The Best Project Management Tool? Cards-on-the-Wall

One of the most overlooked, but most valuable tools, especially for large projects, is the Network Diagram. While it sounds fancy, it's just a matter of listing activities to support the deliverables on a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), and determining the dependencies among these activities.

Both the Work Breakdown Structure (which should be deliverable-oriented and should represent 100% of the scope of your project) and the Network Diagram are best facilitated as a collaborative effort with the project team and subject matter experts, ideally using cards or sticky labels on the wall (or on flip charts).

Here's an excellent article from Software Developer Magazine (sdmagazine.com) about how to effectively use the "cards-on-the-wall" approach...

Software Development Online: Cards-on-the-Wall Sessions