Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Florida and one of the scientists who hunts for the pythons, the snakes regulate the temperature of their nests in a way that makes them easily visible through thermal imaging.

Despite being cold blooded, the pythons keep their nests cool in the heat, and shiver to warm up the nests when it gets too cold, providing a heat contrast to the surrounding environment.

"Whether its really hot or really cold, the nest stands out on the thermal imager," said Mazzotti. "Someone using that to find python nests might be the best move, because by going for the nests, you target the population."

Interestingly, while both the UAV and the thermal imaging search programs are moving a head at a rapid pace, there are currently no plans to combine the two technologies and put thermal imaging cameras on the UAVs. However, that doesn't mean the natural pairing of heat sensors and UAVs won't occur sooner rather than later.

"We haven't tested either, and I'm not wise enough to have a clever phrase about trying out two untested technologies together," said Mazzotti, "but I think down the road they're gonna get coupled."

Who Was That Project Insight Customer?

angelacastro — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:31:00 GMT

Remember the solar advocate who introduced President Obama at the signing of the stimulus bill? Meet Namaste Solar's CEO Blake Jones.

It’s amazing how many friends and family members want to chat ... after you spend some quality time with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

“I had 400 e-mails waiting for me, and dozens of voicemails,” laughed Blake Jones, president of Namasté Solar in Boulder, Colorado. The White House chose Jones and his company to represent the new green economy when Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus bill in Denver Tuesday.

Why is Namaste Solar in the news again? Continue to the full article by Marsha Walton at the Mother Nature Network.

Project Insight Project Management Software Announces Release 8.1 with Flexible Portfolio Roll Ups and Tiered Timesheet Approvals

angelacastro — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:28:00 GMT

July 01, 2009 05:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

IRVINE, Calif.-- Project Insight, the leading mid-market project management software solution, announces the release of version 8.1 with advanced portfolio roll ups, tiered timesheet approvals, additional custom fields, and enhanced search. Project Insight helps project teams like American Honda and Tempur-pedic collaborate on project schedules, share documents and assets, allocate project resources, and run real-time reports from anywhere in the world.

Cynthia West, Vice President states, “Because we focus on offering our customers the most flexible project and portfolio software in the mid market, we have upgraded the time approval process with seven unique routing and approval options. The augmented portfolio roll ups allow the project team member to group the portfolio of projects by organization or client, and then group these projects under each organization by type and other variables, while sub-totaling each section.”

Additional powerful, flexible features in this release include:

The ability to add custom fields on the timesheet, expense report, company, user forms
Project portfolio roll-ups and sub-totaling with tertiary sorting
Attach receipts to expense reports for a completely electronic submission process
Additional tool tips on report column headers
Enhanced search

About Project Insight™

Project Insight 8.1 offers three editions for flexible, scalable project management, including hosted Workgroup, Professional and Enterprise. An on-premise or installed option is available with the Enterprise edition. An installed edition requires Microsoft Windows 2003 Server^® running IIS 6.0+ and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or 2008^®. Browsers supported: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, Safari 3.0+, or Firefox 3.0+. Outlook Connector, Office Connector add-ons, and a mobile application are offered.

About Metafuse, Inc.

Metafuse Inc. is the leading mid-market project management software solution provider. Its flagship product, Project Insight, is targeted to experienced project managers that need powerful features, yet want a solution that is easy for project team members to use. Metafuse has performed software development since 1996 for its clients in the information technology, healthcare, manufacturing, financial, advertising, and other industries. Metafuse Inc. is a Microsoft Certified Partner and Developer.

Project Insight and Metafuse are registered trademarks of Metafuse, Inc.

Other products or brands are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

Project Insight Wins Best of Saas Showplace Award

angelacastro — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:59:00 GMT

Project Insight Wins Best of SaaS Showplace Award.

