This is the third entry in the PM Visionary Series.
Building this blog has been a wonderful experience, because of all the relationships it’s allowed me to develop. About a year ago, Bob Light of Crosspoint PPM sent me a note to introduce himself. It seems he had taken on the huge task of resurrecting a project management platform that was hit hard by the economy. While the product itself was built on a solid foundation, the parent company had withdrawn funding when the platform failed to realize the huge numbers the owners had hoped for. Never one to back away from a challenge, Bob pulled the software from the dumpster and has spent the last two years turning it into a successful niche application. Crosspoint isn’t for everyone, and Bob knows that. Today he tells us about his philosophy, and why that’s just the way he likes it.
I’ve very much enjoyed getting to know Bob over the last year, and I’m proud to call him a friend. Show your support by leaving your comments at the end of this article.
We’re in a unique position at CrossPoint, as we didn’t have a vision built around creating a product, as CrossPoint (the application) was already fully developed and just needed a good home when we took it on a year ago.
Originally conceived to be a collaboration tool back in 2000, by 2010 it had become strongly project-centric, providing full portfolio schedule and resource management, along with the communication component. Unfortunately, while the product was gaining acceptance, the economy, and investment, froze and the original company couldn’t sustain operations and was shut down.
Given the definite demand for good project management tools in the market, as shown by Google getting into the mix recently, and seeing via the existing customers that CrossPoint provides real results, that led us to acquire the rights to market and support the product.
Which brings us back to the topic of vision.
At CrossPoint, our vision is customer-driven, not product. If you look at the needs of the project management market, there is no way any one tool can address them all or cover all methodologies, so our vision isn’t about trying to out-engineer our competitors by adding more bells and whistles which everyone “wants” but no one will really use (because who seriously has the time or resources today….). That is not to say we don’t work to improve CrossPoint, but most of that is driven by our current customer’s feedback.
Our goal then is simply to provide a solid application at a reasonable price and to treat each customer with honesty and as a true partner, not just a name to post on our website or a number to impress shareholders. As proud as we are of CrossPoint, we know it isn’t the best solution for everyone, and are as selective of our customers as they should be of us. We want each to realize the project management process improvements they want and need, and will spend whatever time necessary to discuss those with prospects and customers.
That is our core business philosophy. Interestingly, each of our customers use CrossPoint differently in ways that match their specific processes/needs. That is pretty cool, and while trickier to support at times, re-enforces our dedication to that belief. While the product may change over time, our vision won’t.
