Amode supports simple thought/information capturing, to full blown project management, to document storage!   It does not matter whether I just need to jot down some project details or setup a project for tracking purposes or begin work on a presentation – Amode supports whatever “mode” I need to capture information or whatever type of information.   Amode has been great while working through printer consolidation at our County – the tool includes everything for the project.   I defined the tasks and used the project management features for managing that effort.   All documents and data collected were stored directly into Amode – and don’t even ask me HOW the software manages to embed so many files and yet the solution file size stays relatively small, it is amazing!   I still use mind mapping and can link those files directly to my Amode project as well.

Amode provides me ONE solution that supports all my information management needs and I never have to search for related documents – everything is in ONE place!   Managing multiple projects and priorities is difficult enough without having to rely on multiple solutions and documents and data scattered everywhere – Amode makes it very easy.  

Our clients, often relatively small innovators, ask us to:

1. Help them determine if their products have a market,
2. Help them develop their products and
3. Obtain necessary regulatory approvals to enable them to commercialise their products. 
4. Develop and implement compliance programs to ensure products continue to meet regulatory requirements.

At any one time, we will have a broad range of projects at various stages from proposal to almost complete.  While a project for us is one of many, to our clients, that one project might have a significant impact on their continued viability. 

Mindsystems Amode has replaced databases and other in-house developed systems to enable us to manage projects and to report status of projects to clients.

Typically, our clients need to know:

1. What is required to enable their products to be commercialised.
2. What it will cost to commercialise their products.
3. When will their products be able to enter the market.

Mindsystems Amode helps us answer the above critical questions.

Requirements to commercialise a product.

Templates are used to list all the key requirements for commercialising products in different situations.  By selecting the appropriate template we can work through requirements to determine any that are not applicable for the specific situation.

Linking available data to individual requirements helps us determine if adequate information is available and what additional information will be required, if any.

Exporting requirements to Microsoft Word provides an easy format in which to communicate requirements to clients.

Cost to commercialise a product

Cost of commercialising a product includes direct costs (e.g. fees payable to regulators, cost of generating data and our fees) plus costs associated with the time it takes to commercialise a product.  Interest on borrowings as well as revenue that could have come from using resources for alternative projects are examples of costs associated with the time it takes to commercialise a product.

Using templates in Mindsystems Amode, we can quickly develop an estimated timeline for a project.  The Gantt option provides a visual overview of the timeline and allows quick modifications, e.g. adding tasks, deleting tasks or modifying duration of tasks.

The ability to allocate resources within a project helps determine if modifications need to be made to the timeline. 

Unlike dedicated project management software, Mindsystems Amode provides a quick, easy, jargon-free way to schedule a project and allocate resources and to then communicate the schedule to clients.

Having developed the project timeline, exporting project details as a quote provides a quick and efficient way for us to determine the direct costs associated with a project.

Determining when it will be possible to commercialise a product

At the start of a project, a timeline is established.  With Mindsystems Amode, it is easy to adjust the dates according when a project actually starts. 

The Alarm feature is used to alert expected completion dates for tasks, as well as to track progress of tasks by others, e.g. when we expect to receive contracted study data or when regulators are expected to have completed their evaluations for a specific project. 

Clicking on the alarm reminder opens the project and allows a review of the project.  Decisions are then made as to whether follow-up is required at that time. 

Decisions and update information are recorded in the Tickler notes giving a quick overview of the progress to date of a project.  Linking documents, such as correspondence, to a task allows quick review of progress on a project and has become a vital tool in meetings with clients and regulators.

In summary the key benefits of Mindsystems Amode, for us, are:

1. Ease of use – we can quickly and easily determine project requirements, timelines and costs plus to allocate resources.
2. Tracking – one central location for all project information which significantly reduces time and effort in managing projects.
3. Communication – by having all project information readily available in a central location, we are better able to communicate project requirements and progress.

Amode - Alternatives and Choice of Tools

This text is not about all bells and buttons you can find in Amode, nor a detailed description of how I use it but some examples of what I use it for.

The way I use it has no claims on being the one and only path, but it has proven time saving, and practical for me in a work situation with heavy information overload and need for structure.

Being an advocate of mind maps and heavily using other mind mapping tools since many years, it was with some skepticism combined with curiosity I approached Mindsystems Amode.

After playing around with it for some time I got to like the way the same information is viewed from different angles and how it is reflected in the interface. (My standard setup in other mind mapping tools has since long been the tree view as in Amode, but Amode was really quite superior in how it views other dimensions of information.) The interface is strict and logical and once you master it very powerful.