Software-as-a-Service Project Management Solution Helps Organizations Centralize Projects, Manage Resources and Improve Collaboration

Wellesley, MA - June 1, 2009 - THINKstrategies, Inc., the leading strategic consulting company focused on the business implications of the on-demand services market, announced today that Project Insight, a web-based project management software for the mid-market developed by Metafuse, Inc., which is aimed at promoting the measurable business benefits being delivered by today's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

The BoSS Awards program was announced in January 2009 as the latest initiative by THINKstrategies to bring attention to SaaS and cloud computing companies which are producing tangible business benefits for specific user organizations. These benefits include increased sales, lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, faster operations, and greater profitability.

Metafuse is the software developer and publisher of Project Insight, a Web-based project management solution, which is used by hundreds of organizations and thousands of project team members.

Using Metafuse's Project Insight, imc² -- an interactive advertising firm with Fortune 2000 clients like Diet Coke, Lean Cuisine, and GlaxoSmithKline -- has reduced the amount of time it takes to complete timesheets by an average of 83%. When it used to take project team members about an hour a week to enter time, it now takes on average about 10 minutes a week. They have over 400 resources entering time in Project Insight, which translates into 330 labor hours saved every week.

In another case, Benchmark Performance, a training and consulting company with clients such as the Royal Bank of Canada and Ernst & Young, has been able to recapture at least 15 billable minutes per person per day by entering time daily. This results in $750 additional billings per day or $180,000 per year.

As a result of these measurable business benefits, Metafuse has been named the latest BoSS Award winner. A full description of the company's winning BoSS Award submission can be found at

http://www.saas-showplace.com/awardSummary.php?key=640.

"Project Insight has been since helping project teams like Honda, Symantec, and Tempur-pedic since 2001. Receiving formal recognition from THINKstrategies' SaaS Showplace for the business benefits of Project Insight validates what our customers have known for years," stated Cynthia West, Vice President, Metafuse.

"In today's tough economic environment, project teams need to manage project demand and allocate resources wisely. Understanding the workload of the organization's resources is imperative. Project Insight allows teams to gain productivity and efficiency through providing real-time project and resource information," stated Jeffrey M. Kaplan, the founder of the SaaS Showplace and Managing Director of THINKstrategies, the strategic consulting firm which conceived and administers the Showplace."Metafuse's Project Insight solution is a clear example of how today's leading SaaS-based solutions are perfectly designed to respond to these business challenges."

Previous winners of the BoSS Awards can be found on,
http://www.saas-showplace.com/registerforbossaward.html.

# # #

About the Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) Awards

The BoSS Award program is an ongoing initiative to identify and promote SaaS, and 'cloud computing', companies which are offering on-demand solutions which are generating measurable business benefits for their customers.

BoSS awards nominations are not only accepted on an ongoing basis, but more than one winner can be awarded in each SaaS Showplace Application, Industry and Enabling Technology Supplier category.

BoSS award winners are given special designation on the SaaS Showplace, with a summary of their award-winning solution(s) and customer success story. Award winners are also recognized in the SaaS Showplace newsletter, and are able to promote their award designation on their website and in pre-approved company material.

For more information or to nominate a BoSS award winner, go to http://www.saas-showplace.com/registerforbossaward.html.

# # #

About the SaaS Showplace

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace® is a service of THINKstrategies, Inc. This Showplace was established in 2006 to provide,

IT/business decision-makers a quick directory of the leading SaaS providers and a convenient source of valuable insight regarding SaaS trends.
SaaS providers a targeted tool to increase their visibility among enterprise decision-makers, and gain access to key enabling technology suppliers.
Enabling technology suppliers a specialized platform to increase industry awareness regarding their SaaS solutions.

The SaaS Showplace is now the largest and highest ranked, vendor-independent, online directory and resource center of industry best practices in the SaaS market. For more information, go to www.saas-showplace.com or www.thinksaas.com.

# # #

About THINKstrategies, Inc.

