NovaMind 5 > NovaMind 5 for Mac

Using or Exporting Task Informaton

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neil456:
So on a lark, we were starting a new project and decided to use NovaMind 5 to brainstorm the tasks.  Got the tasks down, then some sub tasks, and then some sub-sub tasks (topics).  Then we went through and estimated the duration of the sub-sub tasks.  Then all I wanted to do was roll-up the durations to see if the project was within budget.

The Problems:
1. The duration info did not roll up into the higher level topics.  So we have to manually get out a calculator and add up the durations. 
2. The task report had the durations, but without the outline number it was not practical to sort/select in an external tool. There was also no indent or even outline level on the resulting report and all concept of sub-topics and sub-sub topics was lost. The report presented the parent topics just like the child topics.
3. When entering task durations could not find a way to enter 1/2 day.  Tried 0.5 days, but it entered it as zero.  So we have to use 4 hours, giving mixed hours and days in the task list.  Not what we would do.  Yet when we entered 2 days it showed up as 2.00 days.

So it seemed pretty useless for a simple project brainstorming session with any kind of estimating.

Did I miss something in the functionality (like a magic key combo or something)?

If not, then I would say that the following are mandatory for any task based work.
1. Percent complete, duration, start date, and end date roll up to higher level tasks if the higher level task is marked automatic.  The details should be obvious but let me know if you want them.
2. The task reports should be selectable as outline format (indented) or not.
3. Even if not outline format, the outline number should be a selectable column on the task reports.
4. The topic outline should also have the outline number column in the column selection.
5. Should be able to enter partial days in the task duration.

Not so important, but would be fantastic.
5. Resources should have a flag for primary responsibility and that resource should be listed first in the resource list on the mind map.
6. I would like to see the duration and resource yellow bubble on the mind map horizontal instead of vertical.  Otherwise it puts too much space in the map.  So duration first and resources next on a single line of text.

We would never use this tool in place of a real project management tool (we use FastTrack and MS Project) but for quick brainstorming a set of tasks with primary responsibility and rough cut durations it would be a great tool.  We would not use priority, start dates, end dates, but can see those might be important for key milestones.  We would never use percent complete.  If we were tracking percent complete at the task level, then we would use a project management app.

Thanks for listening.

olaf_gy:
Hi Neil,

Mindmaps can be perfectly used to get a first structure of a project plan, I use it a lot for this. But it is NOT a project planning tool as MS Project or Merlin. It don't not have calculation logic in it, or showing critical path, etc.

So brainstorming to collect all tasks, do a first analysis on effort and task owners can be done perfectly in Mindmaps (NM5). But all further work (recalculation of dependencies, changing the number of resources of task, optimizing dependencies, parallelizing of tasks, reporting, etc.) should be done in a project management application.

Even after having the activities into project planning SW you can later on detail branches, import the extended map into a new project file and copy what you need into you working plan. I would not use the way to open the working plan in NM5 extend tasks and reimport in the project planning SW. The danger to lose important information is to high.

neil456:
Yep, that all makes sense.  As I indicated we have project management tools, but even for capturing an initial plan NovaMind is too weak to use and using a project management tool is too complicated to use in a group setting.

My point was, that with a couple of really easy additions, it would work great as an initial project brainstorming tool. As it stands, it's not enough to even consider using tasks.  They should either be expanded or removed (IMHO of course.)

Navigator72:
I have used NM for initial brainstorming or design of project [the fuzzy front end, as one of my partners describes it]- structure of tasks, dates for key milestones - then exported / imported to MSP or Merlin for the kind of analysis you describe [which he calls planning]. If you are interested in an alternate approach for "sketching" a complex project then simulating how it will perform [cost, schedule, effort, risk], take a look at www.gpdesign.com. This is for quite large projects, but has the appeal of getting realistic forecasts and checking scenarios without the burden of conventional project management tools.

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