The combination of Visual Thinking and Project Management really interests me and I’d probably go as far as to say that it excites me.
Mindjet’s website says:-
You’ve already discovered how fast and easy it is to plan and manage day-to-day projects visually by using MindManager. Wouldn’t it be even better to move from visual planning to disciplined project management?
That’s why we’ve combined MindManager Pro 7 with Mindjet JCVGantt to create a single, affordable, easy-to-use visual solution that drives dramatic improvements in project productivity.
JCVGantt Pro 3 software provides an easy to use, yet powerful solution to track projects and tasks. It enables executives, project managers and event organizers to improve the accuracy of their time and cost estimating while decreasing the time it takes to plan a new project.
Even beginner Project Managers can now track and report upon key project issues.
– Instantly identify the project’s critical path
– Automatically calculate the total project cost when changes are made to tasks and assigned resources
– Analyze budgetary risks before they become problems by using baseline snapshots of the project
http://www.jcvgantt.mindjet.com/promotions/jcvgantt/demo.aspx
I will be using JCVGanttPro 3 over the next few days to see just how easy (yet just how powerful) it is and would love to hear from anyone who has already used it in conjunction with MindManager Pro 7 and/or Microsoft Office.
I’ll update you with my thoughts soon.
Kaye Nightingale 
Some initial thoughts:-
There’s an excellent short Video demo. which gives you a great insight into what JCVGantt can do.
In addition, there’s a very clear and well written .pdf User Manual which covers most of what’s needed.
A couple of excellent features discovered so far:-
If you have used COLOURS on each Branch in your MM7 Map then, when you send your MAP to JCVGantt it automatically picks up the same colours for the Gantt Chart.
MM7 Pro and JCVGantt Pro 3 contain “real time synchronisation” so that anything you do in the Map or the Gantt Chart is fully synchronised, in both directions. This is one of the central features of JCVGantt and I love it.
If you FILTER in MM7 Pro, those filtered views are transferred into JCVGantt. So, for example, you might decide to FILTER your MAP so that you only see TASKS which commence TODAY ending THIS WEEK with a duration of more than 5 hours. Once that FILTER has been applied in MM7, the same information will be filtered in JCVGantt.
This is a very powerful feature.
If possible, please post an elaborate article on the pros and cons of using JCVGantt.
Hi Kaye:
Glad you are enjoying using JCVGantt 3- I have been using it for awhile now and enjoy the way it synchs with MindManager. It is also a great tool for developing proposals and costing out jobs. Let me know how it work for you
Regards
Brian
assistivetek.blogspot.com
Kaye,
Can’t wait for you to show this to me when we are together in the UK!
Jamie
Another great time-saving feature is that you can save an existing project plan as a Gantt Part for future re-use. This Gantt Part can then be dragged and dropped into a new Plan when required.
This would mean that you could very quickly build up a library of your own re-useable Tasks.
You can create DROP DOWN menus simply by typing a list of items in comma separated values. For example, if I will frequently need to choose from
Hourly
Weekly
Daily
I simply type in Hourly,Weekly,Daily in an empty cell of the FIELD NAME sheet and then those words appear as a drop down list in both the Project and the Resource Grids.
Very quick. Very easy. Well documented in the User Manual.
Hello Kaye:
I have been using JCVGantt and MindManager Pro 7 quite extensively lately for number of projects. I also export JCVGantt files to MS Project regularly. All three programs work great together! I wrote a post on my blog last month about using all three together.
Go to my blog and check out the post if you like: The Mindmap Blog and search “jcv” for the post. Have a great day! –Chance
[…] Visual Thinking & Project Management is a topic close to my heart (the combination of VISION and DETAIL) but I really hadn’t realised that Leonardo da Vinci had investigated the relationship between visual information and intellect. […]