THINKstrategies, Inc. is the only strategic consulting services company formed specifically to address the unprecedented business challenges facing IT managers, solutions providers and investors today as the technology industry shifts toward a services orientation.

THINKstrategies' mission is to help our clients re-THINK their corporate strategies, and refocus their limited resources to achieve their business objectives. THINKstrategies helps enterprise decision-makers with their sourcing strategies, IT solutions providers with their marketing strategies, and VCs with their investment strategies.

In addition to the Software-as-a-Service Showplace, THINKstrategies is also the founder of the Managed Services Showplace, a vendor-independent, online directory and information resource center of managed service solutions.

For more information regarding THINKstrategies' unique consulting services, visit www.thinkstrategies.com, or contact us at info@thinkstrategies.com.

# # #

About Project Insight

Project Insight web-based project management software helps project teams collaborate on project schedules, share documents and assets, allocate project resources, and run real-time reports from any location in the world. Project Insight 8.0 is immediately available in a hosted Workgroup Edition and Enterprise installed and hosted versions. Installed versions require Microsoft Windows 2003 Server® running IIS 6.0+ and Microsoft SQL Server 2005®. All versions require a browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, Safari 2.0+, or Firefox 2.0+. Outlook Connector and Office Connector add-ons are available. For more information, go to http://www.projectinsight.net.

# # #

About imc²

Founded in 1995, imc² is an agency that fosters engagement between brands and people to develop sustainable relationships. With a deep heritage in digital marketing, imc² is redefining the way that companies view agencies, providing a stronger strategic perspective and blending interactive, emerging, and traditional media to create and increase trust and transactions. With offices in Dallas, New York City, and Philadelphia, imc² serves a broad client base, including Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, The Coca-Cola Company, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Hasbro. Please visit http://www.imc2.com.

Steve West, President of Metafuse, on OC METRO's Annual 40 under 40 List for 2009

angelacastro — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:06:00 GMT

OC Metro Magazine's annual 40 under 40 list highlights some of Orange County's most successful young movers and shakers. Learn about Steve West's greatest inspirations and most daunting challenges, and what advice he would have for other young professionals. Also, what are his plans for the future, and who would he like to take to dinner?

Steve West, President of Metafuse Inc.

While training for the 1996 Olympics, Steve West searched for business alternatives that allowed him more freedom to train. His solution: Metafuse, a company that has become a leading Web-based project management software solution provider.

The most important lesson learned:
I learned that it takes much more than just a great idea to build a product and company from scratch. Determination, focus and patience are critical, because it takes time to find the right team, build a great product and establish a loyal customer base for your company.

Your next big step:
For our company, it will be important to significantly grow our market share over the next few years. Many companies are still using spreadsheets and/or a combination of desktop software tools to manage their projects, rather than use a comprehensive Web-based project-management software tool like Project Insight. Ultimately, we’ll need to increase the awareness level of how important collaborative Web-based project-management software is to the success of nearly all businesses.

Advice for other young professionals:
If you have a great idea that you believe in wholeheartedly, then by all means chart your course and set sail, so to speak. Plan carefully and execute your plan with determination, but be prepared for the unexpected, and be ready to adapt your plan when necessary. If you believe in yourself, you can succeed in fulfilling your vision.

Read on at OCMetro.com to find out more about Steve West and the 40 under 40 list.

Project Management Students Leverage Web Technology to Organize a Local Food Drive

angelacastro — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:33:00 GMT

With the help of Project Insight, web-based project management software, five students will collect food donations for the South County Outreach Association.

Irvine, Calif., April 27, 2009 – In light of the economic downturn, the South County Outreach Association (SCOA) has seen families in need of assistance growing at a rate of nearly 30% since last year. For this reason, Andrew Winger’s project group consisting of five students of the Applied Project Management Class at Santiago Canyon College decided to give back to this organization for their semester long project. The team began contributing time and energy to organize a food drive for the SCOA, and experience the service from a project management perspective.

