Effective Project Management Using An Internal Web Site

by Brian Batson

Communication of project status, progress and plans is one of the greatest management challenges in a growing, evolving project team. We have developed and been successfully using a variety of tools for providing up to date information on the company's internal web site.

In the early stages of a large project, the flow of information can be overwhelming. New teams work on new ideas often in an environment that requires new processes for efficient product development. As the project matures, the team grows to expect and depend upon a consistent, accessible set of communications tools.

We experimented with and have adopted many techniques oriented around the company's internal web site. Tools such as html and perl allowed us to very conveniently share project and product information amongst all the team members. The web has become a natural place to search for information and the tools allow everyone to participate.

Here are some examples:

• Task descriptions - the big picture and fine details of how much work there was
• Feature sets - what the product would contain at what stage of release
• Monthly milestones - month by month expected completed tasks and status
• Online documentation - software descriptions, reference manuals
• Project operations - meeting times, newsgroups, teams, etc.
• Weekly status reporting - consolidated report across all teams
• On-line jobs - help us get internal referals
• Issues tracking - keeping up with all the details
• Product deliverables status - where we are in development
• Time reporting - accounting for development time

We are actively using the web as one of our most important project tools. New information and uses are constantly appearing. Team communications are certainly improved.

• How a large software development team has effectively used internal web based communications for project tracking.
• Techniques for automating project management with HTML tools
• Ideas for where to apply these techniques in your own projects and how to involve the team