How do you stay organized?

[AlexHall74]

Hey Doc!

I use MS Project for the schedule but most of the projects I have managed do not necessitate the full use of resource tracking features as most organizations amend their project schedules too damn frequently.

Also, most organizations I have worked with have a hard deadline and budget associated with them so staff will be motivated to keep the project on track week by week. If there is no pressure to perform to specifications by a hard and fast deadline then nothing ever gets done! So, staffing a particular resource to a particular task for a certain number of hours is only as good as the qulaity of the front end estimating that occurred in the project planning/analysis/design/scope of work.

On the contrary, I use several other supplementary documents in conjunction with a functional project schedule, such as:

1. Agendas/Meeting Minutes
2. Open Issues/Action Items Logs (to track what must be done, by whom)
3. Risk Management Log
4. Change Management Log
5. Scope Change Requests
6. Decision Documents/Decision Log (to track policy decisions)
7. Process Flows
8. Mock Screens
9. Entity Relationship Diagrams
10. Data Dictionary
11. Project Glossary
12. Project Charter
13. Project Scope Statement
14. Communication Plan
15. Business Requirements Documents
16. Functional Requirements Documents
17. Status and Values Documents (supplementary to process flow)
18. Other Documents as needed...