Personal digital assistants (PDAs) were holstered to the belt of every rising business professional in the early 2000s. When you hooked your Palm to your laptop, you didn't just update your calendar—you hot-synced. Like a term from a William Gibson cyberpunk novel, the act seemed to signify something beyond updating your appointments. You were plugging into the streamlined, recalibrate-on-the-fly culture of the project management jet set, Business 2.0 on a double espresso and a small monochrome screen.
Nowadays, tapping a stylus on a digital brick seems about as retrograde as scratching a stone on a clay tablet. PDAs have evolved, their capabilities merging with mobile phones into touch-screen tablet computers, one-stop-shop communications and scheduling platforms.
〈 LEADER OF THE PACK
Taking its place at the head of the digital device hierarchy is Apple's iPad. As sleek and sexy as the company's Newton PDA (RIP, 1993-1998) was clunky and slow, the iPad is a game-changer. Despite new slim netbooks and the much-hyped release of HP's Slate 500 in mid-November, the iPad is currently the undisputed leader.
With prices starting at US$499, the iPad requires less of an investment than many laptops and still has more than enough processor power to handle most project management software.
Though much smaller than most computer screens, the iPad work area appears cleaner and more spacious than a PC desktop because top-of-the-screen menus are largely absent. The setup creates an elegant look that makes you feel as if you're navigating within a smooth flow of information rather than tinkering around from the outside. And having your pick of vertical or horizontal orientation allows you to decide which best suits the perusal of project details.
Like many technophiles, enterprising project managers were quick to explore the iPad's potential, but the current lineup of project management tools is a bit underwhelming.
Straddling the line between casual and professional, the products enable quick though simplistic overhead project surveying, but lack the greater depth of a more robust software offering. As of press time, fewer than 40 project management choices show up in the iTunes app store, many of which are simple time-trackers or education products rather than proper tools.
〈 STREAMTIME
is offering an iPad version of its project management software that allows client-server interaction identical to the company's desktop PC iteration. Scroll through client lists by sliding your finger down the screen, enter notes with a few taps and access project-wide communications with another touch.
But what about other project management tasks that require heavier lifting, such as resource allocation variables and critical path charting?
SG PROJECT 2 〉
from FourthFrame Technologies comes the closest to something a project manager might find truly useful. It accommodates multiple projects, parent and child tasks, and dependencies between tasks, with durations, ownership and percentage-completed options for each. You can view tables and Gantt charts in split views, and a few finger movements let you zoom in or out. Data formatted in PDF or XML can be exported to exchange information with Microsoft Project or provide team-wide status updates.
Like other iPad apps, the bonus comes down to cost savings: The software is only US$9.99. For the price of a low-end PC software license, an organization could outfit a couple dozen iPads.
THE VERDICT
Each product among the relatively small family of project management iPad apps comes with significant limitations. Some can't trade information with Project and/or are dependent upon a local Wi-Fi network. Customer reviews also reveal extensive bugs—unsurprising, given the rush to port existing applications into iPad versions.
Project managers shouldn't despair. Toshiba keeps promising a next-gen tablet, and the Omni Group has been detailing its plans to bring OmniPlan to the iPad since January. Plus, developers eager to exploit the expanding market will presumably beef up their project management offerings.
Only then can the iPad go from being a cool new toy to a serious must-have tool for project managers. PM