A while back I was brainstorming ideas for a project to keep me occupied during the break. I'm a big fan of brainstorming and mindmaps, so I opened up MindManager (great program by the way) and started stormin' away. Things were going well, and soon I had a few solid leads that I wanted to follow. Being the indecisive person that I am, I asked a mate for some opinions on the leads I had and to add any thoughts he had.
He didn't have MindManager, and I didn't want to do it via clunky email, so I thought, hey, let's use one of those collaborative web 2.0 mindmapping sites! (It was a real lightbulb moment, I tell ya.) I uploaded the MindManager file on to MindMeister, set collaboration rights, and away we went. Or so we thought - the collaboration feature was still a bit half-baked back then, so it wasn't much better than emailing.
I downloaded the mindmap back into MindManager (so I can use it when I don't have net access), and started planning the lead I had chosen. Now, as good as MindManager is, it really doesn't cut it for me when it comes to project management (unless integrated with Project or Outlook, which I didn't want to do).
Without any other project management tool on my computer (and I didn't want to resort to Excel), I looked online. There were the usual ones, including Basecamp, goplan, huddle etc.
Thinking that this was a real hassle, and a bit of forward thinking told me it was only going to be harder, I realised I had discovered a real issue when it comes to executing projects. There is no service available out there that provides a complete feedback loop for a project, from the brainstorming and development stages, to the delivery and customer feedback stages, and all the way back to the starting stages for version 2.
The only solutions out there only solve parts of the loop - e.g. MindMeister for brainstorming, Basecamp for project management, kluster for crowdsourcing and feedback, maybe ning for a social network/forums, wordpress for a blog, the list goes on - but none that integrate the entire loop together. But that's the way it should be - integrated. Ideas that were brainstormed and accepted should appear on the project todo list, feedback from a prototype should flow back to the brainstorm and management stages for improvement, and frequent problems reported in forums should be added to the planning stages for resolution in the next version. We shouldn't have to jump through hoops to be organised - it should be done for us. And users should feel like they're part of the process, not a victim of the numerous systems in play to solicit feedback which probably gets lost anyway.
In other words, its crowdsourcing meets project management. And for those who have been reading, yes, I called this project, loopboard.
Features could include:
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Brainstorming
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Mindmapping
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Whiteboards
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Lists
You could make it so you can insert 'dynamic' sections into your mindmap/whiteboard, so say, the top 10 bugs are visible and become part of your planning process automatically. Or maybe a dynamic section with the top 10 news items from your competitors.
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Project management
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Milestones
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Goals
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To-do
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File-sharing
Maybe even integrate with basecamp via their APIs for this. Be able to selectively make things public so not all your plans are revealed if necessary.
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Crowdsourcing
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user profiles
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friends
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roles in projects
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fans of projects
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skills
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personal details
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blog
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discussions - will be tightly task-driven, e.g. anything pertaining to a particular milestone will be associated with that milestone, anything about a particular to-do list item, will be linked with that. Will have discussions page that draws out all the discussions going on, but it will be obvious when viewing a particular thread what that thread is linked to. Will have quick interface to translate a discussion point into an action task.
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project profiles
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description
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team members
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goals
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announcements (facebook wall-like)
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blogs (project plus relevant team member entries aggregated)
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needs (e.g. investment, manpower)
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wiki/knowledge base
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ideas - complete with a voting system
Take a look at kluster - seriously, that's probably the best crowdsourcing platform I've seen by far. I love the cute jargon, the interface, and the investment models and algorithms.
You should be able to choose whether to make your project public, invite-only, or private. Users can have different roles, with different rights. Although to really harness the power of crowdsourcing, the project should by public, and accept input from everyone.
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jobs and services directory - companies can pay to advertise and gain exposure to the projects; members can advertise their skills as well.
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specialised application modules or APIs to allow for that to happen
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software bug tracking systems
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donation tracking systems
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review systems
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voting systems
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specialised feedback systems
The platform should be as general as possible, so that it can be used for software projects, fundraising projects, or even projects like opening a new restaurant. Although it's probably worth concentrating on particular uses at the beginning.
Yes it is a project with a very wide scope, and is maybe trying to do too many things at once, but from a user perspective, it's a big step up from what we have right now, which are generally disparate systems only connected by us spending time and effort.
Like the idea I posted a few posts back, this one's free to a good home as well - I'd definitely be interested in something like this though.