Achieve
Project Zen!
NoteDex was designed for the Project Manager looking for a more intuitive, visual and efficient way to capture, organize and retrieve project information and knowledge. A simple, reliable visual project information management tool to support your memory and help you be more productive and achieve project Zen!
As a Project Manager you are likely managing more than one project - and you are also probably a very 'visual' person - using many tools like mindmaps, gantt charts, whiteboards, and kanban boards, to manage your projects. You expect to see and retrieve all your information quickly and visually. These tools are great for managing project tasks and timelines but don't lend themselves to the 'other' information you need to capture for a project. And tools like Evernote and OneNote just don't cut it. That's why we created NoteDex - one place where you can efficiently capture and organize your project meeting notes and actions.
Use NoteDex to plan your project - use our structure to plan your project using project management professional (PMP) best practices Phases, Stages and Tasks. Use NoteDex as a Project Information Organizer to capture notes from each meeting, along with information and document links. Share your notes with project team members. Most importantly, our mini-note previews allow you to see your notes and find that information you are looking for to be more productive and organized in your projects.
Capture Project Meeting Notes
Take project meeting notes on a single card - even with a digital pen. One Note - One Topic is a good way to take project notes to capture all the important information, conversations, minutes and action items. Plan project status update meetings and rapidly find information during your meeting. Using the advanced slider view you can also take notes while scrolling through previous notes!
Fit Your Whole Meeting on a Card
You might think you can't write a lot on a card but you are wrong. You can both scroll down and reduce the text down to a small font and capture all your meeting minutes and action items. Great for reviewing before your next meeting and planning your strategy. You can even create your own templates and insert as backgrounds to make you more productive.
Project Creativity on a Card
Truth be told, one of the reasons we created NoteDex was to capture ideas with a digital device. Capturing creativity is our raison d'être. Take one card, add pen, and let your project creativity flow. Share your cards to collaborate and foster greater team innovation. You can even load your own project template!
Organize Multiple Projects
NoteDex is a great note-taking app for project meeting notes. In fact, this was the reason we built NoteDex. Use one stack for each of your projects and use an image so you can visually separate your projects and feel more organized with your information. All your project notes under the same topic project! Create different projects for different clients or ventures and even share with colleagues.
Create Phases, Stages and Tasks
Core to a good project is good structure. You need outline and think creatively, then plan tasks and then monitor progress and notes. This is how advanced project managers work - especially those PMP trained. Create Project Phases, Stages and Tasks using our Groups, Tags and Cards functions.
Share your Project Notes
Designed as a cross platform app from the start, you can take project notes on one device and continue on another. NoteDex works on PC, Mac, iOS, Android and the Web. Share your project information via any web browser to your company colleagues easily - even specify which groups of information to share.
Visual Project Information Management and Organization
During a project you need to manage many people, projects, articles and documents full of information. You will also have a lot of different ways to record notes - paper, digital, audio, and video. As well as being attentive to the conversation at hand, you will be wanting to document the key action items and tasks, all the while being aware of the issues and problem solving conversations happening around you as your company tries to improve its performance! NoteDex is more than just note-taking. It's about visual project information organization and retrieval.
NoteDex works well with all your existing note-taking apps, such as Evernote or OneNote, or your preferred project system. Continue to write unstructured notes in your long form editors, using your favorite project meeting template (such as Cornell note-taking template), and even using a digital stylus pen for taking handwriting or generating mind maps. After the meeting is finished you can structure and document the key outcomes, key points, tasks and actions in a NoteDex card. This will allow you to summarize your writing and reference the key information needed to help your team. You can even include a hyperlink to the Evernote or OneNote page link (sneak peak: we are adding document support soon!).
As a result this process will allow you to create a visual view of your project notes, help to supercharge your outlining, planning and productivity and be an improvement over creating lots of notes but then not being able to see them quickly afterwards. Your project notes will be ready when you are gathering the team for the next meeting.
You will have more clarity of thought to plan out your project and help to reach it's goal. While there are many methods and no one single software, template or 'best practice' we think you will be more productive and efficient in your job when managing your information using NoteDex. The skill of being able to distill your project notes for efficient decision-making and writing is an art worth practicing to create good project minutes. NoteDex is ideal to plan out your project meeting agenda before your team meeting - while you are taking notes you can refer to the agenda on the NoteDex card.
