Posted by pas on 27 August, 2008 20:34

Some time ago our team was big, and our projects were small. Whole project scope was fitting into one man's head, each requirement change and each important decision was distributed "from heart to heart", with belief in e-mails.

As projects complexity grew, e-mail box had been flooded, and then the new savior appeared: corporate wiki! We can now store all documents and knowledge in one place! To be precise, in two places: one visible for all participants, and one visible only for top-managers. Well, one way or another. Tasks are tracked in Rational ClearCase by that moment, and we were writing the plan in MS Project. This scheme worked, but there was no integration between these three systems. Decisions made by managers were distributed to the team in the format "real-life meetings + emails". The person who missed the message, lost track of whole project. Client was notified by heroic efforts of team, especially the most miserable person - project manager. He was responsible for creating visibility to the client, in form of different manually generated reports. The amount of systems was changing, but the essence stayed the same: incompatible data and problem of connecting all aspects of a task very quickly.

The issue was aggravated by the fact that delimitation of participants on "thinkers" and "implementers" was not working any more. We had to agree that each team member has needs to:

• Understand the task, seeing whole track of previous decisions
• Make decisions, being able to track connections to other tasks
• See what people are doing right now and synchronise their actions (which leads to process transparency)
• Store and share the results of their work, mostly decisions and the background for decisions.

In knowledge-intensive organisations (KIO), every task and every project is actually knowledge transformation. Knowledge is needed for action, action is creating new knowledge. Imagine you're building a cottege. Say, there's a task to dig the basis. Even such a 'standard' task generates knowledge: which subcontractor fits best, what specific issues were found etc.

Therefore the need in common platform for knowledge appears. There are minumum three processes in typical organisation that are eager to use new tools for increasing preciseness and effectiveness. These are: finances, CRM and production process. And they should be tightly integrated to run good. Big companies use ERP systems as a platform for knowledge-for-action, but what's available for small and medium businesses? Price matters.

We took the idea of connecting task management and ECM (enterprise content management) as a basis for collaboration system. "People and interactions over processes and tools", as Agile Manifesto declares. Meanwhile, researchers say that a knowledge worker spends up to 80% of his time searching for information, and only 20% on actions and creating new knowledge. Thanks Google for resolving this issue for Internet scope, but businesses require something else. The power of business data is in connections between elements.

Connecting people, knowledge and actions to increase the effectiveness of a project or a company - that's the main goal of Comindwork. In such a model, time is a gap between three components, narrowing the gap leads to increase in project speed.


We divide knowledge into several categories, on the criteria of lifetime.
1. Pure todos, tasks that do not require additional communications to be solved. Samples of a todo: "call client", "agree about a meeting".
2. Incidents, cases, action items - knowledge that is collected for a task that will be hardly performed again. A case is actually a history of solving the issue, track of all messages done during collaboration. Samples of cases are: "share responsibility between team members", "create content for site main page", "write business-plan".
3. Wiki pages have the longest lifetime and are potentially the most useful knowledge. They may be used both in scope of single project, or across projects. Often wiki pages are deliverables of a case. Samples of wiki pages are: "list of servers", "marketing strategy", "project plan".

There's a lot of tools to choose from. The main issue is to ask correct questions, and generate answers quickly.

  Posted by pas on 25 August, 2008 07:56

Когда-то наша команда была большой, а проекты – маленькими. Весь обьем работы помещался в голове каждого человека, и каждое изменение требований клиента, каждое важное решение доносилось «от сердца к сердцу», с надеждой на электронную почту.
Сложность проектов росла, почтовый ящик распухал от писем, и вот появилось новое веяние: вики! Можно теперь складывать документы и знания в одном месте! Точнее, в двух – одном, видимом для всех сотрудников, и другом – видимом для топ-менеджеров. Ну, как-то. Задачи и время в то время мы отслеживали в Rational ClearCase, а план рисовали в MS Project. Все бы ничего, но связи между этими тремя системами не было никакой. Решения, принятые менеджером, доносились до команды в режиме «летучки + почта», кто пропустил тот упустил. До клиента же решения доносились героическими усилиями команды, чаще всего самого несчастного человека на свете – менеджера проекта: через вручную сгенерированные отчеты. Количество систем менялось, но суть оставалась той же: трудно совместимые данные, сложность моментально связать все аспекты задачи.
Все усугубляется тем, что в современной компании деление людей на «исполнителей» и «мыслителей» больше не работает. Приходится признать: у любого человека в команде есть потребности

