SharedPlan Connect, April 19, 2005

"Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event."

– Oscar Wilde

Hello everyone,

The “perfectly uninteresting event” that we at SharedPlan celebrated this month is the anniversary of our first sale, which took place on April 1^st, 2004. It has been an unbelievable year since then, with remarkable monthly growth that keeps us thinking, “How long can this keep going?”

Our first customer purchased his copy on April Fool's Day, a highly unofficial holiday in the US. This made me curious about the origin of April Fool’s; maybe having our first sale on that date could be some kind of good (or bad) omen. I did some quick Internet research and found this site, where I learned that April Fool’s Day originated in Europe and that I can safely dispense with attaching any deeper meaning to our first sale occurring on that date. However, based on the wonderful reception that SharedPlan has enjoyed in the market, I look forward to future hearty celebrations every April Fool’s Day (and Poisson d’Avril, for that matter).

Stepping Out

One of our developers, Dave, recently traveled over to Europe to see some of the UK and France. I’m not going to bore you with a travelogue, but I was entertained by David’s approach to sightseeing. Before he visits a famous or historical site, he draws a picture of his preconceived vision of the site on a piece of paper (in this case, a Post-It Note). Here’s an example of one of his ‘visions.’

Of course, when he visited the actual site he learned that one is no longer allowed to sit in the middle of Stonehenge.

PM Resources

The following site is published by a project management consulting firm, but it contains plenty of useful information:

www.pmboulevard.com (requires free membership)

The following article on the site especially intrigued me. (Remember, this is a free members-only site, so you’ll need to join or log in before viewing the article.):

What’s Your Priority: Is It That The Job Gets Done, Or Is It How The Job Gets Done?

The author focuses on Carlos’ and Pat’s different styles or personalities as the root cause of their conflict. I was interested in the article for a different reason, however, because it actually highlights a key capability of SharedPlan Software. One of the core goals of SharedPlan tools is to enable more collaboration between team members like Carlos and Pat. What if Pat had created a plan for her project portion, then provided that to Carlos for incorporation into the overall plan?

The ability to share their different visions for project execution, and to negotiate an agreed-upon plan, is exactly what SharedPlan enables. For instance, Pat could create her subproject plan on SharedPlan Personal, and Carlos could import that into SharedPlan Professional. He could suggest some changes, based on other priorities or resource constraints, and export a revised subproject back to Pat.

New Workgroup Bundles

This interoperability between SharedPlan Personal and Professional editions described above is perfect for project workgroups, with managers using Professional and individual contributors or small team leaders using Personal. To help promote the adoption of that model, SharedPlan today announced the availability of bundled pricing for workgroups. You can view the news release on the topic here.

Thanks for reading,

Tracy

tracy@sharedplan.com