What's the best way -- or ways -- to organize a project?

After we roll out Salesforce to replace our Contact and Sites databases in Lotus Notes, the next thing I'll be working on is the Project "form," called an "object" in Salesforce. I'm creating the Project object there to replace the Project form in Dexter so that when you create a Project in Salesforce you can use the account, location and contact information from Salesforce in the same way as you use the company, site and contact information from Contact and Sites in Lotus Notes.

So that's the beginning. But ultimately I'd like to move us into the cloud for all that we do in Lotus Notes. That does not necessarily mean, though, that it makes sense to just re-do everything in Salesforce that we currently have in Dexter. As glad as it makes me that the databases in Notes which I created have helped Pivot employees to accomplish their work for all these years, I'd be the last person to say they are perfect. Well, nothing is perfect. As much as I wish it could be, Salesforce is not perfect, either.

But here's our chance to stop and look at how we work, and see if it makes sense to try a different way. A big piece of what we do in Dexter right now is project management. We create a project, and then a bunch of forms, requests, information and communications about that project. We use other programs for the project besides Dexter: Cap, Autocad, our network file storage, Khameleon, our time tracking spreadsheets or forms, email, faxing, scanning,...more? Lots of items are created that make up the project. Lots of steps make up the project process. What's the best way to organize those items and steps?

I am looking into different possibilities of tools we could use for our project management -- and then I'll be asking our managers and employees to look at them, too, so we can decide what makes sense for Pivot. There are lots of possibilities. Some examples:
- We could create a project in Salesforce, attach all the related files there in that project rather than on the F: or Q: drive or wherever we're storing them now. We could also do all our emailing right from that project. We'd need to figure out how to request others to do things such as create quotes/proposals, work requests, labor requests, etc. Use objects similar to our Notes forms? Or templates similar to Word & Excel templates? Automatic emails?
- We could create a website or a web page for each project and store all the files there.
- We could purchase an application that manages projects using a Gantt chart kind of flow, with milestones determining the flow of one process after another.
- We could do some kind of automation based on a project workflow.
Those are just a few possibilities.

It's fun to try to think about what we do with a clean slate, not assuming we should do things the way we do now, even if they are working. Have ideas? Pass them along!

Is that Mom or my IT Manager??

I read this article, "Mom's Voice Packs Soothing Power," and it made me think of  how someone at work once told me I had a calming influence -- in my role as an IT Manager. I do notice that everyone is very relieved to see me when they're having IT issues. I remember once driving to our San Francisco office because they were down. When I walked in the door, there was a cry of, "Mavis!" I thought to myself, "Little do they know I have no idea what's wrong or if I'll be able to fix it." But it's nice to create that feeling in others anyway.

I'm sure Paul has experienced this, too, and people in other professions have the same experience. When you're stranded on the side of the road and the mechanic shows up. When the doctor or nurse walks in the door. It's a beautiful thing.

But wait, there's more!

There's a lot more in Salesforce than the pieces that replace Contact (Accounts, Contacts & Opportunities). I haven't learned how to use all of the features yet and I'm not even sure I know what all the features are yet!

This morning there was an article in the San Jose Mercury News about IM (Instant Messaging) coming into the enterprise. They featured a lot of information on Microsoft's Sharepoint which will include IM in their next version. Salesforce already has that. They call it "Chatter" and it was released this Spring. I saw a demo of it at Dreamforce, Salesforce's annual users' conference. Besides being able to "chat" with people, as with all IM programs, in Salesforce's Chatter, you can chat with objects. So, for example, you could mark an Opportunity to let you know any time someone updates it.

I'm eager to learn more about Chatter and see how it can help us here at Pivot. As we move more of what we do in Dexter into Salesforce, I see even more opportunity for Chatter to be a very useful tool.

Another new feature released this Spring is "Answers". I've just started looking into this but it looks like a way to post questions to a community, then as people answer the questions and answers are kept on the web. I'm thinking this may be a good alternative to those emails the salespeople often send out asking, "Does anyone know where I can find....?" I think being able to keep all those questions and answers, and search in them, will be very useful. I could see the designers, and others, building up an excellent knowledge base with "Answers", too.

There's a Quotes module, too, that I plan to check out. Also a Self Service Portal that I believe we can use both for our customers to be able to see and submit certain information and for our vendors. There's a big module called Content for uploading and sharing files which will be very useful for marketing but also potentially for sharing files among ourselves, perhaps creating a vendor library online. There's an object called Cases which looks like it might be something we could use for our service and warranty work. And who knows what else there is in this cloud?!

I'll be reading, watching videos and learning about more of Salesforce's features as time goes on, and I'll be encouraging you to, too. In June I'm scheduled to attend a 4-day certification training on Salesforce and I'm hoping I'll come back for that bursting with new ideas and things to try.