How does GPD’s TeamPort relate to Project Management Tools?
Existing project software tools are used for managing and controlling a project, once the the project is established.
These existing tools excel at representing detail tasks, individual resource schedules, and passive collaboration through groupware such as linked documents. In contrast, TeamPort plays a very different role, used early-on and at a high-level, to determine top-down the best overall design for a complex project.
It’s about Interaction and Insights, Not Just Software: TeamPort is part of a solution that is centered on the activity of people in complex activities. The solution includes a method-led strategy, facilitated project launches, simulation-based analysis, and ongoing quality audits. The TeamPort approach is a project design method which significantly improves the awareness and performance of project teams. Once a project is designed in TeamPort, the project can then be exported and controlled using project tools.
Global Projects Contain Complex Factors: TeamPort allows an iterative design process, with unique visualization and simulation capabilities. The simulator in TeamPort incorporates the impact of distributed teams, time zones, concurrent dependencies, decisions, re-work, quality, travel, and communication demands. No existing scheduling (CPM, CCM) approach handles these important, real-world factors.
Organization and Product Too: TeamPort helps a group to rapidly reach consensus on a realistic plan, including organizational structure, product decomposition, work and coordination style to best fit the project at hand. The incorporation of organizational and product dynamics is not captured in MS Project, Primavera, and other tools.
Is TeamPort for large projects only?
No, TeamPort is useful on all projects, with the most value when projects are complex. Projects or portfolios can be complex even if they are not large:
- Is this project different from previous ones in your teams' experience?
- Are the teams the same as previous projects?
- Is the product or service very similar to previous accomplishments?
- How much innovation is expected?
- Has workflow changed? Do all teams and vendors share the same workflow?
- How much concurrency is expected? How distributed are the teams?
- How likely are requirements to change during the project?
Easy to Use. Painless to Deploy. TeamPort does not require integration into or customization for existing enterprise systems. The software in TeamPort can be accessed remotely, so that the teams using TeamPort do not have to install, support, or open an intranet while collaborating globally.
GPD, the developers of TeamPort, have been working for decades on complex and global projects. TeamPort was created to solve a very specific yet strategically important problem: the coordination of global projects.