Let me just start out by saying that I am by NO means, a PMP certified Project Manager. I'm what most people would refer to as a normal ‘team member'. My role in regards to Project Insight, web-based project management software, is pretty basic. Daily time entry, expenses, updating my own tasks and occasionally opening a new project. So this next series of discussion entries will address how important Project Insight's high level of usability was in order to get me up and running, comfortable within the project management software.
My participation within Project Insight began with entering my time. And I believe most would agree when I say that tracking your resources' time is extremely important. How else are you supposed to know where all of your team's efforts are being put? I believe that making something as simple as entering time against a project or task should be exactly that: simple! As a new user, it was important to be presented with something that didn't look too complicated or too time consuming. That's why Project Insight's Time Entry Worksheet's easy to figure out and more importantly easy to use drops down menus and date picker worked out perfectly. The only ‘training' I needed for entering my time was learning the three different time codes that applied to me.
In my opinion, the easier it is to do, the easier it will be for project managers to get their team to enter time consistently. Maybe a fun company incentive will help too :) - feel free to get creative here.
I know this is probably the most basic thing a person can do within a project management solution, but starting with the basics is always good- I'll move on to the more fun stuff next time.
Janelle Abaoag, Project Insight