These days information is coming at you from all directions - such as Microsoft Teams or in your Outlook email or from your Google calendar. Again, having a system to organize such information is essential.
Whether you are using Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, iOS iPad or Android, NoteDex has software apps for all devices including using our desktop class web browser - ideal if you can't install apps on your corporate device. NoteDex continues to innovate with its thoughtful yet simple note-taking features.
5 Tips for planning projects:
1) In the Project Initiation phase always have a kick=off meeting and use this meeting to get project stakeholder buy-in including identifying who is the project sponsor. At this time start to create a new project stack in NoteDex and customize the stack image - I often use the logo of the company I am working with so that it is very easy to visualize the project on the NoteDex home page.
2) Use a mind-map to help plan out the 'big picture' of the project - don't get caught in linear thinking at this early stage. Even better, get up onto a whiteboard! A real one preferably so you can use a pen to draw out ideas from your head about all the different Stages of your Project - and some of the key sub-tasks. If you don't have access to a whiteboard then you can use a mind-map tool.
3) Once you had created your mind-map then use NoteDex to create cards for each task - and use the groups function for your stages. You can also instead use Tags - depending on how you like. NoteDex has this two dimensional category capability so you can use it for your flexibility.
4) Now that you have laid out your project you can use these task cards for your reference, you can use them as a basis to put into another tool for managing a timeline (e.g. gantt chart or kanban board).
5) As the project progresses you can capture project meeting notes and information in cards within that project stack. This will keep all your information together and ready for your next meeting. Use the task cards and your meeting notes to plan out the agenda checklist for the next meeting.
We like to use pen (stylus) when taking meeting notes using NoteDex - it helps you to remember information. Here is a link to the research on this topic. And don't forget to share your creations with your project team colleagues - it helps to foster an atmosphere of accountability in your team! You can share a web link to instantly share the whole stack of cards, or just a group, or even just a card! You can also attach a note card as an image to an email, or perhaps in other collaboration and productivity systems you use like Trello or Teams. Super simple sharing - no need for your team colleagues to create yet another account in yet another system. We designed NoteDex sharing to be super easy - so there is zero friction in sharing information.
Let us know what other features you might like to have in NoteDex to help you manage your projects!
Benefits of a Project Information Management System
Are you looking for ways to make your business operations more efficient? Are you trying to find ways to improve communication between team members? If so, project information management is the solution for you! In this blog post, we’ll explore the many benefits of project information management and why it’s essential for businesses of all sizes.
A Project Information Management System (PIMS) is a powerful tool used to help manage projects of all sizes and complexity. It is designed to support all aspects of project management, including initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and closing. PIMS provide teams with the tools needed to organize, track and execute tasks as part of a larger project goal. These systems also help teams to monitor schedule, costs and resources in order to ensure that the project is completed on time and within budget. By implementing a PIMS, teams can gain increased visibility and improved communication, accountability and collaboration throughout the project lifecycle. In this blog post, we will explore the many benefits of using PIM for project management. If you are interested in this topic we recommend visiting the Project Management Institute website (link at the bottom) to learn more about Project Management and even work towards a Professional Certification.
Benefit 1: Balanced Resource Management
Balanced resource management is a key benefit of project information management. It helps project managers identify and avoid problems, prevent organizational conflict, and prevent over-reliance on any one resource. With the help of project information management, project managers can ensure that their resources are being used effectively and efficiently. This helps to keep projects on track and to deliver them to the end customer in a timely manner. Additionally, balanced resource management can also help teams to better collaborate and work together, allowing for more accurate task execution. This ultimately leads to increased customer satisfaction and improved profitability levels.
Benefit 2: Better Collaboration and Teamwork
Project Information Management Systems (PIMS) are a great tool for improving collaboration and teamwork among distributed teams. Team members can easily connect with each other in real-time, no matter where they are located, and the improved communication makes collaboration easier. With a PIMS, teams can stay on the same page and be aware of each other's perspectives, needs and timelines. This helps teams to be more productive, make better decisions and ultimately save time and money. Additionally, a PIMS provides visibility into a project as a collection of tasks, allowing teams to monitor schedules and costs in order to keep the project on track.
