Visual Project Management -- How to Get Things Done!
If you are not doing mass production, you are doing projects. Projects are lists of things that must be done to satisfy a customer. Usually the tasks need to be done in sequence. But mostly, projects need to be finished - On Time!
Visual Project Management (VPM) brings together the best of PERT/CPM, LEAN, Six Sigma and Critical Chain Project Management into a simple tool to manage projects. VPM-Lite is simple enough to manage many projects with just a touch. It is visual, so management is intuitive.
VPM works with aggressive estimates and an aggregated Project Buffer that protects the completion of the project (not the completion of individual tasks). For all projects, great or small, the Percent of Project Completion is plotted against the Percent of the Project Buffer Consumed on a Fever Chart. As long as the project status is in the Green Zone, it will complete on time. But when the project status gets in the Red Zone, management can be notified to take action to move the project back into the Green.
A Fever Chart shows the most recent status of each project on one page. Each project has its own Fever Chart that plots the history of a project over time. The Fever Chart creates a single priority system for all projects. Anyone can look at a Fever Chart and determine the priority of work. If too many Projects get in the Red Zone, VPM encourages you to Freeze some of the active projects and release them later when you have the resources to stay on track.
Features:
- Allows you to create project plans on your iPhone
- Allows you to email a project to your iPhone from your desktop
- Allows you to duplicate projects (or templates) for common projects
- Easy to move projects from “In Planning” to “In Progress”
- One Manager can track many, many projects with just a click for completed tasks
- VPM gives leading indicators early enough to allow corrective action before it is too late
- Active Projects can be Frozen (to relieve work overload) and restarted later
- Adequate data is provided to analyze completed projects