Free Project Management Tool – The Promise Keeper

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Does PMP certification make a better project manager? When Raven Young asked this question, opinions varied.

Does Microsoft Project, the de facto project management software standard, improve IT project performance? I challenge anyone to show me proof of a strong correlation between how good you are as a project manager, and the cost of the tools that you use.

Some of the best project managers use the simplest tools. Many of us who are efficiency software and tool junkies have come full circle and selectively reincorporated paper-based task systems into our personal workflows.

As part of the primary mission of this blog, I seek to provide you with tools and techniques which can increase your real skill as a project manager.  This post is about Paul O’Brien’s Promise Keeper, a simple tool which can:

1. Improve team communications
2. Facilitate efficient meetings
3. Save you time

You can start using your own Promise Keeper today.   Best of all, it’s free.  The author and creator, Paul O’Brien, has given permission for you to use or modify it as you see fit.¹  If you decide to try it, please leave a quick comment below.  Paul will be monitoring the list, and would be glad to hear your thoughts.

What is the Promise Keeper (by Paul O’Brien)

Several people asked about the Promise Keeper and the Delivery Matrix²   These are quirky little tools I have created just for myself. I only explain them here because several people asked.  They are not part of any methodology – I just made them up myself to help me do my job.

Project management (or all management now I think of it) is all about setting up an environment where busy people can make good promises and then keep them. A good promise is one where they are motivated to do the task, have not under-estimated it and the promise is made and recorded in ‘public’. If they can’t keep the promise I need to know in time to deal with it. I find the most important thing here is to eliminate all fear and anxiety from the environment – otherwise you get bad promises and poor promise-keeping.

I have a simple spreadsheet list with persons name, date of next review, what the promise is and the final deadline. I sort this by persons name so I can batch by person and remind them of all their promises. I use conditional formatting to highlight the ones that are due for review or completion.

How to Start

The best way to start using your own version of the Promise Keeper to to start a spreadsheet like the example at the top of this post.  Include columns for:

1. Person who made the promise
2. Status (In Progress, To Do, Done)
3. Due Date
4. Next Review Date
5. (Calculated Field) Days to Due Date.  Negative if due date has been missed.

Start with the current items you are tracking.  If this seems onerous to you, an alternative way to begin is to bring an empty sheet to your next team meeting.  You can then fill it in with your team.

In future team meetings or status updates, this promise keeper can be one of the main exhibits updated and used as a basis for the agenda.

I have started using a promise keeper myself, and am impressed with its elegance and clarity.

Thanks Paul, for your generosity in sharing.  Paul’s delivery matrix will be presented for you use in a future post.

Downloads

Promise Keeper - 300.5 KB - Project Management Examples - 09-Mar-2009
Promise Keeper Template (Excel 2003) - 34 KB - Project Management Templates - 09-Mar-2009
Promise Keeper Template (Excel 2007) - 21.15 KB - Project Management Templates - 09-Mar-2009

1. Please do not publish it elsewhere without his express written permission.  Thanks! [↩]
2. Will be presented later this week in a follow up post. [↩]

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