Cool Hunting

With a mission to help organize the creative world, Behance wowed us again with the soon-to-be-released Action Method Online (AMO). What began as a line of paper products designed to help boost productivity, now is a robust and powerful online application that will up your productivity and help "make ideas happen." The new online project management system helps individuals and teams get organized and stay action-oriented throughout the process of managing projects.

In developing AMO the Behance team took a totally new approach to project management. As a result, it stands out from many other project management systems that are based on predictable ways of thinking. Firstly, Behance tosses out the inbox model and is free from any email ties to help manage tasks because they think it's ineffective. Instead, all "action steps" are delegated and accepted through AMO. This also offers a level of transparency that keep people engaged in the project because you have to actively accept tasks.

Another major difference is that instead of sharing projects with team partners, you only share relevant action items within projects so that each person can organize and interpret projects in their own way. This customization functionality acknowledges that people have different learning and organizational styles — something that's been largely neglected in other platforms.

As to be expected from Behance, the online app is designed with a focus on simplicity and much of the functionality is intuitive. (Always a good sign.) Action items can be color coded, specified with a target date and clicked and dragged around according to your preference or priority. Discussions can be started in a separate tab and any relevant documents can be filed under the References section. The Nagging functionality allows you to remind and nudge people about particular tasks. There's even a Backburner section to file action steps that can wait.

The beta version of AMO is currently being used by over 200 individuals and teams in the creative world, including us. Personally, I've found it to be extremely useful for managing long-term projects as well as day-to-day projects. The application is set to launch to the public within a month but people can sign-up to get an advanced look at Action Method.