If you are a manager or small business owner, you most likely find yourself wearing many hats during the course of a day. And, naturally with those responsibilities, comes the need to coordinate multiple projects simultaneously. People going in different directions with the same end goal in mind. Well, it’s called Project Management and definitely not for the fainthearted! But I have good news for you.
If you are responsible for projects, you need a systematic way to manage the collaboration efforts of your team. I ran across a superb little package called Basecamp, and wanted to share some of the features of the software and encourage you to try the 30 day free trial. After giving it a fair shake, I am confident you will end up using it in your company.
Basecamp is a cloud-based software used by businesses around the world, from the local “Mom and Pop” shop, all the way up to the big corporations including, Kellogg’s, USA Today, Adidas, and even Wall Street Journal. Suffice to say, Basecamp has made a lasting impression on many businesses to help them manage projects smoothly and meet more deadlines.
Pros:
- Cloud-based – as a big proponent of cloud-based computing, having access to anything and everything from an Internet browser is a big plus. Nothing is loaded on your PC. As long as you have Internet access, you can access it anywhere. This is big for me.
- Intuitive – once you get the hang of software inner workings, it is very easy to navigate.
- Integration – plays nicely with your email so you can manage much of the “collaboration” efforts right from your email client. This is handy because it automatically updates the project Messages whenever people respond from email.
- Manage all files under one roof – files, pictures, videos, and more, all available for the team that includes an archiving feature to make sure you have the latest and greatest versions. This is very nice. No more emailing project members files. You simply upload it once for the team and you are done.
- Assign people to projects and tasks.
- Set Milestones for projects.
- And many more.
Cons:
- It does take some time to set up and figure out the inner workings. But once you do, it’s easy peasy.
- The Free version is very limited. Therefore, unless you are a one or two person shop, do yourself a favor and get the paid version out of the gate. But even the Basic (paid) version is relatively inexpensive coming in at only $24/month. And don’t forget that free trial period.
- There are some Addon’s that require you to pay extra – you don’t necessarily need them to get full use of Basecamp however. Some of them do look pretty good, Campfire, Highrise, and Backpack are all more collaboration tools to definitely look into. I will be trying those out and will definitely report on them.
Overall, I am very impressed by this project management, web-based software. My entire team including myself, use Basecamp every day to manage important projects and keep them on track.
Anything to make life easier and make my company run more efficiently, becomes a must-have, Basecamp falls into this category – an elegant online project management and collaboration solution!
I hope you enjoyed my quick review of Basecamp. If you see yourself reading this article and thinking, yeah, I could use something like this, do yourself a favor and go sign up for the 30-day free trial of Basecamp.
