Project Management Software - Graphic design project management

- Graphic design project management
In this post, you can ref useful information about graphic design project management such as project management skills, project management tools, project management templates … If you need more assistant for graphic design project management, please leave your comment at the end of this post.
Other useful material for you: 64 free project management templates
Introduction to PM: What's So Great About Project Management

I. Contents of graphic design project management

===============

As client lists and project sizes grow, turning to project management software is a great way to stay organized by using to-do lists, calendars, collaboration, automated billing and more. There are many options available, each with a variety of features and prices, several of which are outlined below.

Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management package in which everything is managed through an online service, rather than downloadable software. This makes it a great tool for collaboration, as multiple users (such as subcontracted freelancers or even clients) can access the system from anywhere through a web browser. Ideas and project information are shared through to-do lists, milestones (important deadlines), messages (notes with comments), writeboards (shared text files), online chat, and file sharing. Project members are notified of changes and updates automatically. Several packages are offered, including a free option that allows one active project. The $49 per month “Plus” package gives you 3 GB of file storage, 35 active projects, chatting, SSL security, time tracking (which is tied to to-do items) and unlimited users. This prices Basecamp much higher than the flat-rate software competition.

===============

II. Project management videos

1. Top 10 Terms Project Managers Use

2. Introduction to Project Management Fundamentals

3. Project Management

III. Project management ppt

1. Project management

Project management from Satish Yadavalli

2. Project Management Concepts

Project Management Concepts (from PMBOK 5th Ed) from Jeremy Jay Lim

3. Project Management Basics

Project Management Basics from Tito Sierra

Other topics related to project management

• project management software
• project management tools
• project management methodologies
• project management training
• project management templates
• project management skills
• project management process
• project management life cycle
• project management system
• project management techniques
• project management phases
• project management certificate, degree
• project management cycle
• project management apps
• project management qualifications
• project management quotes
• project management examples
• project management terms

Top Project Management And Invoicing Tools For Designers - Graphic design project management

- Graphic design project management
In this post, you can ref useful information about graphic design project management such as project management skills, project management tools, project management templates … If you need more assistant for graphic design project management, please leave your comment at the end of this post.
Other useful material for you: 64 free project management templates
Introduction to PM: What's So Great About Project Management

I. Contents of graphic design project management

===============

Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. It is sometimes conflated with program management, however technically a program is actually a higher level construct: a group of related and somehow interdependent projects. Having a program management tool that you actually like using is pretty hard these days and finding a good list of applications from which to choose the one that fits best for you is also difficult.
As well as project management tools, a designer also needs invoicing tools in order to create and track payments and because sharing is caring and I’m the sharing type of guy, I’m offering you a list of the best and, let’s say, most appealing invoicing tools or applications that you can find on the net.

Project Plan 

Create and share your project plans online. Manage your work, keep projects on track and share plans with others.
Sign up today and your first 30 days will be free.

Basecamp

Trusted by millions, Basecamp is the leading web-based project collaboration tool. Share files, meet deadlines, assign tasks, centralize feedback, make clients smile.
For years project management software was about charts, graphs, and stats. And you know what? It didn’t work. Pictures and numbers don’t get projects done. Basecamp tackles project management from an entirely different angle: A focus on communication and collaboration. Basecamp brings people together.

activeCollab

activeCollab is a project management & collaboration tool that you can set up on your own server or local network. Work with your team, clients and contractors in an easy to use environment, while keeping full control over your data.
Now improved with Invoice and Source Modules.

OpenProj

OpenProj is a free, open source project management solution. OpenProj is a replacement of Microsoft Project and other commercial project solutions. The OpenProj solution has been download more than 1,250,000 times in the few months since launch and is being used in over 142 countries. A free download of OpenProj is available here and is distributed under the CPAL license. OpenProj is ideal for desktop project management and is available on Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows. It even opens existing Microsoft or Primavera files. OpenProj shares the industry’s most advanced scheduling engine with Project-ON-Demand and provides Gantt Charts, Network Diagrams (PERT Charts), WBS and RBS charts, Earned Value costing and more.

