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What's new behind Planzone: an interview with Stéphane Carrez, head of the R&D team
1. Hello Stéphane! Thank you for taking time for this interview. Can you please introduce yourself briefly? Education/ Position at Planzone ...
I am an ISEP engineer and finished my studies in 1990.
I worked for over 10 years in real-time environments. At first, I worked as a developer, then as an architect. I left Sun Microsystems in 2002 to expand my experience in security and web applications. I joined Augeo Software in 2007 as an architect with the opportunity to build a new product: Planzone.
I worked for over 10 years in real-time environments. At first, I worked as a developer, then as an architect. I left Sun Microsystems in 2002 to expand my experience in security and web applications. I joined Augeo Software in 2007 as an architect with the opportunity to build a new product: Planzone.
2. You are one of the founders of Planzone; a software project management and online collaboration. In a nutshell: What can I do Planzone?
People collaborate because they share a common interest. The cornerstone of this collaboration is often represented by one or more projects. These people need to exchange, share, and track information about their project without being a professional project manager. The goal in Planzone is to provide a secure space for exchange and collaboration around shared projects for these people.
A Planzone represents individuals who work together on projects. Each Planzone is compartmentalized and is a safe space for collaboration. Within each area, employees are able to manage and share their projects. They share their files, plan their tasks and write documents they can publish online with the Wiki tool.
3. You started Planzone development in 2007. I imagine that the product has changed considerably during this period ... (change as to the "philosophy of product”, reacting to difficulties during the development of online software...)
The product has evolved but the philosophy and goals have remained the same. The first version of Planzone was released at the end of 2007 and it allowed managing projects, tasks, documents and wiki pages. In 2008 we added a module for project planning and Microsoft Project support. By midyear 2008 we launched the service. The year 2009 marks the opening of the "Planzone community" and release of Planzone APIs. A recent development was the implementation of "time sheets". This is more a feature of business collaboration. Augeo5, the big brother of Planzone, allows us to move in this direction.
All these features are regularly reviewed and improved to simplify the interface. We also prepare the new interface that will provide more concise and effective information. It’s our pleasure to deliver many pleasant surprises for Planzoners, at the end of October.
4. Are there any features you would never want to implement? Which?
As an engineer, I like having a lot of features, the more complex, the better. For daily users of a product like Planzone, we should avoid this. I have the luck to work with a team with great ideas and they understand this. We are ready to develop necessary functionalities, but these features are discussed together within the team. Our motto is "simplification". Incidentally, this is another nice example where we use Planzone internally.
Basically, in the near future, we will follow the credo of Nicolas Boileau: Vingt fois sur le métier remettez votre ouvrage. Roughly translated, this means: Put your work back on the anvil twenty times.
5. In your opinion, what are the benefits of online collaboration software like Planzone?
A tool for online collaboration allows people in different places to work together on projects, to share documents and to manage tasks. The great strength of Planzone is the focus on the collaboration aspect of projects. The service allows a manager, a consultant or an expert to share his projects with his staff and clients by either inviting them in Planzone or sending them documents through secure links in Planzone.
6. Planzone for you - in three words?
Collaboration, Sharing, Security
Stéphane, thank you for this interview!