ICT Management > Managing ICT Projects

Online Collaboration Tools

By Lasa Information Systems Team

The Internet can be a useful way to collaborate on projects, especially when partners in the project are spread over a wide geographical area. Using the ICT Hub Suppliers directory as an example, this article discusses some of tools that are available, and our experience of using them.

The Suppliers Directory was a joint project between Lasa (based in London), Compumentor and NTEN (both based in the US). The directory built on an existing successful resource, Techfinder, originally developed by Compumentor and NTEN.

We took a close look at Techfinder and liked the functionality it offered. Collaboration with this project also had the potential for creating a global resource, with the main Techfinder application providing access to ICT suppliers to the not for profit sector all over the world, as well as country or region specific versions. 

There were several ways in which the existing Techfinder application could be improved, and we also needed some specific modifications to get an England – specific version that would work for the Voluntary and Community Sector here.

Given the very tight time scales to deliver an online directory of suppliers, and all the other work we were required to deliver for the ICT Hub (including the shiny new knowledgebase), piggy backing on an existing solution seemed like a sensible option.

We did some initial consultation with key stakeholders that were in place in the ChangeUp regions. The general feedback around using Techfinder as a platform was positive. But it became clear we’d need to do a lot of work on usability, particularly around the taxonomy Techfinder was using to classify the suppliers and services they offered.

Internet collaboration tools we used

Email

One of the first steps on the project was to consult with key stakeholders that were in place in the Change Up regions to find out what they thought about the Techfnder application and the things that could be improved for an England specific version.

This was mainly done via email but also via that well established technology – the telephone!

Understandably, Email was probably the most commonly used tool for communication and collaboration throughout the project. From the initial consultation to getting the project finally signed off, email was key.

Time Zones

Once the partnership agreements were signed off we were ready to get started. With Lasa based in London, a project manager for the technical development based in Geneva, Information Architect, our partners Compumentor, NTEN and the development team Exponent Partners based in San Francisco, and the application programmer based in Seattle, finding out what time it was elsewhere, and a mutually convenient time to meet online was a bit of a challenge. The World Clock proved to be a very handy tool!

Online meetings

Throughout the course of the project, the project team had regular fortnightly meetings as a group. The most convenient time proved to be around 5 pm British Summer Time, which was around 9 am Pacific Standard Time. This usually meant that our colleagues in the US were all bright and perky at the start of their day, whilst we in London and Geneva were definitely starting to flag! We tried a variety of Internet telephony and conferencing services:

Skype:

Skype uses a proprietary version of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and allows you to use your Internet connection to make voice calls. (There are many other VoIP services to choose from. For more on this subject see the knowledgebase article “Phone calls over the Internet?”). Practically everyone on the project already had Skype installed and an account set up, which was the main reason for choosing it. Skype can also be used for real time chat using your keyboard.

We found the free, Skype to Skype service was ok for keyboard chat or voice calls with one or two other people, but the sound quality proved somewhat inadequate for our purposes. So for the project team meetings we had to find another solution.

As you can see when other users are online, Skype did prove useful for quickly getting hold of individuals on the project. We often used it for voice calls and / or chat with the project managers in Geneva and San Francisco and the programmer in Seattle.

Free Conference

We then tried Free Conference. This service allows users to hold a voice conference by dialling into number charged at whatever your telephone provider’s rate for the call is. In our case, as this service is based in the US, it was the cost of a long distance call.

If you’re going to be making lots of this type of conference call, there is a paid for service which could work out cheaper. With the free service, long distance charges can obviously begin to stack up.

Costs can be reduced by using services like Telestunt or Skype (you need to buy Skype out credits to make cheaper calls to regular phone numbers), but it still wasn’t the most cost effective way of doing things, so we looked at yet another solution.

Ready Talk

Ready Talk is another service like Free Conference. As it happened, one of our partners already had a monthly subscription for a Ready Talk account. This meant that the rest of us could dial an 0800 number and dial into a conference for free. Prior to dialling in, the conference organiser sent everyone out an access code which we keyed in when prompted to after calling the Ready Talk number at the prearranged time.

