PMBridge is the first "IM based PM tool" which is distinctly different from desktop PM tools and "net based PM" tools. PMBridge transforms the "buddy-list" of the popular IM tools into "Project-Teams" and Task information's into Instant Messages to create a real-time collaborative project management solution. PMBridge captures the "relationships" of the "buddies" in the buddy-list with respect to the Project Team and the Project Work-Breakdown Structure (WBS) enabling a "people-focused Distributed Project Management" (DPM). With the perfect integration of Planning-Centric Desktop PM tool and Collaboration and Communication-Centric IM tools, PMBridge Management shifts the focus from up front, top-down planning to focus on the actual process of executing the project plan. PMBridge redefines Instant Messaging Tools from a "place to chat" to a "place to work"

Real-time collaborative project management is a drive towards "people" and "processes" and away from simply displaying "data". This is a paradigm shift where value is derived not from "data management" alone but from managing the interactions between people around specific information or content within a specific process. Real-time Collaborative Project Management Solutions also enable "Rollingwave Planning" wherein the project plan is progressively detailed by the project team's hierarchy at successive levels and in certain situations "just-in-time".

Benefits
Enumerating the benefits of a product is the thin line between telling and selling. Some of the core benefits of the new generation application include:

1. Imbibing Project Culture
The drive to structure processes within and between enterprises has led to proliferation of Certifications for contract and workflow management within the supply-chain. Management of Project-Centric Business Processes has gained much attention and various models like Project Capability Maturity Model have been proposed to measure and management project management capabilities of an organization. PMBridge provides a framework for structuring and managing processes such as "change order process" for tuning the project-plan, project close out and hand-over process and thereby imbibing a "project-culture" in an enterprise.

2. Real-Life Complex Project Management
Early Desktop Project Management Solutions required an up-front, top-down planning approach to Project Management. This requirement constrains the PM tool to be used only for simple, local projects. PMBridge enables more and more people to work over time and distance in collaboration to complete a task or project, within a company and throughout an extended enterprise or supply-chain. PMBridge enhances the capabilities of an enterprise to manage complex projects.

3. Enterprise Project Management
A Systematic Approach to Project Management within an enterprise should support organization structure, information systems and Human Computer Interaction. Enterprise Project Management would have to adhere to these critical needs. PMBridge's approach of integrating a collaboration environment with a desktop project management creates a perfect integration of information system requirements (managing documents and document exchanges) with human-computer-interaction (by extending popular IM interfaces) along with support for organization structure management. PMBridge enables enterprise visibility over all projects to identify strategic projects and ensure their success.

4. Project Process Life-cycle Management & Reduction
The Lifecycle of Project is composed of phases like design and implementation and processes like initiating, planning, controlling and closing within each of the phases. The interlinkages of processes spanning the project phases form the collaboration junctions where multiple stakeholders of the project phases have to interact. Facilitating these interactions and monitoring them significantly improves the probability of satisfying project requirements and performance. By improving the collaboration at these junctions helps the stakeholders to respond quickly and take faster and more informed decisions thereby contributing to the reduction of the overall Project Cycle Time.

5. Project Communication Management
Communications that happen within the Project context include information dissemination, performance reporting, exceptions reporting and administrative closure. PMBridge reduces the time and cost of communication by instant-messaging technology leveraging collaborative platforms such as JXTA, Lotus Sametime and many others. PMBridge provides "context to collaborate" with One-Step Point and Click User-Interfaces to schedule and structure the project-related interactions by identifying the junctions at which collaboration should occur.

6. Resource Management
The number of projects to be handled concurrently has proliferated for all enterprises due to the current business climate due to trends like globalization, eCommerce etc. Managers have to track and evaluate return on investment on each resource by arriving at optimal resource allocation and schedule milestones, track budgets and variances. In Project-Centric Enterprises where people are key resources, tools like PMBridge, which provide support for managing their Skills and Availability within the Project Context. PMBridge provides Calendaring tool, which helps the users to manage both their project-related and personnel schedules.

7. Reachability & Crisis Management
PMBridge provides Resource Access Mechanisms from multiple perspectives like access-by-name, access-by-project, access-by-task or access-by-availability etc for efficient allocation and utilization of these critical resources. PMBridge 's Presence Management is a critical Service. When a crisis situation arises and a resource or team member has to be tracked to resolve it.

8. Project Decision Management
Any Complex Project comprised multiple teams with varying skill set would have to conduct brainstorming sessions to arrive at consensus on decisions. Collaboration Tools like chatrooms and scheduled virtual conferences instantly improves the decision making process. With PMBridge, the Transcripts can be stored in text and audio-video formats and related to the tasks in the project which is the context of the meetings. This is a non-intrusive mechanism for capturing the rationale behind the decisions and evolves as the knowledgebase, which holds the IPR of the enterprise.

