CSOdessa will release their project management tool ConceptDraw Office in a couple of weeks (latest word is mid June). No, this is not just another piece of PM software. And that is a good thing. If you provide the Project Management world with new tools, you better bring something cool to the table.

ConceptDraw innovates in two areas: 1) supporting the process from idea to schedule and 2) visual representation.

Idea To Schedule

The application lets you draw mindmaps around certain themes. If you need to build some piece of software you can just think of all the steps you need to perform and mindmap it on the screen. This mindmap can be enhanced by entering dates, resources and slowly turned into a Gantt chart, a real genuine schedule. With this approach it truly reflects the real world planning process. We all hate to send a half-baked draft MS Project file. Well, ConceptDraw will have none of that. Just communicate the mindmap and there will be no false expectations.

The whole process is task oriented. This allows you to go from mindmap to Gantt to Work breakdown structure to tasklist. All in one process.

Visual Representation

As mentioned before the basic enity in ConceptDraw Office is "task". The data can be represented for both linear and visual thinkers. It can be viewed as a mindmap, network-like overview, or as a hardcore schedule or WBS. The visualization is also very pleasing to the eye, it creates beautiful web 2.0 dashboards. These will wow the stakeholders. Although it's not the most important thing, a professional presentation always helps.

A drawback of this version is that it doesn't allow for remote collaboration in the mindmap phase.