Winger’s project group noticed that, with team members living throughout the Orange County area, it was not realistic to have everybody update the project on one person’s personal computer with a desktop project management application. Winger stated, “We needed a tool that would allow us to access [the project] on our own time.”

He contacted Project Insight, web-based project management software, and requested a site for their community outreach project. Winger was pleasantly surprised that Project Insight was willing to provide access to a hosted project management system at no cost to the team. Cynthia West, Vice President at Project Insight said, “The Project Insight team feels it is important to contribute back to our community, and this was an easy way for us to help those in need.”

The students immediately put their project and tasks in the software without any training. Right away the team remarked on its ease of use. Winger specifically likes the collaboration functionality and now updates his teammates by posting messages, project documents and pictures regularly.

Help Winger’s project team reach their goal of collecting two tons of non-perishable food items for the SCOA. Donations will be accepted on Saturday, May 2^nd, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at these locations:

· Albertsons of Lake forest

· Ralphs of Foothill Ranch

PROJECT UPDATE:

Andrew Winger's project team collected 3500 pounds of food filling 33 barrels, and also raised $1084 for the SCOA on May 2nd. Between the food and the monetary donations, the team considers their goal of 4000 pounds met. Winger will continue to use Project Insight until the final project documentation is submitted to his Applied Project Management teacher.

Project Insight Customer, Gilead Sciences, Named BusinessWeek 50's No.1

angelacastro — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:27:00 GMT

Gilead Sciences has used Project Insight, web-based project management software, since 2005 to streamline their product development, and make it more efficient and productive. It is not surprising that they consistently apply innovative technology to remain ahead of the curve.

As seen in BusinessWeek:

The Northern California biopharmaceutical company, scored a huge success earlier this decade when it sensed an opening for HIV drugs that were simpler and cheaper than standard treatments, which required patients to pop dozens of different pills throughout the day. Gilead's researchers responded with a new manufacturing process allowing them to produce compounds of several drugs to be released into the bloodstream at different times. The result was a daily-dose pill that replaced the old drug cocktails for a fraction of the cost. Now the company is going after another big market: patient-friendly treatments for hepatitis C, a chronic liver disease that affects 170 million people worldwide.

Read full article:

The BusinessWeek 50

10 Great Reasons Why Project Insight is the Friendliest Project Management Software

angelacastro — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Project Insight has a user friendly interface that is different from other solutions and is truly easy for everyone.

1. Get started on day one
Project Insight is simple to deploy and requires little to no training to get started. Our built in tutorials help you set up your system down to the last detail.

2. See what you want to see
Customizable views on task lists, Gantt charts and reports enable you to focus on what is important to you. Save your favorite views for later, or share them with your entire team.

3. Let PI do it
Project Insight’s intelligent scheduling automatically calculates start and end dates for each task, and shifts schedules based on task relationships if start dates are moved – so you don’t have to.

4. Drag and drop it
The AJAX enabled system allows you to quickly and easily move tasks, items, and resources. Simply use drag and drop functionality to balance workloads and project schedules in a hurry.

5. Just click it
Right click your mouse to select context sensitive items and functions such as add, edit and delete throughout the application.

6. Double click it
Tired of forms? Project Insight allows you to edit project schedules right from your task list, Gantt chart, and timesheet with just a double click.

7. Jump to it
A collapsible left navigation pane provides shortcuts to your projects, tasks, time entry, issues and more from anywhere in the software.

8. Go back
Smart scrolling guarantees that when you need to ‘go back’ you will return to exactly where you left off.

9. Keep learning
Free webinars are offered weekly so you can make the most of your project software and investment. Rotating topics cover Project Insight training, and project management best practices giving you the tools to learn more and earn more.

10. Make friends
Last but not least, the Project Insight team is ready to assist and wants to help you achieve your goals. With Project Insight, you’re much more than just a user, but a member of an extended group of friends and family.