Collabtive

Collabtive is web-based project management software.The project was started in November 2007. It is Open Source software and provides an alternative to proprietary tools like Basecamp. Collabtive is written in PHP and JavaScript. Collabtive is intended for small to medium-sized businesses and freelancers. We offer commercial services for installation and customization of Collabtive. It can also be installed on an internal server as well as in the cloud. All major browsers like Internet Explorer (7/8), Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome are supported.
It is developed by a team of professional volunteers. Everyone involved is a pro in their respective areas, providing high quality contributions to the project.

Feng Office

Feng Office allows businesses to manage project tasks, billing, documents, communication with co-workers, customers and vendors, schedule meetings and events, and share every kind of electronic information.
Feng Office can be used in one of two ways: Feng Sky and Feng Onsite. When you sign up for the Feng Sky or Feng Onsite service you get unlimited user support, continuous software updates, exclusive plug-ins, training and consulting material, and more. No license fees are charged

Trac Open Source

Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects. Trac uses a minimalistic approach to web-based software project management. Our mission is to help developers write great software while staying out of the way. Trac should impose as little as possible on a team’s established development process and policies.

Copper

Copper is an online project and task management software for creative teams, centralising your projects, clients, contacts, and documents in a single location. Copper becomes an indispensable Software-as-a-service (SAAS) tool for your team.
Like Apple, Sony Pictures, and Coca Cola, use Copper for more efficent team project processes, allow client’s to login for collaborative decision making, or simply get the upper hand on your own workload.

Liquid Planner

Online project management software for scheduling, collaboration, and time-tracking in one easy package. The result for your team: fewer meetings, less e-mail, less re-work and more project wins.

GoPlan

Goplan lets you keep track of your projects and collaborate with your colleagues securely through an intuitive user interface.

ProjectPier

ProjectPier is a Free, Open-Source, self-hosted PHP application for managing tasks, projects and teams through an intuitive web interface. ProjectPier will help your organization communicate, collaborate and get things done Its function is similar to commercial groupware/project management products, but allows the freedom Learn More »
and scalability of self-hosting.

ClockingIT

ClockingIT is a free Project Management solution, which helps your team stay focused and on top of things. It was created by Erlend & Ellen Simonsen, with contributions from a range of other people.
The project was started while Erlend was working as a consultant, and needed a way to keep track of how much time was spent per client and project. Earlier attempts in .NET and Java took too long or became too complex for one programmer to complete in a reasonable amount of time, but when Ruby On Rails was announced things started progressing nicely.

Subernova

Subernova is a project management tool that makes you more productive by taking the stress out of remembering important details of your projects, lets you track time, send invoices and estimates, collaborate with others and keeps your business smooth by keeping tabs on late payments, deadlines and more.

Klok

Your time is your product. Every minute you spend working that goes unaccounted for is like giving away your product for free. Tracking your time accurately is essential to staying profitable.
In addition, knowing how much time you spend on past projects, can allow you to better estimate future projects. Do you know how much time you spend in meetings? On the phone? Promoting yourself? Making sales calls?
Keep track of anything with Klok’s simple work timer and visual display of how your days “fill up”.

Huddle

Huddle gives you a secure online space to connect, share and work with other people. Huddle is hosted, there’s no software to download and it’s free to get started. With Huddle you can: manage projects, share and store files online, create and edit documents online, have group discussions, unlimited users.

LessTimeSpent

As a freelancer your time is how you make money. You must be dilligent in tracking and billing for this hours. Minor lapses in time tracking will cost you thousands at the end of the year. Not only track your time but record what you accomplished during those times.

Ta-da List
Ta-da List is the web’s easiest to-do list tool. Make lists for yourself or share them with others. It couldn’t be simpler.

Remember the milk

Remember the Milk allows users to create multiple task lists. Added tasks can be edited to include (or not) various fields; locations can be added, and an integrated Google Maps feature allows users to save commonly-used locations. Tasks can also be organized by tags. Tasks can be postponed, and Remember the Milk will inform users of the number of times that that task has been postponed.

Remember the Milk features the capability to manage tasks while offline. This feature is built upon the Gears software (formerly Google Gears). When a user reconnects to the internet their Remember the Milk account is updated to include offline changes. Events are stored online, so in the case of a user’s hard drive failure, no data is lost. The application supports publishing one’s tasks as an RSS news feed. It can export iCalendar files (.ics). Multiple task categories can be added and shared, allowing various levels of permissions for the users. This enables collaboration and sharing of schedules between groups or families.

