MANAGEMENT TOOLS

The "Development Activity Log" is one of the most important tools you will use in your work as a producer of interactive multimedia. Essentially, the tool provides a way for you and your team members to keep records of the amount of time you spend working on a project and to assign that time to specific projects and activities. It has many uses, e.g., it provides valuable information for any type of cost effectiveness evaluation that you or your clients might wish to conduct. Of course, this information is also invaluable for basic accountability purposes.
Using this tool involves two real challenges. One is making sure that you and everyone else connected with the development effort logs time in an accurate manner. The second is getting the time data tabulated and reported in a timely manner so that it can be used to make better decisions about project resources. Project Managers need to monitor and motivate the logging of this data.

Interactive multimedia design projects of any size or scope are usually very complex, and therefore demand the coordination of many different types of people working together. Record-keeping is an essential task of the project manager. It is a sound strategy to maintain a "Project Diary" throughout a multimedia design effort. This tool provides an outline of the major components of a "Project Diary," and provides a rationale for the inclusion of the various sections.

The "Project Status Report" is a very simple tool with a very important purpose. Essentially, this tool is one of the primary inputs to your project diary. The project manager should prepare project status reports at regular intervals, usually once a week, to keep your client and your team informed as to the progress (or lack thereof) with respect to the project. It may also be useful to issue special project status reports whenever some important milestone has been accomplished, e.g., pressing a CD-ROM disk.

The "Sign-Off Form" is an exceptionally useful project management tool, especially when one is working for an external client. Getting the client to sign-off on every interim product in the development of an interactive multimedia project will provide you with a solid basis for asking for additional resources (time, money, or people) that may be needed when the client wishes to change the program at some late date in the project.