Benefit 3: Keeps the Project on Track
Keeping your project on track is easy with project information management. This system helps to ensure that all team members are up-to-date on progress, and it records all changes that occur throughout the project. It also allows project managers to keep track of timelines and deadlines, so they can adjust the schedule as needed. With this system, project managers can easily monitor the status of the project and make any necessary changes to keep it on track. Furthermore, it helps to ensure that tasks are completed on time and budgets are managed effectively. By having a reliable resource for tracking progress, project managers can ensure that their projects remain on the right path. By using NoteDex cards, you can take project notes, and create your agenda and plans for the next week. Advanced systems also provide a way to visualize progress (Gantt Chart, Kanban Task Flow).
Benefit 4: Helps Teams Organize, Track and Execute Work
Project management helps teams organize, track, and execute work more efficiently. By providing a streamlined system for tracking tasks, projects and resources, project management tools help teams better allocate resources and collaborate in an organized manner. This can help keep a project on track by ensuring that tasks are completed on time, within budget, and with the right quality standards. Project management tools also allow teams to monitor progress as well as changes in requirements, timelines and budgets. With this level of visibility, teams can quickly identify any issues or potential risks that may arise during the course of the project and make necessary adjustments along the way.
Benefit 5: Think of a Project as a Collection of Tasks
Project directors often find it helpful to think of a project as a collection of tasks that need to be completed in order to reach the ultimate goal. With project information management, teams can break down their projects into smaller, manageable pieces, making it easier to track progress and ensure that all tasks are completed on time. This also helps to keep the project on track and within budget, reducing the risk of costly delays or scope creep. Ultimately, seeing a project as a collection of tasks helps teams stay organized, productive, and focused on moving forward. This is one of the benefits of using NoteDex, the 'cards' are used to break down projects into smaller tasks.
Benefit 6: Monitor Schedule and Costs
By using project information management, teams are able to monitor schedule and costs. This enables them to make adjustments as needed when faced with unexpected events or changes that may arise. It also allows teams to identify any potential risks and adjust accordingly. The software provides a detailed view of the project timeline, making it easier for the team to stay on track with their delivery date and budget. Furthermore, this type of system helps keep everyone informed of progress, allowing for better communication and collaboration within the team.
Benefit 7: Increased Visibility
By using project information management, teams can have increased visibility of their projects. This allows them to understand what tasks need to be completed, who is responsible for them and when they are due. Improved visibility can help teams better anticipate and manage risks, identify areas of opportunity, and make decisions more quickly. Dashboards also help teams stay up to date with project status and offer greater transparency into project performance. With better visibility, teams can make informed decisions that will help ensure projects are completed on time and within budget.
Benefit 8: Improved Communication
Improved Communication is an invaluable asset for effective project management. By using a project information management system, teams can ensure that communication is streamlined and consistent, ensuring everyone is on the same page. This improved communication allows teams to coordinate their efforts more efficiently, quickly resolve conflicts, and keep the project moving forward. Additionally, having a unified system of communication allows teams to easily access all the relevant information in one place and make changes as needed. This not only streamlines communication but also improves accuracy and accountability. When you share a project Stack in NoteDex you achive this.
Benefit 9: Increased Accountability
Project Management Information Systems can help teams stay accountable to their commitments, as they are able to better track progress and identify any areas of concern. This increased accountability can help teams stay on task and complete projects on time and within budget. With the right system in place, teams can also be sure that they are meeting the standards of quality that they set for themselves, as well as those required by their customers or stakeholders. By holding team members accountable for their performance, these systems can help ensure successful project outcomes. Sharing your NoteDex data allows for accountability.
Benefit 10: A Trusted System
The PMIS system provides users with a trusted system to manage their projects. With reliable and secure data storage, like that found in NoteDex, project managers can rest assured that their information is safe and secured. Moreover, PMIS systems often have built-in mechanisms that allow users to monitor who has access to the data, granting them peace of mind when it comes to security. By providing users with a trusted system, the PMIS system helps ensure that projects are managed efficiently and securely. In NoteDex this is provided by sharing permissions.
We hope you enjoyed this deep dive into Project Management Information Systems. Try out NoteDex and see how it can help you to better manage and organize your projects.
Learn More:
Using Index Cards to Organize Information