Benefit: Collaboration

Software does not drive collaboration.

People do.

The best that software can do is get out of the way of the natural intent of the collaborators.

Now, keep in mind that some fantastic engineering and brilliant forethought has goes into this "getting out of the way" business over the years, and continues on as we speak. But we believe that this dynamic is the essence of true person-to-person collaboration.

Collaboration solutions that are opaque and guide the interaction of people is more like workflow than collaboration. They are both very useful, yet very different.

We believe that providing our users with flexible and muli-purpose tools (such as Outlining, Tagging, RSS, etc.) gives them the ability to mold ProjectPipe around the needs of their project, instead of vice-versa.

This "tool transparency" facilitates the collaborative process, because it reduces the footprint that the tool has on the conversation: They talk about their project data itself, not how their project data is represented in some tool or database.

Also, notice that we're several paragraphs into this, and we haven't brought up the typical collaboration buzzwords like email, IM, VOIP, or SMS?

That's because we believe that the act of collaboration is independent of channel. The various channels all have their strengths and weaknesses, and you probably have several of them at your disposal. ProjectPipe allows you to keep track of your teammates contact info across multiple channels (i.e. various phone, email, fax, and IM accounts), but we leave it up to you to decide which work best for your situation.

Our policy is to provide an integrated and centralized repository for your project data, but push most of the decisions regarding how that data is sliced, diced, and organized out to the people that are closest to the problem.

So whether you share the same office, floor, continent, or planet as your collaborators, we'll do what we can to make sure that ProjectPipe stays out of your way and makes it a little bit easier for everyone to get on the same page.

How does ProjectPipe Help People Collaborate?

  • Rich Data Descriptions: Team members can organize their data as an Outline, which makes the context of data items clearer in most cases. Also, team members can use ProjectPipe's Tagging capabilities to describe and classify and data items using terms of their choosing that will make sense to the project team.
  • No Artificial "Barriers to Access": Everyone with Internet connectivity has line-of-sight access to their ProjectPipe data (using HTTPS/SSL encryption, if they desire). This allows project teams to focus on the work at hand rather than becoming entangled in the bureaucratic and technical challenges of remote access for partner organizations, telecommuters, and those on-the-go.
  • Unified Project Data Repository: Since ProjectPipe stores MS Project Plan Tasks, Requirements, Issues,and uploaded files, it is simple to provide a remote user with a link to anything related to the project.
  • Friendly URLs: The URL (or website address) of any data item is easy to read, copy/paste, or share over the phone, if necessary. In most cases, data items are directly addressable using either their ID or Name values. For example, within your project site:
    • /issue provides a list of issues
    • /issue/outline provides the issues in an outline view
    • /issue/17 allows you to view issue #17
    • /issue/17/edit allows you to edit issue #17
    • /issue/home page typo/edit allows you to edit the issue with the name "home page typo"

Who Lives for Better Project Collaboration?

  • The Professional Services Consultant who often has to share data with multiple organizations on very short notice.
    Since ProjectPipe is run in a secure hosted environment available from anywhere on the Internet, every member of the extended project team can instantly get access to project data, without getting an army of Network Administrators involved.
  • The Project Manager who needs to engage and integrate remote resources into the project in a seamless fashion.
    ProjectPipe makes adding new users as simple as typing in their email address and clicking "invite". Once invited, their access is controlled by ProjectPipe's Role-based Security.
  • The Project Team Member who can get access to their project data while at home or on the road.
    Since ProjectPipe is a hosted service, team members can access their data when and where they need it.

Collaboration-related Features

ProjectPipe has a number of features designed to help teams work together, even if they're spread apart: