Getting things done successfully with AgilePad’s project management

Massachusetts-based Unfuddle, LLC has announced the launch of AgilePad, the company’s latest, distraction free project management platform designed to help software developers and managers organize projects of any size.

The company has been helping teams manage their projects since 2006 and with a customer base of tens of thousands of software developers worldwide, they now present their latest tool to help any individual or team get organized.

AgilePad is a collaborative tool that combines the simplicity of a text document with the utility of a task management system. The Unfuddle team hopes that the straightforward interface will help developers to focus on finishing the tasks at hand, and achieving success in their projects – without being sidetracked.

“We believe AgilePad makes a statement – that less is more,” said Unfuddle co-founder David Croswell. “Many multi-featured tools out there force your team to work in a prescribed way, adding distraction and weight to the workload. In our opinion, AgilePad does quite the opposite; it adapts to the customer’s needs and does not force them into a particular philosophy or paradigm. This means that project managers, software developers, entrepreneurs and others can work in their own way, focusing on finishing work – and not on the project management tools. We want to help teams accomplish the ‘to-dos’ but really convert to ‘just-do’ and ‘done’.”

On starting a new project in AgilePad, users are presented with a plain text document. From there, through an easily understandable syntax, users can create projects, tag them with relevant labels, schedule events, add commentary, and write notes and delegate tasks to teams and individuals. By marking down statuses, hashtags, dates and assignees, the tasks can be categorized and seen in the program’s task board. These are organized in a tabular format that can then be filtered and prioritized by person, date, or any other category the user has denominated. Moreover, files can be uploaded and shared with collaborators, edits are made in real-time, and the multiple project views and filters make the program very easy to navigate.

According to The Access Group, “capturing time and costs against projects is the biggest challenge in project management”. AgilePad rises to this challenge by allowing users to add costs to the project – indicating financial or time-related requirements of various tasks in the project. These are then aggregated in the sidebar, and allow for adequate resource management, delegation and prioritization. This is an important feature, following the Standish Group report that “fewer than a third of all projects were successfully completed on time and on budget over the past year.”

Considering that ease of use, reliability and integration are the top three requirements that project managers look for in new software, AgilePad’s simplicity is its strength. Furthermore, Geneca reports that 75% of businesses and IT executives predict that their software projects will fail, and -according to the Gallup Business Review- the US economy loses up to $150 billion in failed projects.

“Our aim with AgilePad is to help people succeed in what they do. For us, there’s nothing better than to hear from people who have used our tool to help them achieve their goals and complete their projects. We are all looking forward to the future, to see how AgilePad and its community develops, and to hear about the projects people are managing,” added Croswell.