Intranet Project Management

[MadMango]

I'm curious about companies that use intranet sites to help manage Projects. I'd like to set one up for our engineering group.

Who maintains the page content?
How much time is involved on a monthly basis?
Can this be done as a collateral duty, or should someone be dedicated to the intranet?
What types of feedback have you gotten after implementing an intranet?

Thanks all.

 

[LordOfCode]

In our company we use Intranet and Extranet sites to manage projects.

We've got a Web Application called CDS (Software Development Control) whose purpose is to keep tracking of every single task of the project and time spent on every task. All engineers must do their tracking every day.

As we are a software development company, we ourselves give maintenance to site. But the content almost never changes. Sometimes we make improvements to the database arquitecture and to the business logic.

Once the intranet is build, most probably you won't need someone working on it every single day. I would dare to say that you just need someone to whom you can attend to when problems come out, if any.

Our Intranet application provides us with lots of information abouts costs, time and what people is doing every single day in any phase of the project.

The most difficult part is How do I use all this information? How do I interpret all this data? How do I predict how a project is going to behave with this? What can I learn from this data?

Appart of the CDS we also use another Intranet Application we call Infoshare. Is a documental Intranet for the CMM and ISO procedures and templates documentation.

It's very helpfull because all the company's procedures and document templates are always available for every single person in the company.

edalorzo@hotmail.com

 

[MadMango]

Thanks for the speedy reply [blue]LordOfCode[/blue]. We have a bunch of info on our Projects (we are a OEM Manufacturer), and they are kept on the network. The problem arises when people are looking for info, and the "gatekeeper" is not in the office.

I was thinking it would be rather simple to have templates set-up for each new Project. That way all info on each Project will be equally displayed and accessible.

I think I'll do some research on CDS and Infoshare.

 

[LordOfCode]

You will not find anything about the CDS or the Infoshare, because they're in-house applications.

However, I can see what you need is a documental Intranet, as the one we have with the Infoshare.

We developed infoshared based on the Sharepoint technology, which is a Microsoft Technoloy.

Visit this site for more info:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/sharepoint/default.asp

edalorzo@hotmail.com

 

[wits]

MadMango,

There are many tools that support the desired work you wish to pursue.

Primavera and Microsoft are likely best candidates.

Given your details, perhaps MS sharepoint and project servers your better options. There are a few vendors out there that will host for a fee.

Let me know if you need help locating one or more to compare.

dkwilliams@witsystems.com
dugger

 

[PDQBach]

Before doing any of the steps recommended above (and they are all very good recommendations) you need to look at your internal processes.

If things are complex now, bringing in a software package will only add an additional layer of complexity. The software packages bring the ability to manage large volumes of data; they do not bring order out of chaos.

Step 1: what do you want to control and what steps can you take to do that in your existing environment?

Step 2: do you have sufficient volume of information to justify a software package to manage the information volume?

Step 3: if you do bring in a package then it should be under the control of the PMO group. Support (backup, restore, rollouts, database recovery, etc.) is the responsibility of the IT group. End user use (data entry, extraction, reporting) is the responsibility of the PMO. Enhancements can (probably _should_) be handled as any other internal IT project.

Your enquiry suggests you haven't even completed step 1.

 

[MadMango]

I probably led a few people astray with my first post. It's not so much a "project data management" issue I'm trying to solve, but more a "project data distribution" issue.

In this regard I think an intranet would work well for a solution. Also, MS Sharepoint looks interesting as well.