“Thus far, very pleased with the software, and quite impressed at how well thought out many of the areas are. The advanced logic considerations and thoughtfulness displayed throughout the application exemplifies an obvious wealth of knowledge and commitment that is extremely hard to find today.”
-Vice President, Web Hosting Company

Project Insight Web-based project management software
Powerful for Project Managers... Easy for Everyone!

Take our Product Tour: www.projectinsight.net/tour/

Contact Project Insight
info@projectinsight.net

Project Insight Customer, Namasté Solar, Introduces President Barack Obama During His Denver Visit to Sign the Economic Stimulus Bill into Law

angelacastro — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:53:00 GMT

Namasté Solar is a leading solar electric company that designs, supplies and installs PV Electric Systems for homes and businesses. The organization's mission is to propagate the responsible use of solar energy, pioneer conscientious business practices, and create holistic wealth for the community.

What was it like for Namasté Solar CEO Blake Jones to meet the President and Vice President?

Blake described his experience:

“It was an unparalleled honor for me and my company, Namasté Solar, to participate in the stimulus bill signing ceremony yesterday at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. When I met President Obama and Vice President Biden, they both put me immediately at ease when they shook my hand and looked me in the eye. I was struck by how personable, friendly, and genuinely interested they were in ensuring that the United States takes a leadership role in creating a green energy economy. It was a dream come true for me to talk with the President and Vice President about my favorite subject, solar energy, while giving them a tour of the rooftop solar system we had installed at the Museum. It was also a tremendous opportunity to highlight the progress that Colorado has made in renewable energy development and to talk about our state’s vast potential to work towards an even brighter future in renewable energy.

As for my opportunity to speak at the event and introduce the President, words simply can’t describe……I’m just so proud to have had the opportunity to represent the thousands of solar and green companies throughout the country, and to highlight how important it is to continue creating green jobs. It is an understatement to say that I and everyone at my company are deeply grateful and honored to have participated in this event.”

Read full article

Portfolio & Resource Management In An Economic Downturn

angelacastro — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:43:00 GMT

Best practices when layoffs challenge project deadlines and limit design resources.

By Cynthia K. West, Ph.D., V.P., Project Insight

A screen shot of resource pool with skill sets. (Click image for a larger view.)

For the past six months or more, the economic downturn has been a popular news topic. It seems that the news is most often about people that have been laid off.

For example, in December, the number of unemployed persons in the United States increased by 632,000 to 11.1 million and the unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent.

While job loss is certainly an important topic, a tangential issue that is often overlooked is: What is the impact of these layoffs on the people that have been left behind in an organization? Often times the expectation is that the individuals remaining will pick up the existing workload of those laid off.

How can these resources handle the existing workload? Perhaps that is not the right question, but rather, which projects fit the strategic objectives of the organization? What tools can be used to evaluate the priority of the projects in the portfolio? What solutions exist to help assess the existing projects and tasks? Let’s consider some of the common issues and potential solutions to the loss of jobs in an organization.

Layoff Challenges

There are several issues that organizations, resource managers and project managers must contend with when job losses occur. These include: replacing resources on existing projects; the loss of best practices, business process and other knowledge; and assessing project priorities.

The most immediate challenge that arises is the replacement of resources on existing projects. More often than not, projects in process still need to be completed on schedule — and within budget. The questions that must be answered are: Do the remaining resources on the team have the skill sets to complete the work? Can we transition these tasks without getting behind schedule? Does the organization have an effective way to look into the resource pool and know what skill sets the team members have?

A complementary issue to the loss of resources is the loss of individual, expert knowledge. For example, many times an employee or resource may have been the resident expert in a process.

A screen shot of knowledgebase. (Click image for a larger view.)

Once laid off, the organization no longer has access to this information. If individual knowledge such as best practices and process knowledge were not documented and stored in a shared location, the organization loses time as the new resource learns what the process is or worst case scenario, invents a new process.

