engleski

Open Source Collaborative Tools for Managing Projects in Small and Medium Enterprises

Good communication and collaboration have always been essential for managing projects. Given the fact that projects have become a global (rather than local) phenomenon, Project Management of the 21st century is increasingly taking place in virtual environments and is more and more being managed by virtual teams. Today, using state of art collaborative tools has become a necessary component of PM processes in virtually every project, rather than a mere privilege. Simultaneously, the open source movement in computing has given birth to some of the most widespread utilities used in businesses today. Because of their usefulness, cost, and convenience ; these tools are capable of providing a solid infrastructure for managing projects. This paper gives an overview of tools and methods used for virtual collaboration in project management with special emphasis on open source tools. A chosen set of techniques and tools is then applied to a test case project (of small/medium size) in order to illustrate different applicability issues for such processes. In conclusion, potential impact on small/medium enterprises is suggested, when the tools and methods are appropriately used. This suggested set of consequences can help non-technology savvy project managers in drawing their own conclusions on the given subject and it will hopefully contribute to advancement of PM processes.

Project management; Collaborative tools; Virtual teams; Open Source

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