Project Management

Although this isn't in production yet, there is a cool pim/project management software called Scalable Fabric.  I (Nancy) have been playing with it for my own projects and so far, it's done pretty well by me: Scalable Fabric Installer.msi

We've been looking into how the Libraries are and can use project management software. Most recently (10/20ish), we found we do have MS Project in the Libraries, but not MS Project Server. We looked through MS Project and it's still too sledgehammer-style for what we need. Brian will check into using Basecamp for his projects as a test.  Jason Fleming uses toDoList which is a free software that lets multiple users keep track of projects.  Jason also sent these as possibilities:

Eventum [http://eventum.mysql.org/]

Trac [http://trac.edgewall.org/]

Roundup [http://roundup.sourceforge.net/]

dotproject [http://www.dotproject.net/]

@task [http://www.attask.com/]

Project Insight [http://www.projectinsight.net/]

dotProject looks cool for syshelp/trouble ticket style projects and the others also look great for larger projects (meaning those that need resources other than people, like server time, installs and configs). Basecamp still looks best in terms of usability and accessibility, but it is hosted externally.

Rubric

The software options bring us to our rubric for choosing Project Management Software, which is based on the usefulness and applicability for the largest percentage of  library projects. In order to be useful and applicable, the software needs to be:

• Reliable
• Web Accessible, so anyone can access from anywhere
• Password protectable for editing and viewing, but with a generic read-only access that can be shared across the Libraries (for managerial and shared goverance access to information)
• User-friendly/Easy to use - either only having options that make sense for the project or being editable so that only those options show
• Easily maintainable by systems or by users alone

Activities:

• 10/15: Next meeting to discuss project management programs to see if they're worth pursuing for the libraries.  If anyone has any suggestions for this or something to investigate first, please share! Laurie wants to discuss possible people who could use these sorts of applications and then possibly plan to set up meetings with people and then set up individual meetings with folks to see if Library 2.0 stuff can help.
• 9/25: Laurie emailed Joe to see if the project management software would be useful for his work with shared goverance. It might be. Still looking for a best fit for a test case.
• 9/17: Emailed group to see what needs and interests are to go further.
• 9/13: Group meeting, 1-2pm in Brian's office. We discussed what Brian does and how project management style programs can help his HR-related work. It sounded as though they largely can't, but existing tools (like track changes in word, provided it will behave) probably can.

Resources

Test accounts on basecamp: http://uflibraries.updatelog.com

Group members:

Laurie, Brian Keith, Nancy Poehlmann, Amy Polk