The idea of Seven Things

Seven's a nice small number, so saying only seven things forces the speaker to edit carefully. I like it. That is, I like being on the receiving end of properly focussed communications, but need to learn more about sending them.

Stalking through Julie's Twitter, for likely co-twitterers, brought me to Matt Lingards' link (hello Matt!) to 7 things about twitter, on Educause. And there's more!

So here goes. As an added challenge, I'm going to squeeze down, twitter-stylee yeah?, Educuse's seven-things on two sweet sides of PDF office-friendly format into seven tart sentences.

Seven Things about project planning applications

This is not strictly an e-learning tool, but this is one of my ducks, mmkay?

1. A Project Planning application is a software application that is designed to define, plan and track inter-related tasks and resources in a Project (meaning finite work with a defined set of outcomes).
2. Project Managers and allied professionals use PM software (the classic misnomer : software can't manage!) to prepare schedules and budgets for their projects, but you'll also find engineers, developers, general managers and team members in contact with the applications and/or using the artefacts that arise.
3. These applications generally operate by modelling a project as a series of inter-linked tasks, each with an estimated duration and utilisation of resources; the connectedness, timing and other aspects the project are calculated according to the entered data and shown on charts and tables, such as a Gantt chart, network diagram or resource graph.
4. These tools are important because more work (development activities and funded research) is organised and controlled in the paradigm of a project (perferably a well-managed one), and project management occurs on the syllabus of many programmes, including most science and engineering disciplines.
5. A fool with a tool : planning software encourages a microscopic view of task management (one can become obsessed with perfected the schedule) that can sometimes obscure or de-emphasise systemic or relationship issues in a working environment (i.e. it's often better to go round and talk to people, and play around with some sticky notes).
   
6. In two directions: applications getting more embedded in corporate workflows (task reminders straight to Outlook) and intranet applications (e.g. timesheets direct to a MS-Project database); on the other hand, a newer breed of lighter, web-aware, collaboration-focussed applications that seem to be focussed on a different constituency entirely (of which a good example is Basecamp).
7. The former sort of application is part of the expected armoury of a qualified engineer or scientist, whereas the latter type would seem to favour educationalists themselves in working together to produce new courses and tools.
   

For reference, the pattern is:

1. what is it?
2. who's doing it?
   
3. how does it work?
4. why is it significant?
   
5. what are the downsides?
   
6. where it is going?
7. what are the implications for teaching and learning?