What are the best ways for creative agencies to handle project management?

Our agency recently grew from two people to eight. Of course, growing pains are to be expected. As the owner/operator/project manager/creative director, I am doing what I can to help keep projects moving efficiently. People asked for more organization, which we gave them. Now they are asking for more.

We have a project board that follows our creative process. That works great for the big projects, but now it seems as though the small projects are throwing off the big ones. I'd like to take our project management online, but am wondering what tools have worked best -- and most consistently -- for teams of our size? I have a feeling we will be rolling our own project management tool that follows our processes, but would like some other suggestions too.

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scrumworks

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November 19, 2007

Posted by bahellman

4 stars ( 2 ratings )

Have you been trained in Scrum? Scrum is by far the best way to run a project. Whether it be technical or creative.

I suggest using ScrumWorks, About scrumworks from the product overview page: "ScrumWorks Basic Edition is an Agile process automation tool that enables teams to self-organize and maximize productivity. ScrumWorks Basic is based on the Scrum process, a leading Agile development framework, and can be applied across industries including software development, engineering, marketing and sales, and new product development."

http://www.danube.com/scrumworks/basic

To learn more about Scrum: http://www.controlchaos.com/

Comments

bretvh: I just did some reading on it. While I do agree with and like the concept, I'm not sure it will work with our organization, as everyone is usually working on several projects at once. Some of these projects are bigger, longer-term ones, but others are small projects. With such a small production team (4-6 of the 8 people total), I'm not sure how well this model would work. Am I missing something with Scrum?

November 19, 2007

Posted by Jr2inla

3 stars ( 2 ratings )

we used basecamp when growing our agency. It doesnt have ms project type detail but it's very easy to use, visual and fast and cheap. It's also 100% online.

November 20, 2007

Posted by True-Solutions

2 stars ( 1 rating )

Obviously, MS Project is a bit overkill for you. I would suggest one of the great free project management applications online. Zoho Projects (http://projects.zoho.com) is really nice and is comparable to SharePoint in many ways. You can share documents, assign tasks, perform time tracking, etc.

Zoho Projects is free for some basic use (1 project, small storage space) and then goes from $5 to $80 per month.

Tim Bergmann
True Solutions Inc.

Comments

bahellman: Tim, can you talk about how your product compares/relates to scrum?
True-Solutions: nverfollow,

Zoho Projects is not a TSI (True Solutions Inc.) product. I was just suggesting it as a possible solution in response to this question.

So, I wouldn't really be in a position to make a good comparison.

November 19, 2007

Posted by MarkPhillips

1 stars ( 2 ratings )

Vertabase 4 (our product) is used by tons of creative firms your size. It does a great job at managing big and small jobs.

There's a free trial of the project management software on the site at http://www.vertabase.com.

Comments

bahellman: Is there an online demo?
MarkPhillips: There's a detailed screenshot tour. And there are videos in the free trial which can demo the functionality. The only thing you need for the trial is name, email and company.
Adenar: I do agree, that scrum is a good managing method. We practice Scrum in <a http://www.wrike.com/blog/8/12/2007/Scrum_in_Wrike__making_software_development_more_agile>Wrike</a>. It's an agile tool for collaboration and management. My whole team love it. So do my clients.

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