Project Management

As the project team was spread over both sides of the big pond, meeting up in person wasn’t really practical so we relied on a couple of other Internet tools to do the business of managing various aspects the project. However, as with any project management tools it’s important to remember that they’re tools to help with the job of managing the project - they won’t actually manage the project for you!

Basecamp

Basecamp is a web based project management tool that has features including the ability to:

• Assign to-dos and tasks
• Post messages to the project group
• Get feedback on a task or issue (via a comments system and / or Writeboards)
• Share files so each member of the project team is working with the latest version of documents and other files
• Basic scheduling so project members can tell when tasks or milestones are due (or overdue!)

There’s a free basic version but the development company we were working with already had an account and simply set this up as another of the several projects they were managing.

The basic version doesn’t allow file sharing and has fewer features generally. With all versions, project members are set up with an account and log in to a website to access the tools.

At first, getting to grips with yet another completely new tool was confusing, and took a bit of getting used to. Once we’d got general agreement on how were all going to use Basecamp and familiarised ourselves with how the various features worked, things settled down and it worked reasonably well for us.

Examples of how we used Basecamp on this project include:

• Uploading various iterations of the design specification and usability testing documents for review
• Using the Writeboards to document discussions and track decisions on the Taxonomy
• Sending messages to all or part of the project group from a central point
• Using the comments system to comment on messages or discussions on the Writeboards
• Assigning or reassigning tasks to each other
• Arranging meetings and informing all members of the group of agenda, and dial up details for the online meetings

One big advantage of using Basecamp (or similar tools) is that rather than trawling through inboxes to find emails we could all go to one place for the information we needed. It’s also possible to subscribe to an RSS feed so that much of the information on the project can get pushed to you rather than you having to visit the project management website.

If you're prepared to sit through a brief bit of advertising, there's a nice video demo of how Basecamp can be used (requires Apple’s Quicktime plugin to view).

Other examples of web based project management tools include Dot project and Sugar CRM.

Squashing bugs

With any ICT project there are going to be issues and bugs that arise. The important thing is to have a robust way of managing the process of identifying, fixing, testing (and re fixing if necessary!) bugs as they arise.

Bugtracker.net

On this project, the programmer installed and set up Bugtracker.net, a free web-based bug or issue tracking tool written in ASP.NET (a scripting language). The software is licensed under the GNU General Public License so exact copies (i.e. no modifications) can be distributed freely.

Useful features of bugtracker.net (and similar tools) include:

• Assign bugs / issues to a particular person in the project team to deal with
• Prioritise bugs for fixing (e.g. mandatory, important, nice to have)
• Ability to subscribe to emails when bugs are changed or updated
• Audit trail of changes
• Search facility (e.g. we were able to search for bugs specifically related to the ICT Hub part of the project and exclude bugs that only related to Techfinder and other parts of the project)
• Export facility (e.g. create queries to pull out particular bugs such as those that are still open and export them into CSV format that can be read by a spreadsheet programme)

There are plenty of other bug tracking tools available including Mantis (an open source tool used on the knowledgebase project) and FogBugz (used on one of Lasa's Circuit Rider Projects). Generally you’ll need a bit of technical savvy and some web space to set them up but this isn’t usually a problem for developers.

Other examples

If you've had any experience of using online collaboration tools that you'd like to share, please let us know by adding a comment to this article.

The Organizers Tool Crib has an evolving list of all kinds of user rated tools including project management / collaboration tools.

The end?

The amount of intense programming time spent on the project amounted to about 3 months. A lot of the time prior to this was spent on developing and signing off partnership agreements, preparation, specification, tweaking, usability testing and other things not directly related to programming the application.

Now the online directory is up and running we can concentrate on managing the supplier listings and thinking about how the application can be tweaked and improved (additional funding permitting of course).

We hope that the directory will be a useful tool. Both for voluntary and community sector organisations looking for suppliers of ICT services, and suppliers wishing to provide high quality ICT services tailored to the sector's needs.

The Suppliers Directory is available at: www.suppliersdirectory.org.uk.