TaskBin

In TaskBin you are always part of a group (or maybe multiple groups). These groups define the context of the tasks. Once you are a part of a group, the other group members can add tasks to your list or edit it. So in a sense, all your tasks are “shared”. TaskBin is not like a calendar or a scheduler, and there is no need to enter specific dates. Tasks can have the following priorities: Now, Today, Tomorrow, Sometime This Week and Sometime Soon. All your tasks have email notifications, which can be turned off. The application is ideal for work with cross location teams and has great support for multiple time zones. At one glance, you can see what is happening in your group, what was recently added/updated, what is due today, etc. This makes it a great company/team management tool.

Lighthouse

No matter where you are, we have the tools to keep you up to date on your project. Browse tickets using our slick iPhone optimized interface, manage tickets through our robust email system, or use your feed reader to subscribe to feeds.
Lighthouse’s email integration is a thing of beauty – you can do just about everything with a simple reply. Need to reassign a ticket to John in accounting from your BlackBerry? Reply to the email notification with your message and [responsible:John] and you’re done!

Springloops

Springloops is a unique source code management tool focused on web development teams. It allows you to code in parallel and share your code safely concentrated on results, not on lost changes or overwritten files. You get rapid collaboration in protected space. Thanks to the project management perspective it serves the getting things done attitude. Moreover, Springloops reduces repeatable activities in your day-to-day work.

Action Method

Action Method Online is a radically different approach to productivity, designed to simplify project management and life.
All of life can be divided into “projects” – the categories we use in our minds to separate and make sense of what we need to accomplish (e.g. “the party I’m planning,” “client X,” “event Y,” “finances”). The Action Method helps you manage your projects starting with the most basic elements – always with an emphasis on action.

CreativePro Office

CreativePro Office is well suited for both independent professionals and small teams of graphic designers, programmers and web developers.

Jumpchart

Use Jumpchart to quickly plan out the navigation of your site by adding pages, and sub-pages. If you change your mind, easily drag pages to new spots within the site hierarchy. There is no better way to organize the content for your website.

fourteenDayz

Brains4All products apply the “simplest thing that could possibly work” routine. No annoying features you’ll find in other time tracking software that get in your way. Instead, use only the options you really need.

Staction

Staction is a fast way to stay in touch with your co-workers. Since communication, time-tracking, and file sharing all happen in one spot, Staction makes it easy to work, and collaborate. While many productivity apps rely on different pages to denote content types, – Staction uses tags, -making it faster and easier to use.

Task.fm

Task.fm is a reminder tool. Use it to create sms, email or twitter reminders. Task.fm can understand your natural language like “meeting with bob next tuesday at 9am”, so you don’t need to enter dates and times manually.

Comindwork

Assign tasks, share files, discuss ideas, involve clients. Zero-investment and flexible pay-as-you-go pricing. Secure and reliable SaaS platform. Fully customizable.

Invoicing Tools

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a product of the software company 2ndSite Inc. which is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is an online invoicing software as a service made for freelancers, small businesses, agencies, and professionals. The product includes a myriad of other related features, such as time tracking, expense tracking, recurring billing, online payment collection, the ability to mail invoices through the U.S. Post, and support tickets.

Simply Invoices

Simply Invoices was created by roobasoft, LLC: A one man shop focusing on applications I’m passionate about. As a contractor, I developed Simply Invoices because it was a product I needed. The existing solutions didn’t have the integration with Basecamp that I wanted and most were too complex. So Simply Invoices was born.

Less Accounting

All of the small business accounting features are essential, intuitive and simplistic. With Less Accounting you can easily send professional business proposals, track invoices online, manage your contacts and a number of other basic small business accounting techniques

The Invoice Machine

The Invoice Machine takes a new clever approach to online invoicing. It’s beautiful and simple-to-use interface makes producing professional looking invoices a very pleasant experience.
The Invoice Machine is ideal for freelancers and businesses who want an easy way to manage, create and send their invoices. It’s great for anyone who has a service or product to sell.

Intuit

Intuit Billing Manager is the fast, easy, FREE way to Get Paid. Create customized, professional invoices and send them by email. Save time by tracking overdue payments and invoice status — all in one place.

BillingOrchard

BillingOrchard utilizes the familiar interface of a web site, along with the basic knowledge of accounting that any small business owner understands. That basic knowledge is: billing for services equals income. BillingOrchard will streamline your invoicing, allowing you to focus on your business rather than paperwork.

Blinksale

Blinksale is perfect for anyone who needs to invoice clients for services or products sold. Blinksale is an excellent choice for attorneys, accountants, designers, IT professionals, software developers, journalists, contractors, engineers, architects, videographers, and more.

MarketCircle

Your invoices should reflect your professionalism. Billings combines powerful features with stylish designs so you can send elegant invoices right out of the box. Choose from any of the customizable templates, or create your own with the built-in WYSIWYG designer. Either way you’ll send polished professional invoices in seconds.

InvoicePlace

Keep track of the health of your business by taking control of your billing. Multi-currency support means you can manage all of your customers all over the world in the one location.

PaySimple

PaySimple provides an on-demand Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that enables small businesses to bill, collect, and manage their customer payments under one user-friendly system.

WORKetc

WORKetc is a single software solution to run your entire business. It combines CRM, Projects, Billing, Documents, Time sheets and more with a powerful automation engine to help take your small business to the next level. The only complete small business management software solution.

Time 59

Time59 is time and billing software that runs in your web browser. It keeps track of your hours, generates client invoices, records payments, and maintains client balances. You can access your Time59 account from any computer with a web browser, as well as many mobile devices. Getting started is easy. No installation is required

Bill4Time

Whether you are a law firm, a small business, or a consultant, Bill4Time is your software for invoicing, time, and billing. It gives your business the advantage to succeed

ProfitTrain

Invoice from Kedisoft

Invoice is a full-featured invoice application for SOHO or business users. It has been designed from scratch to use the power and beauty of the Mac OS, while making life as easy as possible for its users.
Since Invoice was designed purely for OSX, it is not simply a port from another platform, unable to take full advantage of the OSX operating system. Invoice uses it ALL.

Harvest

Harvest lets you and your staff track time, log expenses, and create invoices in one simple, integrated workflow. Set yourself or your team up on Harvest in just a few minutes, and instantly start tracking time and expenses. Use the Harvest graphical reports to see the distribution of your company’s resources in a visual, intuitive way. Quickly create an invoice, and with just a single click, bill your client. You’ll see your revenue come in faster with Harvest. Give Harvest a try and improve your business today.

===============

II. Project management videos

1. Top 10 Terms Project Managers Use

2. Introduction to Project Management Fundamentals

3. Project Management

III. Project management ppt

1. Project management

Project management from Satish Yadavalli

2. Project Management Concepts

Project Management Concepts (from PMBOK 5th Ed) from Jeremy Jay Lim

3. Project Management Basics

Project Management Basics from Tito Sierra

Other topics related to project management

• project management software
• project management tools
• project management methodologies
• project management training
• project management templates
• project management skills
• project management process
• project management life cycle
• project management system
• project management techniques
• project management phases
• project management certificate, degree
• project management cycle
• project management apps
• project management qualifications
• project management quotes
• project management examples
• project management terms

PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR GRAPHIC DESIGN - Graphic design project management

- Graphic design project management
In this post, you can ref useful information about graphic design project management such as project management skills, project management tools, project management templates … If you need more assistant for graphic design project management, please leave your comment at the end of this post.
Other useful material for you: 64 free project management templates
Introduction to PM: What's So Great About Project Management

I. Contents of graphic design project management

===============

A good system for budgeting and tracking projects is absolutely essential for every graphic design firm. However, the process of finding the software that's most appropriate for you can be very confusing. There are lots of competing project management systems out there and each has different strengths and weaknesses. This research guide will help you sort through the options by asking some key questions and sharing comparative information about several of the systems currently available.

What services do you provide?

Your business processes and tools must be a good match to the services you're selling. In the area of project management, some resources are rather generic. This means that many of them are not a good fit to creative firms. For example: If you visit any large bookstore, you'll find paperbacks with very broad guidelines for planning and managing projects in a corporate environment. If you conduct an online search, the results will include very general software packages like Microsoft Project, which is not generally used by graphic design firms.

In contrast, there are tools and practices that are very specific to certain industries. For example, software systems such as Deltek Vision and Axium Ajera have been specifically developed for the daily management of architecture and engineering firms, where projects tend to be quite complex, with very long time frames and many interdependencies.

For managing the daily operations of traditional advertising agencies, there are software systems such as Advantage or ValueClick Mediaplex/AdWare. These systems have been tailored to meet specialized needs such as monitoring client retainers, managing large media contracts and tracking groups of insertion orders.

There's a certain amount of overlap between the advertising and design communities-some ad agencies sell design services and some design firms also do advertising. Because of this, a number of software systems are actively marketed to both communities. Several such systems are included in a comparative product information table.

In the design community, there are also variations in the project management needs of individual disciplines such as print, interactive and product design.

With all of these variations in mind, you will want to find a system that's a very close fit to the work you do.

Are you an in-house department or an independent consultancy?

This is another very important distinction. Many in-house design departments don't prepare proposals for their clients, so they don't need an estimating capability. Many don't bill for their services, so they don't need invoicing functionality. In-house departments are not involved in the overall financial management of the organization, so they don't need a fully functioning accounting module (referred to as a general ledger).

Something that in-house departments definitely do need is an efficient intake process. In companies where recurring projects are quite similar to each other (that is to say, easily definable and repeatable), there may also be an emphasis placed on finding ways to automate portions of the workflow. Systems such as Agency Central (also sold as Robohead) have been developed for standardizing in-house production processes and efficiently managing the related digital files.

In contrast, independent design firms face a different set of business challenges. The nature of each project varies, which makes production processes less subject to automation. Also, full accounting functionality is an important issue: Design firms must have an efficient way to control their finances and produce their own accrual-based balance sheets and profit and loss statements every month.

What are your management needs?

When shopping for a software system to manage the business side of things, you have to be clear about the functions you want included. Depending on whom you're talking to, “project management” could include some or all of the following:

• Customer relationship management (CRM), with detailed contact tracking, mailing lists and reminders for follow-up activities
• Estimating through billing-meaning initial project budgeting, the tracking of actual time and materials as work is being done, comparing actuals to estimates and preparing invoices to clients
• Accounting, including overall financial management and reporting for the entire company
• Resource management, including the scheduling of individual tasks within projects, assigning work to specific resources, tracking work status and milestones, managing company-wide traffic and optimizing workflow
• A newer category that's somewhat separate from those listed above is group collaboration, which involves use of an extranet to facilitate communication and digital asset management. Standalone systems have been developed specifically for group collaboration, such as Basecamp from 37Signals.

As you can see, this is quite a long list. So what's the best way to meet this wide range of business needs? Some firms decide to use separate software in each area. Others seek a more comprehensive system that combines some or all of them. The best approach for you depends, in part, on the size of your firm. This leads to the next question:

How large is your organization?

Size is a very important factor in determining which system is the best match to your situation.

Small

Many graphic design firms are small, with less than 10 employees. Small studios can often get by with a manual system, supplemented with a spreadsheet application and email. When choosing business software, the first priorities for a small firm will be: better estimating, better time tracking, more efficient billing and better management of money. At this scale, more advanced software for detailed task scheduling, status reports, resource management and group collaboration will usually not be needed because these issues are being coordinated offline. For most small studios, a comprehensive software system would require too much daily effort just to keep it current.

Mid-size

As design firms grow beyond 10 employees, they experience a series of growing pains. Project management is one of them. The workload expands to include more projects and, with any luck, projects of larger scope. More people will be involved, and the firm will transition from a single creative team to multiple teams. This makes it important to sort out the hats and be more specific about individual staff responsibilities. At some point, at least one position will be created that's dedicated to project management full time, and that person will be one of the primary users of a specialized project tracking system.

This brings us to a common mistake: If you own a growing firm and already know your way around a database program like FileMaker, you might be tempted to create your own project tracking system from scratch. Don't do it! There's really no need-other people have already solved this problem for you (and, yes, some of them used FileMaker). In mid-size firms, it's typical for the planning and tracking system to be used only up to the point of drafting client invoices. Then, key information must jump to the general ledger program being used by the bookkeeper (typically Quickbooks, MYOB or Peachtree/Sage). There might be a one way link to make it easier to export project data, but it's also common for data to be posted separately to each system, which can make it difficult to keep them in synch. If you want to see the current totals on a big project, don't be surprised if each system gives you a different answer.

Large

As you grow toward 20 people and beyond, you'll definitely want to combine as many business activities as possible into one comprehensive system. The larger the firm, the stronger the need for an integrated system that can handle many simultaneous users, multiple business units, perhaps even multiple offices. Your overall traffic, resource management and accounting needs will gradually become more complex. You'll want a system that can easily scale up to keep pace with your continued growth.

What systems are available?

OK, now that we have a basic profile of your organization, we're ready to start researching systems that might meet your business needs. There are lots of project management applications currently available. Be cautious: Some of these are no more than simple stopwatches, diagramming tools or invoice templates. To cut through the confusion, we'll concentrate on systems that meet a broader range of needs. The table that accompanies this article compares 12 of them. Four have built-in accounting functionality and eight do not.

As you look through this information, keep a few things in mind:

History

Each product has a different history. Some have been around for a while and others are brand new. Some come directly from software companies. Others were developed first at a design firm or a web shop in order to meet internal needs. Only later were they offered for sale to other firms. If the internal investment was significant, this is a way for the studio to recoup some of its development costs.

Accounting

Programming a proper general ledger is very labor intensive and requires a significant amount of accounting expertise. That's why systems from design firms and independent FileMaker developers stop short of a general ledger. They need to be used in conjunction with a standard accounting package purchased elsewhere.

Purchase vs. subscription

The project management system you select has to fit your budget. Some are sold outright for a one-time purchase price. Others are offered as a monthly online subscription. In both instances, the amount you pay will vary based on the number of simultaneous users that you have. Call the provider to ask about this. The minimum purchase price may be for a single user or it may be for a group of a specified size.

User support

In most instances, the basic price will include phone support during the initial setup and orientation period. After that, you may have to rely on email and the “frequently asked questions” section of the provider's website unless you pay an additional fee.

Customization

Most of these companies allow for some customization of their systems. They charge for programming services on either an hourly or a fixed-fee basis. Unless you have a really pressing need, however, it's wise to be cautious about this. In the future, each time you upgrade to a newer version of the software, any past customization may have to be redone.

Test drives

Take the time to test drive each system-many have an online demo available. Apart from differences in functionality, you'll see variations in quality for both visual design and interaction design.

Checking references

It's a good idea to speak with other firms using the system you're considering. Ask if they're happy with the choice they made, and if the system was easy to get up and running. This leads to one more question:

What's required for a successful implementation?

Choosing a system is just the start. A fair amount of time and effort will be required for successful implementation. The initial set-up process often involves rethinking of your business procedures. You'll need to become familiar with the new reports available to you (if you're using one of the larger systems, there may be quite a few). Getting comfortable with the right set of daily, weekly and monthly reports will help you make better management decisions. Staff members who'll be using the system need to be brought up to speed as well with training and encouragement. Lastly, make sure there's no backsliding. When the first spike in your client workload comes along, don't give in to the temptation to do things the old way. Going forward, you must have an unwavering commitment to using the new system fully and consistently- if you're ever going to gain maximum benefit.

===============

II. Project management videos

1. Top 10 Terms Project Managers Use

2. Introduction to Project Management Fundamentals

3. Project Management

III. Project management ppt

1. Project management

Project management from Satish Yadavalli

2. Project Management Concepts

Project Management Concepts (from PMBOK 5th Ed) from Jeremy Jay Lim

3. Project Management Basics

Project Management Basics from Tito Sierra

Other topics related to project management

• project management software
• project management tools
• project management methodologies
• project management training
• project management templates
• project management skills
• project management process
• project management life cycle
• project management system
• project management techniques
• project management phases
• project management certificate, degree
• project management cycle
• project management apps
• project management qualifications
• project management quotes
• project management examples
• project management terms