Project KickStart
Introduction
Project KickStart
is a software that helps you plan and schedule projects in a very fast and
easy way. Its focus is on both planning a project strategy and building a
project schedule. It offers you the opportunity to gather thoughts and put
together a project plan outline very quickly.
Project KickStart
also links to project management programs, such as Microsoft Project, and
other programs, like Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and your Web
Browser.
Even if you develop your project in Project KickStart, you
may value bringing the project data into one of these other programs. For
instance, in Word, you can prepare a proposal based on your project plan.
Excel can be used to estimate costs. The link to PowerPoint users to
quickly make presentations based on their Project KickStart plans. Your
browser can help you see how your project would look on the Internet. (You
would use an FTP tool to place the page on the Internet.)
Project KickStart's links provide additional
options to extend your thinking and enhance your communication about the
project.
Project KickStart
is currently being translated into German,, French,
Italian, Danish and Dutch.
Benefits for
Teachers and Students
In addition to being an excellent resource for project
planning of all types, Project KickStart can be used as
courseware to provide a powerful learning tool to help students learn
the skills of organizing, planning, teamwork and completing projects.
Project KickStart
helps teachers in demonstrating to students the types of things that are
important to them when starting projects as well as the types of tools out
there to assist them.
Teachers can use Project KickStart for the
following purposes:
·
Course adoption (or courseware) - teach project management/planning skills
·
Help in grant writing
·
Plan their professional life
·
Plan a semester's curriculum and lesson plans
·
Plan projects with/for students. Mentoring.
·
Facilitate team work.
·
Consulting projects, with recognizable deliverables.
·
Writing books and articles, course outlines, research grants
·
Data analysis.
·
Class planning/work projects, keeping a history of what has been
accomplished
·
Getting labs up and running.
Students can use Project KickStart for the
following purposes:
·
Plan major assignments such a senior thesis, or a dissertation.
·
Plan creative projects such as science labs or class presentations.
·
Learn about organizing, planning, teamwork and completing projects.
Pedagogical background
Most of the value in any project is created by the quality
of thought invested in the creation and design of the activities.
Project KickStart is easy to understand and easy to learn. The
examples and fill in areas help to get students started toward a deeper
understanding of the theories and processes. Project KickStart takes the
frustration out of starting a new project and helps in the critical
initial-planning phase. It steps you through a thinking process that makes
thinking up the tasks of a project fast and easy. Project KickStart
not only helps students schedule for a project but it also gives them
advise on what to consider when working on a project and this is
applicable directly to any project.
Tools
Project KickStart
is a stand-alone application that you can use to brainstorm, plan and
schedule projects. It is a tool designed to guide you from initial project
concept to development of a basic project plan. It shares data with
several of the more popular
project
management tools.
Project KickStart's 8-step planning icons
focus your attention on the structure of your project (goals, resources,
obstacles and other strategic issues critical to your project's success).
Here you
can see the first step: Name.
Step2
- Phases Here, you
consider how the project breaks down into major activities or phases.
Step3 - Goals
This step helps you think of project goals and which tasks are
needed to accomplish them.
Step4
- Similar
Lets you "borrow" tasks from "similar projects."
Step5
– People Here is
where you identify the people who will serve as the resources for the
project and consider what tasks they would do or suggest.
Step6
- Obstacles This
step is one of the most popular parts of the program. You focus on the
risks that could impede progress of the project and tasks to avoid them.
Step7
- Assign Here is
where you decide who will do what. You can assign an individual, (team,
or even department.
Step8
- Tasks This step
helps you pull together your project. Here, you see all the Phase and
Tasks in the plan, along with assignments and notes.
"Knowledge Libraries" of Phases, Goals
and Obstacles serve as both a handy reference and a repository for
company-specific information. You can drag and drop typical phase names,
goals or obstacles from the libraries to your plan or add project terms to
the libraries that may be specific to your profession or department.
With Project KickStart it is possible to :
·
Review and Edit plans
·
Schedule plans in two ways:
1.
Project KickStart's easy-to-use
Gantt chart provides a timeline for each task in plan schedule. It is
possible even "bump" tasks forward or backward to adjust the schedule.
Mark tasks "done" for a quick status report.
Here, you can see a sample of a Gantt chart.
2.
Using Microsoft Office, there
are very useful links with Outlook, Project, Word, Excel and
PowerPoint.
·
Print a wide variety of reports and share them with team members,
management, clients and other stakeholders
·
Work with any size project (up to 1000 tasks and 100 resources)
·
Drag and drop hints from Libraries of Goals, Phases and Obstacles.
·
Use Reports Generator for unlimited reports
·
Save as HTML (post project plans on your Intranet)
·
Link to Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and ACT! (include project plans in
proposals and business plans)
·
Link to Microsoft Project, SureTrak, P3, FastTrack Schedule, Project
Scheduler, and Milestones, WBS Chart, MindManager
·
Have 10 sample projects
·
Have free technical support
System Requirements
·
Windows 95 / 98 / Me / NT / 2000 / XP
·
32 MB RAM, 10 MB free disk space
·
Project KickStart may also be run on a Mac with “Virtual PC” installed
Target age
High School
University
Adults
Acknowledgements
The above informative material is adapted from the
Project KickStart’s website.