A higher level challenge is that the workload has just increased, sometimes exponentially, for the remaining resources. How does the organization handle this workload? Does the organization have an efficient way to evaluate and re-assess the projects in the portfolio and their priority levels? Has the organization decided on a method to weigh projects according to their ability to match the strategic objectives of the company?

Solutions

How can an organization know which resources in the organization possess the right skills to finish the tasks on projects in progress? There is often no choice but to complete existing projects, particularly if they are client deliverables.

The first step is to create a resource pool in a centralized database. Then, interview the team members and their managers to assess their skill sets and the level of such skills. Store this information in the resources’ profiles.

For example, Project Insight, web project management software, allows resource managers and project managers to store resource information in a ‘user profile.’ Once stored in this central repository, resource managers or project managers may search the system by skill set or resource type to find the resources they need and assign them to the project and tasks.

A screen shot of a scorecard. (Click image for a larger view.)

A recent Project Insight customer had over 550 resources and was forced to lay off 10 percent of its staff. As a result of these layoffs, the resource staffing department had to rapidly reassess their customer projects, tasks and make re-assignments.

These changes were made without a hiccup to their client deliverables. The resource managers simply went into the resource pool, viewed the remaining resources and their skill sets, and swapped the resources.

In terms of capturing knowledge management and best practices, proactive organizations are documenting their business processes and best practices. These are then stored in a ‘knowledgebase’ or other shared environment for others to benefit from. Project Insight offers a centralized knowledgebase for project teams to post, store and share best practices documents, lessons learned and business process documents. These may be organized project by project, or in a system level knowledgebase.

A toy manufacturer that utilizes Project Insight for knowledge management and document sharing finds the centralized storing of assets imperative. As an organization with toy design and development in the United States and manufacturing in Asia, communication due to time zone differences was challenging. Now, by posting all process documents and project assets in Project Insight, the Asian team can read and review documents while the stateside team is asleep. No more staying up late for conference calls.

Most importantly, once the existing projects have been re-assigned and business processes stored, then the organization must turn to the difficult work of determining what projects to move forward with, which projects to delay, or even to cancel.

If the team has not done the difficult work of deciding how to measure project priority, then now is the time to do it. The team needs to determine what its organizational goals are, what key performance indicators (KPIs) they are going to use to measure the success of these goals, and develop some criteria that will allow the team to score the projects objectively.

A screen shot of a cross project resource allocation report with project scores. (Click image for a larger view.)

Management teams use a scorecard in which they may input their own strategic objectives, goals, critical success factors and KPIs. Once the scoring criteria have been decided upon, each project may be scored by answering the questions. For example, one goal in this economic environment might be to manage costs better. So, one question the team might answer to assess a project’s priority is: ‘Does this project help the organization reduce cost?’

In this case, the score given to the ‘software development project’ in terms of its reduction of cost to the organization was a one out of ten. However, that is only one criterion. In this scorecard, there are three overall goals. Therefore, the team would score the project on all criteria, then run a report to view all projects and their scores before prioritizing and scheduling the projects.

The example to the side provides the team insight into the department’s workload, the resources that belong to the department and their individual project assignments, any overloaded resources, in addition to the project score. We can see that the project with the highest priority is the software implementation project, which is a customer facing project. Next in line is the web development project. Last in priority is the potential office move project with a score of only 3.36.

Organizations that have already thought through their strategic objectives, project priorities, and have developed systems for documenting best practices, business processes and ways to share knowledge are in better shape to withstand an economic downturn. Organizations that have insight into their resources’ workloads and can know in advance what types of resources they are going to need or perhaps not require, will be more efficient and better poised to survive an economic downturn.

Now is the time, more than ever, to put processes in place that will manage the loss of jobs and resources. What’s more, developing efficient and effective processes now will also help a team to handle an increased workload when the economy improves.

See article in: Product Design and Development

Take the Project Insight Product Tour

Request a demo of Project Insight