• Быстро вникать в задачу, охватывать любые аспекты
• Принимать решения, видя все связи между требованиями и другими задачами
• Видеть, что делают другие люди прямо сейчас и синхронизировать свои действия (прозрачность процесса)
• Хранить и делиться любыми результатами своей работы – решениями.

В организациях, основанных на знаниях (KIO, knowledge-intensive organisations) любая задача, любой проект, это фактически трансформация одних знаний в другие. Знания необходимы для действия, каждое действие создает новое знание. К примеру, вы строите коттеджный поселок. И даже задача «сделать фундамент для дома» создает новое знание: какой подрядчик подходит лучше всего, какие характеристики местности были обнаружены в процессе, что-то еще.
Именно поэтому возникает необходимость в общей платформе знаний. В типичной организации есть как минимум три процесса, которые жаждут использовать новые технические возможности для увеличения четкости и эффективности. Это финансы, отношения с клиентами и «производственный процесс». И даже между этими тремя должна быть тесная интеграция. Крупные компании используют ERP как платформу знаний-для-действия, а что же делать малому и среднему бизнесу: price matters, цена имеет значение.
Мы взяли за базовую потребность, базовую идею связывание задач (task management) и знаний (ECM, enterprise content management). «Люди и их взаимодействие важнее процесса и средств разработки», как говорит манифест гибкой разработки, Agile Manifesto. Исследования показывают, что работник умственного труда тратит до 80% своего времени на поиск необходимой информации, и только 20% - на действия. Спасибо Google, он сократил время поиска в Интернет. Но бизнесам этого мало. Сила бизнес-информации – в связях между элементами.
Связывание людей, знания и действий для повышения эффективности проекта и компании – вот это основная задача системы Comindwork. Время – это зазор между этими тремя компонентами, уменьшение зазора – это повышение скорости проекта.


Знания мы делим на несколько категорий, по времени жизни:
1. Чистые задачи, todo, которые не требуют дополнительных коммуникаций для решения. Примеры todo: «позвонить клиенту», «договориться о встрече».
2. Инциденты, кейсы – знания, которые собираются для отдельной задачи, которая вряд ли повторится. Задача – это её история решения, обмен сообщениями. Пример задач: «разобрать зоны ответстветственности», «создать наполнение главной страницы сайта», «написать бизнес-план».
3. Вики-страницы как самое долгоживущее и потенциально полезное знание. Полезное как в рамках одного проекта, так и меж-проектное знание. Примеры страниц: «список серверов», «маркетинговая стратегия», «план проекта».
Есть из чего выбрать. Главное, задавать правильные вопросы, и быстро генерировать ответы.

  Posted by pas on 30 June, 2008 19:29

Noone's happy with trying to remember one more password. And we're really eager to make things easier!

Let me introduce Open authentication feature.

Right now you may choose to log in using your

• GMail account
• Yahoo account
• OpenId

You can see the 'sign in' form changed:


But before signing in, we need to identify you. It's only you who may tell that your GMail account really belongs to you.
So first of all, please log in with your Comindwork account, go to Preferences area and set up your credentials:



We hope this makes your work more convinient. Let us know what you think of this feature and other Comindwork features. Drop a note, and stay cool. :)

Alex

  Posted by pas on 09 June, 2008 14:49

We're glad to announce the new place for sharing ideas, Comindwork Forum.

It's high time to discuss current featurs, vote for new ones, or just drop a note about something that bothers you in everyday work.

• Maybe something is missing in Comindwork functionality?
• Probably, you want to share your experience and find a new solution for an issue in managing your project?
• Something may work better, and you know what exactly?

You can enter the forum either from your working area: there's a new link in the bottom of every page. Or you may start browsing Forum right now, and sign in with your Comindwork account.

Keep talking!

