The economy stinks and maybe your sales too. People get laid off and projects placed on hold. Many organizations are missing new opportunities. This is the time to take advantage of improving your processes.

Companies are tightening down budgets with cuts and freezes. Knee jerk reactions. Is that a good move? Maybe, maybe not. If the reaction is not thought through and implemented systematically, things could get worse in the longer run. I propose the strategy of getting new processes and procedures in place to ensure efficiencies.

Why are enterprise software tools hard to use? Why are their designs complex? Just because they have a lot of features, it doesn’t mean they have to be crammed. At Pie, we take a fresh approach with simplicity and sense of location even with a lot of features.

Pie launches beta at TechCrunch50. Thanks to our beta customers for feedback as we get started. We were able to participate in the "demo pit". We got great feedback from all those who stopped by our booth.

We conducted a survey at the NorCal PMI Symposium 2008 hosted at Stanford University. The survey question was "What are your top three challenges in migrating to a more mature process organization?" Check out their answers. It may surprise you.

The CBP Summit 2008 in Scottsdale conference is one of the top PMO (Project Management Office) events. Most attendees where PMO directors. We conduct a survey asking, "what are the top 3 best practice needs for project implementation that you would like to discuss with your peers?". Read the results. They may surprise you.

There’s a trend with a focus on “User Experience” in addition to “User Interface”. Learn what’s happening in the project management software space and how new companies are redefining the concept of user experience with better design and product flow.

Do you need to build best practices for your projects? Maybe you can spit it out in one sitting. Maybe not. Consider crowdsourcing ideas with your team. Check out 5 steps to get started.

Writing best practice or process content from scratch can sometimes feel like writing a book. You have that blank page starring back at you, waiting, waiting. No problem. We provide you with some simple steps on how to turn an existing project template file into a best practice process.

Traditionally, best practices or process methodologies have been devised by an individual or as small, closed group of experts. I have found that a challenge organizations have with defining or improving their internal best practices is the lack of time or priority commitment. Why not use the team and crowdsource the next best processes?

The Pie layers are sub-projects of a larger program (or major project), and their cells contain process methodology, best practice, or procedure tasks. This gives the "matrix" side of the pie.

The concept of Pie is that you can slice up a project into phases and then under each phase you can add your project deliverables and tasks that can be assigned to people and given due dates. Pie is a visual tool for planning, executing, and governing projects. This is our first blog post and a preview of what our new startup is up to.