MindGenius is a project management software built around capabiliities such as map creation, meeting management, and strategic planning.
$16
per month
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Planview AdaptiveWork is a web-based collaborative work management software. Planview AdaptiveWork enables users to connect employees and partners and create documents, reports and specialized workflow automation. Planview AdaptiveWork is designed to work across multiple teams to enable cross-company task, project, and resource management.
[It's] Wonderful for small group or individual planning, brainstorming, explaining, projecting etc. It is also great for reporting or sharing findings of outcomes whether research or business related. It has a free viewer so that if you are presenting on a different computer, the viewer will allow the visuals to be shared. It is not ideal for collaboration unless everyone has this software.
Planview AdaptiveWork is by far the most flexible project management tool we've ever used. The ability to customize and create solutions to fit our needs is beyond capable. We often find ourselves creating new workflows that make automatic actions in parts of a project, or send notifications, or add users, or update statuses... the list of things goes on and on. Essentially the ability to create an IF statement on pretty much EVERYTHING you can do in the system is unparalleled. If you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
GOAL SETTING: Because of the available templates, it is easy to set goals and then revisit them for revision or follow through. I like to brainstorm while I set goals and then come back and annotate my goals with changes, improvements, or add/substract them as needed.
STRATEGIC PLANNING: MindGenius is terrific for working through ideas and parameters. I can either use a freelance screen or a template and brainstorm through the goals that I need to meet. Then I can branch out from each objective with the required facets of each one. I am visual so color coding and using shapes to organize the parts of the objective (i.e. the resources needed, people/stakeholders that are involved, missing pieces etc.). When organizing a project or research, I find it invaluable.
BRAINSTORMING: MindGenius is a wonderful visual to use in a small group or classroom to brainstorm or record ideas. I also adjunct teach and I find MG a wonderful visual for planning a paper or demonstrating how to support ideas in a paper or to verify that research is completed properly. it is a teacher's must-have.
MindGenius is not as intuitive as I would like it to be. Although there is a quick-key stroke or movement that will replicate a shape or field if I want to make a parent or child block, I never remember what it is. I always use the manual insert by clicking with the mouse and it takes longer. If CONTROL ENTER created a new shape field like "the last one" or the one where the cursor is blinking, that would help considerably.
Changing the default visuals for a template or making a new template is overly time-consuming. Although I understand these details may only matter to someone as ULTRA-VISUAL a I am, if the font is too small or the shapes need to be visually altered, there is not a way to quickly grab those boxes and change the settings in one fell swoop. Although there is a way they can be changed, I have to navigate inside this and then inside this to get to the screen and then I have to figure out which changes the lines or the inside color of the shape etc. These details are a little overwhelming.
It would be great if I could make one shape in the font and layout I want and then replicate that pattern to other shapes or apply a different color scheme to it entirely. If these features already exist, i cannot find them and I consider myself to be rather tech savvy.
Yes, Clarizen has time tracking functionality. But in the end, so does much other software, and they do it with a better, less confusing interface which is one of the reasons our organization ended up switching. The platform was crowded and made it confusing for users who only used it to track time (like me).
Our organization also wanted software that would better house PTO information, in addition to time tracking, and Clarizen's program wasn't efficient enough.
The point above also goes with expenses. We wanted a more diligent and robust expense report system. For our needs, Clarizen wasn't it.
I give my renewal of this product a 9. It's only because we never know what product may come out next and how other factors in our office political environment may cause impact upon this. If I always had my way, this is what we'd settle on as our de facto project management system.
It is easy to configure, intuitive. The customization process is in some ways better than Salesforce.com. It has a great UI. It does however depend on how it's implemented.
The design of it is generally fine, however the ability to data upload people from a spreadsheet is an obvious miss.
Sometimes it is slow when everyone is entering their time on Fridays or Mondays but other than that we rarely see downtime and maintenance notifications are well in advance.
Most Ancillary Pages: Quick to Reasonable (By "ancillary" I mean lesser used/master data maintenance pages - e.g. People, Customers, Individual Tasks, Milestones, etc.)
Work Plan (with 100 sub items): Reasonable to Slow
It's a good experience overall. Clarizen was useful when needed. It's mostly needed for advice on how to do more sophisticated actions or how to change something that was set up administratively. It's seldom used otherwise. The product consistently works, the documentation is acceptable, and the generally intuitive product is easy enough for most staff to pick up without much issue.
• We worked with a Project Manager on their side. He was very good about developing a project plan to hit our goal. I think we had weekly or twice weekly calls – very steady cadence over 3 month period. • Their PM skills were great – kept us on task. For the last week, they sent 2 people on site and they did training for power users. After that a couple of them revisited here
Our trainer, Alex, is exceptional and knows the product really well. I swear he must have wrote the product himself! His manner with training is very easy going, gives you homework that is applicable to what you need to learn and stages it correctly for you. It was a pleasure to be trained by him.
I performed the implementation with our Clarizen provide trainer, who knew the product 100% and it went quickly and without a problem. It was a pleasurable process without the problems other software implementation often encounter. Kudos to the Clarizen team for making this a worry free process for their clients because it is worry free.
I have not used another product like MindGenius. Although I use Microsoft One Note for sometimes making lists that sync across my PC and my devices, I do not have another mind-mapping programming. MindGenius only has an app for iPad and without accessibility on iOS, I have not been able to use it for my daily TO DO lists etc that I would otherwise do. I use One Note for that role since MG does not have a phone app
Planview AdaptiveWork was the right size, at the right price point that fit our customization and integration flexibility. It is intuitive to use but allowed us to add complexity as our needs grew
I have not tracked the positive or negative impact of MG on my overall business objectives. I have successfully used it in the aspects of my personal and professional management.
MG helps me stay on track with my research and personal editing. It keeps me accountable so that I meet my deadlines. Although I have not applied a dollar value to it, it helps me signficantly.
We use the time tracking reports to help identify types of projects for which we're under charging for implementation fees
We use the notes tracking for assisting with post mortems when projects go off the rails
We use the tracking of ARR and implementation fees to pull together reports based on go live that let us know how we're tracking towards our yearly goals
