I’ve said that any developer seeking to unleash a task management application needs to think mobile first. We live in a mobile world, where we can (and do) work from anyplace and at anytime. Being disconnected from your tasks and projects for an extended period isn’t just undesirable – it’s not an option. That’s why today’s announcement fro Mindjet is such a huge deal. Today they have announced the availability of their purpose-built app for mobile team and project management: Mindjet Tasks.
Mindjet Tasks aims to bridge the gap between effective team communications and project management. And it looks good while doing it.
“Mindjet Tasks does for teams what Clear and Any.Do do for the individual. It combines elegance and efficiency to bring people and plans together, meeting the evolving work needs of the always-on-the-go mobile professional,” said Mindjet CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff. “With Mindjet, professionals can be more productive, creative and organized to, quite simply, work inspired.”
I’ve looked at a ton of productivity apps, but one of the things that makes Mindjet Tasks appealing is its tight integration with the mind mapping tools that the service offers. I’ve not spent a ton of time in mind mapping applications for that reason – they seem to be too distant from my task manager of choice. With Mindjet Tasks, all of your mind maps, projects, and tasks can be at our fingertips – no matter where you are.
You can see all of your projects in the Project screen, which then drills down into the Tasks screen.
That screen shows you all of the tasks you’ve got on your plate, with a summary at the top so you can see what you’ve got on the go with one quick glance.
From there you can touch a specific task and get a more detailed view of it. You can touch the project associated with the task at the top to change views, you can assign tasks to a team member by touching the person’s name (listed as Nobody by default), and can check out the information pane by touching the “i” on the right. That area will give you a Task Score, as well as how new the task is – important so you can keep track of tasks before they go stale – and how many followers a task has.
The progress circle on the upper portion can be modified by “drawing” a circle with your finger as the task progresses. Alternatively, you can tap it to get a task to 100% of completion or 0%, depending on how many taps you administer. In the lower part of that pane, you’ll see activity on the task (including comments), add followers to the task, and view any attachments that the task may have (you can’t add attachments within the app, you have to do that from Mindjet Tasks’s web interface).
(You can also give kudos to those who are involved in a task by giving them a “yay!” in the comment area, which is a pretty cool feature that can help build camaraderie with teammates.)
Some of the other features that Mindjet Tasks offers include:
- Real-time updates on documents, progress and plans, including team comments
- Patent-pending auto-prioritization of tasks to keep you and your team on the right track
- Instant connection with Mindjet web and desktop to update or add to your latest ideas and plans
I’ve only started to dive into Mindjet Tasks, and now you can join me. To download a free copy of the new Mindjet app with Tasks, go to iTunes. To learn more about Mindjet Tasks, go to www.mindjet.com/mobile.
