Homecourt Manifesto

For years, large corporations have espoused the notion that projects can be planned with exactitude, with every milestone set by date. Using applications like Microsoft Project, a complex project could number in the hundreds of actions. It looks great at the project's outset, but it becomes nothing more than a fancy piece of paper when the project gets underway. At that point, humans become involved, and they are inherently unpredictable.

It's our opinion that project management software is a fruitless endeavour. A real project isn't composed of deadlines, it's composed of actions. Trying to fit humans into deadlines is like herding cats.

Instead of using a term like project management, we think about client collaboration. Wherever you have interactions with a client -- whether you're a lawyer, accountant or designer -- you need to agree on the work that will be done. You need a place to set up the actions that you'll do for a client, and you need a way to lay out the implementation details.

Typically, agencies and clients use a combination of email, phone calls and in-person meetings to communicate the details of a project. But those mediums, combined, make for a real mess when it comes to recalling details. That's where Homecourt comes in.

Homecourt's goal is to centralize all your client communications in one place. Create an action, and use that action to have a discussion. If the action is "Assemble all financial paperwork", then you could have a back-and-forth about exactly what paperwork is required, and the client can update you on the progress of finding it.

Naturally, you'll find that you don't just interact with a client electronically. For those times you have other offline meetings -- like in person or on the phone -- use Homecourt to summarize the results of that meeting. Ultimately, every facet of a project will be documented in one place.

Having used Homecourt for almost a year, we can say with certainty that it makes a big difference in how you manage your projects with clients. If you remember that you agreed to something three months ago, but don't remember what it was, a quick search in Homecourt will reveal the answer. Try that in the old system: you had to decide whether you'd talked about it with your client, sent it in an email, or said it in a voice message.

Using Homecourt, email becomes nothing more than a notification mechanism. When you post to the system, the other participants will receive an email containing a clipping from your message, and a link to the discussion. It's a great way to keep your inbox from becoming a management nightmare, especially since Homecourt keeps your discussion organized.

Another appealing aspect of Homecourt is its accessibility. As a hosted web application, you have no software to install -- it works in any modern Web browser. And it's available anywhere you go with Internet access. You can also add your own company logo, and choose your own domain name when you sign up; the point is to make it appear to your clients that Homecourt is your web-based solution, not ours.

We are truly excited by the possibilities that Homecourt enables; there's no software like it out in the market. We hope you find it equally valuable, and we welcome your feedback!