Project management and the World Wide Web

Bellcore has created an experimental “virtual project office” web site on the World Wide Web (WWW) for interactive project management of the Internetwork Interoperability Test plan (IITP) program. IITP is unique in that project team members and labs are from various companies within the telecommunications industry, are geographically dispersed over the United States and Canada and use varied conducting platforms. Project management tasks such as effective change control, communication of project information, and forging strong team spirit are particularly challenging in this environment. This virtual project office is an attempt at using the WWW to overcome these obstacles and create a space where project team members can gather to bond and exchange timely project information. This paper discusses the challenges and presents Bellcore's solution and experiences with it