management systems for big and small businesses

 Introduction
There are a lot of different project management systems for big and small businesses. Every
company needs a simple and stable system to coordinate projects, manage and deliver tasks, control
the team and be oriented on the high results (Quagliata, K).
An effective tool of on-line communications between members of distributed teams is vital
to building successful and competitive products. The structures of companies which work on
projects, people are out of one office, typical of many web design studios and advertising agencies.
Basecamp is an online tool for project management, teamwork and goal setting for projects created
by 37signals. In the development and practical use of Basecamp was established framework Ruby
on Rails. Basecamp has an extremely simple and comfortable to operate interface. All the
information is "at hand". The appearance can be a bit to brand in keeping with the style of the
company - to choose a color scheme and place the logo (Basecamp official website).
The company 37Signals, the creators of the popular SaaS-system for managing projects
Basecamp, managed to constantly come up with something new and interesting. This time they
released service Basecamp Personal, designed for small teams (projects) for which regular
Basecamp - too expensive. Previously, Basecamp provides a free version for one project, and it can
be assumed that it enjoyed great popularity.
Basecamp is considered to be an excellent project management system. The method of the
company is to do less that really works and the features obtained are really simple. The downside is
that the functionality still is not the richest, and the principles of adding new features not
encouraging their swift implementation. Benefits of this particular project management system are
considered to be the following (Basecamp official website):
x Applications for Apple iPhone,
x Mobile applications
x Reports, charts and planning,
x Accounting systems,
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Sample: Management - Basecamp as Project Management System
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x Tools for software development,
x Time tracking,
x Widgets to the desktop,
x Other additions.
"Dashboard" is the main panel of the system; it displays the customers, open source projects,
and the current activity of the team members. Another handy feature that helps to keep the
necessary information at hand: “stars”. Any page can be marked with “star”, and these notes, unlike
tags, will be specific to each user. That is, no one sees the “star” of other users. Marked with “stars”
page is easy to see in the navigator on the right:
x Projects and tasks: each project can contain an unlimited number of tasks that can be
assembled into milestones (milestone), with the possibility to discuss the problem. All
changes to the project can be found on e-mail or RSS;
x Company and Contact: Having come into any contact the company can see a list of related
items. The customer can put a source of attraction to keep track of the most selling power;
x Wiki-board: a certain board for the documentation project, FAQ, descriptions of features,
etc. shared access. Optimally with the API to export the final result to the selected site;
x Internal messenger for messaging within a project or system;
x Time tracking of tasks: it is desirable to be able to take into account the time of each task
and the project as a whole. For each employee you can see what it does and how much time
he spends;
x Consideration of the budget: also need to keep track of how much money and what was
spent on the project and how much was received from the client;
x Billing: You can create an invoice to the client on the basis of already imposed tasks ,
milestones , or after the fact by the time spent
x Type project for sale : kind project that describes the sale of a product from the catalog to
the client;
x Sampling and reports on various parameters of all data;
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x Control of access rights: it should be flexible.
Also in menu “Project Overview” the following features can be created and changed:
1. Not completed and upcoming events
2. Company logo
3. Recent changes in the project
4. RSS subscribe to the project
5. When and who came to the project
Conclusion
It is natural to choose the big number of supported functions. In the following systems there
are no some of the features described above, but they have the potential to achieve them. Therefore,
the main criteria for selection will be a function of the clarity, ease of use of the system and
possibilities of the list.
Basecamp is a tool for communication, instead of e-mail. Basecamp does not measure the
work load for the next week on the team as a whole and for each member individually, and does not
appreciate the reality set deadlines. Instead, it just helps us to share the necessary information
within the team and with our customers (Perkins