  Posted by pas on 09 June, 2008 10:15

Open source software seems to be only the tip of the iceberg. There is such a modern tendency to make projects more open. The reasons for it are: increasing demand for speed of project launch; global competition; Internet as a medium for communication.

Actually, all Enterprise 2.0 aspects overlap with ‘openness’ issue. Personally me, I love the term ‘freeconomics’ instead of Enterprise 2.0. You can choose whatever is better for you.

The goal of this post is to investigate the requirements to a platform for open projects and open organizations.

Speaking of open source software, the most comprehensive guide is written by Karl Fogel in his book ‘Producing Open Source Software’. The questions covered are good enough to be listed here:

• Starting Open Source Software Project
• Technical Infrastructure
• Money
• Communications
• Packaging, Releasing, and Daily Development
• Managing Volunteers
• Licenses, Copyrights, and Patents

But we’re sure there are more people interested in ‘openness’ then software developers. Moreover, it’s not necessarily ‘open source’ people who need to be open.

If you’re proud of what you’re doing. If you do not separate your business life from your friends life (you do projects with friends, yeah). If you want the best talents and experts to help you in making your project. If your business is searching for investors, partners and new specialists to work with. There’s no other way but to go into the global sea of communicating with people :)

There’re beautiful samples of non-software open projects done as businesses: ‘Elephants Dream’, the first open movie; Engineers Without Borders, semi-volunteers work across the globe, dmoz and many more.

So, here’re our requirements to Enterprise 2.0 technical platform:

• There are several layers of ‘visibility’ that company may maintain: inner workers, partners, investors, friends, other world. All items below may apply in different way to these layers.
• Anyone can see participating people (team) and talk to them directly
• The processes that are run in organization, are visible to whole world. ‘Visible’ may include even online video from your office. If you want :)
• The artifacts of your processes are visible: documents, source code, decisions. Unless you’re an CIA unit, of course.
• It’s easy to invite someone to the team using social networking mechanism
• All the layers of communication should be tracked: face-to-face, video conferencing, emails, instant messangers.

Well, I’m not a zealot of total openness. If your business idea should remain secret, let it be secret. But remember, it won’t last for long.

Have a nice day!

  Posted by pas on 14 February, 2008 13:31

Treat any communication act as a value.
Why not communicate to client in a new better level? Making your client communication consistent brings lot of marketing benefits. With Comindwork as an Extranet tool, your company

• Shows up as open and friendly company
• Positions itself with higher level of management
• Make your response time less, and response more consistent

What you need is replace emails with automatic notifications. Duplicate ICQ and Skype talks with 'meeting results'. Keep notes about all events.

Use your communication as promotion. Constantly increase quality both in your product, and in your external/internal communications. 'The medium is the message' (c) Marshall McLuhan, don't you think so? :)

Keep talking, and thanks for staying with us!

  Posted by pas on 09 January, 2008 20:19

Project and company blogs are superior instruments for building real team.
Team is actually a set of people who share same goals and, more important, share themselves. Informal communication in distributed team can be done in blogs, where you can store and discuss

• Ideas
• Feelings about the project
• People issues

Ideally, a blog post is equal to team meeting. It may have its own structure and may have not; all post replies are meeting results. Its good when you can combine real-life meetings and blogs.

What's so important about informal communications? It's about people working with people, sharing themselves. Not as functions, but as human beings. Such position, to treat each Coworker as Human, is an essential part of company strategy. Everything may become a space for fulfilling yourself. Starting from project blog ending up with whole company.

Are you really addicted to the idea that successful teams make successful projects?
Me, personally, am sure about it.

Keep talking!

  Posted by pas on 20 December, 2007 07:17

We're getting better every day.
Now we've got usability specialist and new designer, so we perform a lot of UI changes these days.
My job is to make your work easier, every day.
And I invite you to explore great possibilities that occur today, in your communication with partners and co-workers.
Let's stay creative, and throw away things that don't work.
Things we've changed in new release are:

• Status Notifications are sent daily, for you not to forget of your tasks
• Team management is simplified
• Milestones are easier to access and manage
• Open Blog now has RSS feed

And thanks for your great feedback on Comindwork.
We really appreciate it.

Keep talking!