Better Online Project Management With BaseCamp

In my last post on project management I mentioned how you can use blogs as a great project documentation, organization and collaboration tool. Today I am going to talk about a web service that has been built just for project management by the guys at 37signals called Basecamp.

Features

As you would expect from a tool built to aid project managements, there are features for discussion, collaborative documents, project tasks and scheduling, plus you can create users with appropriate permissions.

Pricing

There are various pricing levels, starting with a limited version at $0 (my favorite price!). You can do a lot with the free service, in fact you might not need more in a small one-off project. The main limitation is you only get two Writeboard documents, which isn’t too much of a restriction really. Depending on how many simultaneous projects you have on the go you could get away with the next level up which is only $12 a month and is well worth it considering what you get for the money. You can stop paying at any time, there are no minimum contracts.

RSS Subscriptions

An especially nice feature is your team members can subscribe to various feeds to keep up to date, plus there is a shared calendar that works very well with iCal. A huge part of project organization is getting everyone clued up on the latest changes and milestones so this works very well.

Messaging

There is basic messaging built in to the system. If keeping track of who said what becomes a burden, one additional service that I have heard good things about but have yet to try is HighRise. It’s a CRM and message tracking service from the same people that integrates with Basecamp projects.

One Problem

You might tell already I am a big fan of Basecamp. It just works and you don’t have to spend ages explaining to people how to get around and do what they need to do. That said, now I have used it for a while, there is one big limitation, and that is with the project milestones feature.

When I first checked out Basecamp I was expecting to be able to do away with Microsoft Project. Unfortunately if you want to do a good job of a decent sized project, I think Basecamp is a great addition to but not replacement for the Microsoft product.

For example, critical to good project planning is being able to take account of what order tasks have to happen in. Dependencies can have a massive impact on both timing and outcome. The ability to run tasks in parallel shortens project length while knowing this can’t be done until that is completed is vital. With only milestones and to-do lists you could be missing a key piece of information so the project chart is only useful for sharing what you have already worked out in Project or on paper if you are really old-school.

Other Options?

I’m told there are open source alternatives, and at least one competitor, which I really ought to investigate, perhaps they have a solution for this deficiency. While I am disappointed in that one aspect, I have to say when working on a project with a distributed team I would not want to be without the service.

Over to You

What tools or services do you use for online project management? How do you get around the lack of dependencies? Let me know in the comments …

Posted on September 11, 2007 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Productivity, Series

Comments

7 Responses to “Better Online Project Management With BaseCamp”

  1. onlineanjali on September 13th, 2007 8:36 am

    We use TaskBin to achieve transparency, a tool which helps us manage projects and tasks in a group environment It started with our quest in the early days for a light weight team management tool. Since we weren’t satisfied with the one’s available we just went ahead and built one from scratch!! you might just want to drop in and give it a try… and give us your valuable feedback…

    Thanks

  2. Chris Garrett on September 20th, 2007 12:04 pm

    Interesting, the tool is called TaskBin?

  3. frank mas on September 25th, 2007 2:55 pm

    Chris, we use Wrike (http://www.wrike.com) to manage our projects. I totally agree with you. Basecamp is a nice addition, but tracking plans in several tools takes too much time.
    We manage projects in Wrike and schedule tasks on its a time line. This time line is a really great thing! When I create a task, it immediately appears on a time line. When I reschedule plans, my team members are notified about it.
    I also like the feature that allows me to create tasks via email, this saves me time significantly.
    Actually, you can plan projects from the ground and easily adjust existing plans to the changed conditions in Wrike. You might be interested in a professional review of the tool: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/134816/project_management_lite_basecamp_and_wrike.html
    I hope, you will enjoy it. By the way, Wrike has the free version.

  4. Brian on October 1st, 2007 2:38 am

    I rolled out Robohead (http://www.robohead.net/) to a team of approx. 50 people and had great success with it. It is not as cheap as these other tools, but has a good deal of sophistication and is especially well suited to creative and marketing environments. I highly recommend it!

  5. JC on October 8th, 2007 4:05 pm

    Chris,

    Thanks for the link! Since we use OnStage to manage our consulting projects, we are always working on improving the way OnStage handles tasks and milestones. When you do get a chance to try our site, make sure you drop me a note with your comments.

  6. Don on September 16th, 2008 12:21 am

    a great alternative to basecamp is SantexQ – http://www.santexq.com. it’s free, easy to use and perfect for straightforward online project management. my office uses it and it is a huge help.

  7. Steve on January 21st, 2009 2:44 am

    You can also try Manymoon, it’s free:

    http://www.manymoon.com

    With Manymoon you can:
    * Managed private and shared To Do Lists and Projects.
    * Upload documents and add them to tasks and projects.
    * Integrate with Google Docs and Google Calendar.
    * Automatically convert emails into tasks.
    * Twitter-like feature to let people know what you are working on.

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