Newbie Shield
Joined: 22 Sep 2007
Posts: 2226
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#2 · Posted: 10 Jul 2008 11:12
Hi Snithai,
If you trust your subordinates to honestly report their activities, the cheapest and easiest solution might be to have them record their progress in an MS Excel spread sheet. You could all download and use Yahoo messenger to communicate live. You can send the files back and forth through messenger. It works well. I've used this method.
The way it would work in practice is that for each project, you could create a new spread sheet and send copies to your subordinates. The spread sheet would have tasks and due dates. They would stay on track and let you know when certain tasks have been completed...or you could just use the Yahoo chat program to ask them and fill in the spread sheet yourself.
Otherwise, you can spend a little money and get MS Project. You'll have to spend a little time learning how to use it but it's a great program. I have used it many times for group projects.
You could also create an interactive website with the same sort of concept. Everyone can be assigned a user name and password and they can log their progress. The output would be tables and charts so everyone can see how each project is progressing. I have used this once and was very happy with it.
What you are wondering about is a thing called Project Management. You can read about it here (it doesn't have to be quite as complicated but you can use some of the ideas):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management
You can also read about Project Management Software here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_software
Good luck!
~Newbie Shield~
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