There are still some rough edges (using v. 1.2589) but Amode is mature enough to replace the other tools as my Swiss Army Knife - the universal tools I have depended on for so long,

Today I work as a resource manager and project manager at a larger software company and Amode is used to keep and organize the most different types of information.

Examples of usage

Brainstorming:

Every week, we have a scheduled brain storming meeting about the coming week and month. These meetings were originally conducted on a whiteboard and later using traditional mind mapping tools.

Today I have the same meeting using Amode that is very stringent in its approach both when entering information as well as rearranging and presenting. In the meeting we typically review last week's meeting, come up with new ideas and changes (new topics and explanatory notes) and rearrange on the fly.

The tree grows over time and a way to keep focus in a meeting is to filter branches either on text or using the icon grey out function. Colour coding to highlight also facilitates focus.

Since the meetings aim at a highly moving target, all information is version controlled and the output  is base lined after every meeting.

Sending out actions and meeting minutes at the end of the meeting or very shortly after is easy since all information is already entered, known and agreed upon.

Key words here are visibility, structure, agility, follow up, reporting and immediate feedback.

Project administration is probably the least glorious yet most time consuming of my tasks. It is also a very fragmented task in terms of when information is available and valid. The structure for one project is basically always the same:

• Offer to the customer
• Risk and margin estimates
• Purchase order from customer
• Purchase request for partner
• Purchase order to customer
• Invoices to customer
• Time sheets and invoices from partner

The amount of information handled for 10-15 projects soon becomes monumental and you have to keep track of the degree of completeness for all this information (i.e. Did I get a reply to the offer I sent to customer X? Time to prolong project Y? Have I received all time sheets before invoicing?)

Setting up standard templates in Amode with the structure along with status icons solves this. Add timeline control, dates and resources and you may get an overview of the projects in Gantt mode and be able to filter on resources and ongoing projects in tree mode giving a good overview of who is involved in which project and when. The different documents (offers etc) you send as correspondence can be managed as attachments in the Amode file thus collecting everything in one place.

All this can be done the manual way in traditional file structures, but overview is lost and superhuman discipline is required as soon as you handle even as little as 10 projects.

Project planning definitely lies in the philosophy of Amode and the wish list I have covers the functionality of a traditional project management tool combined with reporting in a broader context.

In my work, I keep plans open for multiple projects sharing the same resources. I also use it for identifying critical paths and to monitor project progress. Linked tasks, possibility to drag and drop tasks - this is all standard functionality in a project management program.

Amode shows its strength when it comes to viewing the information in other views: For project reporting I have set up templates with standard content where I include a screen shot of the current Gantt graph along with cost and resource follow up.

Since scope creep and changing conditions may alter the course of a project - sometimes drastically - all versions need to be saved with a comment for later retrieval.

Offers and contracts often follow a standard structure.

Amode is used for clear, concise and repetitive reuse of standard layouts and text. Also, since offers and contracts are legal documents, version management is of essence.

In Amode, I create offers from templates where the pre populated Tickler Notes are used to give explanatory hints on how the contract should be written, things to look out for etc. The text in the Tickler Notes never go into the actual contract.

For quotes I set up the project information (resources, tasks, timeline, cost) and then generate a quote directly in Excel or PDF. If the result of an offer or contract is a Word file it can either be cut/pasted into the text or enclosed as an attachment.

In all, professional offers and contracts are produced with little effort using a standard procedure reducing the risk for error.

A frequent use is to write reports directly in Amode and export to MS Word. For that purpose Amode is a powerful outliner where I arrange and rearrange text using drag and drop in the tree structure of Amode. Also the text formatting options are adequate though, for natural reasons, not as complete as in MS Word.

Using Tickler Notes is also a powerful way of having my own scratch pad for abstracts and random notes I may or may not want to export to MS Word.

By marking topics with icons, I may also filter the report so that different subsets of the report can be exported for different recipients - practical when you for example set up reports with different levels of security classification.

Using templates as basis for these reports with pre set icons for different audiences is a time saver.

Should I want to export a read only copy of the report, there is an Adobe PDF export.

And incidentally, this text is written in Amode...

The examples I have given only show straightforwardly a few of the areas I am using Amode for; I am using the program for more than this.

Reading the examples above, it is very clear that I pick and mix different pieces of information most often based on the same, or closely related, data.

Strictly speaking managing information from different perspectives is my need, and all I want to do is to handle this as simply and productively as possible. Amode does a beautiful job of supporting me to do it through its views and stringent, yet flexible way of managing and presenting information - all this combined in one program and one interface.

No program has a justification in itself. It is only when you use it in a context which brings value that the combination is justified. This combination already is and I have just started exploring the full potential.