9. Work Delegation
Unlike traditional Project Management Solutions, which provide support for rigid top-down, up-front definition of Work-Breakdown Structures of the Project Plan, PMBridge also supports Rollingwave Progressive definition of Project Tasks and Work-Breakdown-Structures involving all the participants of the projects. PMBridge empowers enterprises to take a semi-formal or formal approach to define realistic task structures by incorporating the negotiation process that occurs between the team-members within its scope. (Accurate definitions, faster planning)

10. Project Execution & Progress Tracking
When a Project is in progress, unexpected influences would always interrupt progress. At these contingencies, project managers have to negotiate and juggle things around to compensate for scope growth. When such events occur the project roadmap needs to be revised to meet new expectations and maintain visibility throughout the organization. PMBridge can be used to ensure that each of the roles involved have the information needed to continuously make project decisions that will positively impact their business goals. By providing tools to affect Critical Course Correction Measures in real-time, PMBridge balances the emphasis on project planning and project execution and provides support for both planning and executing equally. 

11. Accessibility from Multiple Information Appliances - Project Management on the go.
Studies indicate that the Project Managers are always "on the go" and not always confined to their desktop due to the nature of their work structure. It is not pertinent to have single device like PC as the information appliance for them. PMBridge Presence Management Service can keep track on their availability through multiples devices like desktops, PDAs and Cellphones can deliver notifications like activity-status, change orders etc on wireless and PDA devices as text and voice messages.

12. Pluggable Component Architecture for Industry Standard Collaborative Platforms
Collaborative Enterprise Project Management have to be interoperable across various collaborative platforms as different enterprises within the value chain would be using different collaborative environments and messaging tools. PMBridge can be plugged into most established enterprise application suites like ERP, CRM etc solutions and can run on most major collaborative platforms like Lotus Sametime, SUN JXTA, and Fioraono's Tifosi.

13. Low Learning Curve
PMBridge leverages on the highly intuitive and popular user-interface of Instant Messaging tools. Users can quickly grasp the key functionalities of PMBridge even without formal training and get started quickly. This feature lowers the cost of training and maintenance of the software solution unlike other solutions like net-based Project Management tools.

14. Team-Building and Synergy 
Developing team spirit and cooperation within the project-team is one of the critical functions of an efficient Project Leader. PMBridge's ability to manage the Project-Team as buddy-list within the Project Context strengthens the bond between the team players by increasing the interactions within the project team members. Team members would be to get assistance from their colleagues to execute a task in real-time using the communication tools like chat and conferencing within PMBridge. 

15. Conflict Management 
Projects can engender conflict despite arrangements and regulations to prevent it due mainly conflicting aims between team members who barely know each other. The communication tools within PMBridge brings structure to the communication and reduces the communication gaps that creates the conflicts by formally documenting the conflicting viewpoints and negotiations between the stakeholders and thereby creating an opportunity for reconciliation.

16. Information dissemination with Multiple Perspectives 
PMBridge helps the users to view the project-related information at various levels of abstraction. The users can drill-down to get intricate details at any depth. Visualizations like Gantt Chart, Resource Diagrams, Timeline Charts provide key insights in multiple dimensions like time, cost, utilization etc at a glimpse.

17. Project Alerts
When Project is being executed, the unfolding of the events has to be communicated in real-time to all the stakeholders of the project and their responses have to be captured. PMBridge can "proactively" sent notifications to the stakeholders and responded to their reactions in real-time. This key feature helps reduce the delays & related hazzles significantly by keeping the team-members agile all the time.

18. Empowering Team Members with "PM tool @ all Desktops” in the enterprise
PMBridge can enable creating a de-centralized project team in which the project task definitions can be made by sub-ordinates at any level. This feature empowers the employees to define task-definitions that would be comfortable to them. PMBridge embodies the idea that the key to leverage collaboration is to make collaboration a seamless part of the surrounding business applications and processes for all end users, regardless of location or device. "Contextual Collaboration" - the process of making collaborative functionality available from within currently non-collaborative applications such as Project Management would build small gains in efficiency, which would turn into significant market advantages and growth. PMBridge encourages the model of having PM tools at all the desktops within the enterprise for productivity gain. PMBridge helps the Project-Team Members to relate to each other at all levels in the team. This helps the team members to deal better with the intra and inter-team dynamics.

19. Project Templates and Process-related IP Management
Process-Oriented Industries like architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), software development, process manufacturing and entertainment require tools for managing ad-hoc project and production processes which are variations from a generic project structure. These mission-critical processes and tacit knowledge about them constitute the IPR of these industries. PMBridge provides advanced Project Template management facilitates to cater to these industries requirements.

20. Global Project Teams
PMBridge's Presence Management Technology allows to add a member anywhere in the world to the Project Team. Through this ability, PMBridge eases the ability to create a project team spread across the continents. A Private and Secured Workspace for the Project Team can be created over the public Internet.

21. Outsourcing
There is no restriction on who can be added to the buddy-list in PMBridge. A consultant or a contractor can be added to the buddy-list as easily as a co-worker. Involving employees of partner organizations is as easy as forming an internal project team within the enterprise.

22. Project Management Tools as unifying interface for applications:
PMBridge brings "Project Management Application to the fore-front of enterprise applications by providing a framework for managing the interactions between the people within an "project-centric-model" which is core value proposition of new generation information systems. The distributed collaborative project management solution model would redefine Project Management tools as a Ubiquitous Core Office Application used by all personnel within the enterprise.

PMBridge can act as the unifying framework to tie-up all the disparate applications like financial management, human resource management, order management etc. PMBridge can be integrated with other line-of-business applications and databases by using its full support for industry standards such as XML messaging.