June 8, 2011 at 23:16

Online project environment: problem statement

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Introduction



Eight years ago, I had an idea to open a chain of fast healthy restaurants in the city of Krasnoyarsk. I have worked in the field of catering for a long time, starting from a waiter, a bartender, a cook, to an assistant director + there was a good vision of the future business. At the same time, only knowledge and experience in the field of entrepreneurship and the necessary funds were lacking. A trifle :-) But I was full of enthusiasm and intention to realize my plan.
Naturally, I began by searching for the right information on the Internet. Shoveled a lot of sites on the topic - how to start a business, how to write a business plan, where to get money, etc. In the end, I got a rough picture of what needs to be done. It is worth noting that not a single site has offered a comprehensive solution. Nowhere was there an approach to implementing what was conceived, even at the level of presenting information as a process of “idea-project-implementation” . Everywhere had to collect information piece by piece.

I must say right away that my plan was not realized. There were many reasons for this: a mistake at the concept level, a misunderstanding of all the details of the process, a lack of investor, experience, etc. But even then I wondered why there is still no one integrated solution in the field of project implementation. A huge knowledge base and colossal experience have been accumulated over the entire history of the development of the project approach. But at the same time , it is quite difficult for an ordinary person with a good idea to understand all these PMBok , IPMA , PRINCE2 , LSP . Here, even the problem is not to figure it out, but to put it into practice.

Since then, I have participated in many projects - educational, IT, environmental, business, etc. Some have come true, some have not. Yes, now it’s easier with this - there are business incubators, state grants, hangouts of start-ups, etc. ... There is some kind of project infrastructure. More and more solutions appear in the Internet in the field of online project management , all kinds of socially-oriented services for finding investments and team building ( cofounder.ru , napartner.ru , startuppoint.ru , etc.). But there is no single approach that would systematically approach the project process itself and the environment in which it is applied.

The essence of the problem- at the moment there is no favorable project environment on the Internet that allows anyone to implement projects in different fields of activity, regardless of their level of knowledge, experience and availability of resources.

Online project environment is an information system that covers all phases of the project process and allows you to effectively implement projects in various fields of human activity via the Internet.

Design process



To better understand the essence of the problem, let's look at the project process itself.

Below is a graphical representation of the implementation plan. It reflects only the process itself, the milestones of this process and its focus.

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The scheme does not claim to be the ultimate truth. It is the result of the analysis and synthesis of the knowledge and experience that I gained in the process of implementing various projects. In constructing this scheme, the principle of passing the necessary stages (milestones) is used, without which the project cannot be implemented, or its implementation will be difficult.

Design process


  1. The concept is a holistic system of views on the problem, allowing to find an approach to its solution. It helps to answer such questions as: “what is the essence of the problem?”, “What solution is there for this problem?”, “Who may be interested in the implementation of the project?”. In short, the concept is the core of the project .
    • Problem: Creating a concept is a non-trivial task. If we consider the creation of a concept as a process, then it will conditionally look like this: checking an idea for adequacy - brainstorming - bringing an idea to the level of a concept. At the moment we have:
      • Lack of an effective service for evaluating project ideas for their adequacy.
      • Lack of competent Russian-language collective brainstorming service.
      • The lack of a service that allows you to automatically create concepts for different projects with expert support.
    • Existing solutions:


  2. Building a model A model is a detailed image of a future system that defines its main elements and their relationships.
    • Problem The lack of a service for online modeling of different systems (the system in this context could be a business, organization, festival, website, etc.), where one could choose different modeling methods, optimize this model, conduct simulations, get expert help, etc. .d.
    • Existing Solutions: boardofinnovation.com

  3. Project team. It is necessary to assemble an effective team to implement your project.
    • Problem The lack of a competent service that allows you to unite people around a project or idea , regardless of the application, on the principle of “the right people - the right projects”.
    • Existing solutions: cofounder.ru , buildwithme.com (English), nachinai.com

  4. Action strategy. Develop a non- detailed project work plan, i.e. create a goal tree, determine priorities and criteria, determine costs and deadlines, determine the range of tasks for each team member.
    • The problem is the lack of an online service for developing an action strategy. Here you can use solutions in the field of online project management. However, their functionality is sharpened more on the operational management of the project, so their use is inefficient.
    • Existing solutions: none.

  5. Presentation of the project to potential investors.
    • The problem is to prepare a presentation based on the comments of the project team and the community. Investors and other interested parties do not have the opportunity to trace the history of the project and its assessments at previous stages.
    • Existing solutions: slideshare.com , prezi.com , sliderocket.com

  6. Attraction of resources necessary for the implementation of the project.

  7. The implementation of the plan.
    • The problem now on the Internet there are many services that allow you to manage a project online. But these services allow you to work as a team on a project as in a closed system. Here it is necessary to change the approach itself and consider the project and its team as part of the information environment in which it is located. Thus, it is possible to coordinate different project teams for solving common problems, outsourcing, expert assistance, and replenishing the common knowledge base.
    • Existing solutions: onlineprojects.ru , webasyst.ru

Conclusion


Each of the identified problems can be a separate startup, but individually, all these services will not have the desired system effect. They must be combined into a single process .

Conclusion


I set out my vision of the project process and the problems that a
simple person (like me for example) may encounter when trying to translate a certain plan into reality. I know that quite a lot of people are faced with a similar range of problems, and they, like me, also have a need for some kind of integrated online project implementation environment. If you have suggestions, comments, thoughts, write in comments. In the next article, I will try to describe the integral solution of this problem based on feedback.
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