Programs are turning to online project management systems to improve collaboration and keep their work more organized. Tools such as Basecamp and Central Desktop offer effective, cloud-based project management to subscribers. While both are useful applications - LSNTAP has happily used Basecamp for close to three years - these services charge monthly fees that cash-strapped nonprofits may have trouble affording.
Thankfully, there is a free and effective project management tool emerging for non-profits. You may already be familiar with it: Google Apps.
Google Apps is already a popular online productivity suite for nonprofits. The main appeal of Google Apps is that it provides eligible 501(c)(3) organizations high-quality email, calendaring, and intranet services setup through their domain at no charge.
But how effective is project management in Google Apps? That really depends upon the sophistication of your current project management approach.
The Inbox Collaborators
Many organizations still rely primarily on their email inboxes to collaborate and stay on top of work. If that accurately describes your organization, then clearly Google Apps is an upgrade.
Google Apps allows for easy collaboartion via Google Docs and Sites. In most cases, some form of content - whether that's documents, presentations, spreadsheets, or website materials - is the ultimate output for a project team. Consequently, content collaboration is essential to any project management solution. We'll start there.
Google Docs: In Google Docs, users can build all sorts of content using Google's online applications, which work pretty well for most uses. Individuals who would prefer to stick wtih Office or WordPerfect for creating documents can utilize Google Docs as centralized storage place where material can be shared with a project team.
Docs also has decent revision history features that allow collaborators to monitor changes to a document and revert back to an earlier version if necessary. Unfortunately, this feature is currently not available in Docs for files uploaded in other formats - though you can get a revision history for unconverted documents using Google Sites.
Google Sites: Google Sites allows programs to go much further with online project management. In some ways, content collaboration works better in Google Sites. Revision control exists for both files created and converted with Google's tools and unconverted files from Office and WordPerfect.
In addition, Sites allows project teams to easily incorporate many of the features found in tools like Basecamp, Central Desktop or SharePoint. These features include task lists, calendars, announcement pages, and team directories. Pages within Sites can also be setup to creates project dashboards that provide a high-level snapshot of the project's status.
Veteran Project Managers
Organizations that already use advanced project management tools are likely already familiar with online collaboration spaces, version control, and other basic features. Can Google Apps provide simple, robust project management out of the box? No, but the addition of third-party apps through the recently launched Google Apps Marketplace can provide effective project management tools that integrate with the existing Apps productivity suite.
(More info coming soon.)
Online Resources for Google Apps
Google publishes a range of blogs related to their Apps platform. In addition to those, there are a number of bloggers devoted to examining and critiquing their services. Here is a list of official and unofficial sites covering Google Apps:
More LSNTAP resources on Google Apps:
