Area 51 notes, May 5, 2011

Present: Simpkins, Peddie, Backus, Sax, Gianforte, Roy, Norris
We reviewed the AD updates, resulting in brief discussions about

  • maintenance coverage for Banner production server
  • printers/copiers
  • migrating our Emergency Notification System from Dell’s AlertFind to an as-yet-to-be-determined vendor

We then discussed a proposal to move away from Zoho and to an application called Roadmap (http://www.ppmroadmap.com/) for our LIS Project Directory.  One benefit of this would be to allow a sort of calendar/Gantt chart view of a project timeline, including the ability to “stack” project views and look at upcoming projects, which hopefully will allow us a better allocation of staff and financial resources.  Chris presented us with 4 options:
a) continue Zoho – export projects monthly into a paper-based Gantt chart view.
b) abandon Zoho – use a local or cloud spreadsheet with tabs for various statuses, etc.
c) abandon Zoho – use Roadmap, a web-based PM forecasting tool, which can either tie into Basecamp or operate independently.  Roadmap has a good reporting interface

Roadmap offers a refined reporting interface; allows custom attributes for each project (area; goal tie-in; etc.); and forecasting/Gantt charting.  The cost is reasonable.  Mike noted that, on some level, the specific system doesn’t matter as much as committment from ADs to regularly review and update the project directory

Decision: Roadmap seems like the appropriate choice – we can connect it to Basecamp later if we choose to do so.

We reviewed the LIS calendar and set draft agendas for managers meeting, all-staff meeting, goals/team reviews for May & June
Upcoming all-staff – Michael Geisler will present on the Languages Schools
Upcoming managers’ meeting – BL/LS prep
5/20 AD Retreat – continue strat planning
5/13 Goal/Team meeting – CANCEL – Mike is absent
5/20 Goal/Team meeting – Security Team discussion continued
5/27 Goal/Team meeting – Chris: present analytics

There will be no AD meeting next week, May 12, 2001.

Thanks for reading
Terry

3 thoughts on “Area 51 notes, May 5, 2011

  1. Chris

    Roadmap looks nice, but is there an easy way to have it show the status of projects to the public via a basic web interface?

    It would be good to have a projects page so people knew what LIS was doing, both long-term and short-term, that was pulled from something like Roadmap.

    Reply

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