I hear it all the time. “That project has too many chiefs…”

This situation can derail an awesome project faster than a parent chasing a two year old making a mad dash for the stairs.

When lots of people are giving their input, it’s often the case that sidebar conversations get left out of the general stream. Progress loses its groove and you’re headed straight for stalls-ville.

We know connecting all the dots can be tough. It’s one of the main reasons we built such a strong collaboration feature into Jumpchart. Here’s my favorite part, though. You can collaborate how you want to – whichever way fits your workflow best, Jumpchart accommodates. We made it easy for everyone to have a voice, or for the elected team leader to share the project with the committee and relay feedback that way. We know not everyone’s workflow is the same, which is why Jumpchart fluently adjusts to fit even the more specific situations. Here are a few we’ve run into:

Situation #1: The Committee’s in Control! 

In this unfortunate situation, you probably have lots of people actually making the decisions. They all want their voices and opinions heard. There isn’t one person “in charge” to give the final word. Well, that’s okay. Even though the approval process could get a little hairy, everyone can give their two cents on Jumpchart. If they’re all full collaborators on a project, they can comment on each page, edit the content as they wish, and work together to come to an agreement. They can even change their minds on which version of content they agree on – revert back to an older draft at any time. Email notifications can alert everyone when something’s happening, so nobody is left out.

Situation #2: The Committee’s Interested, but Not Overbearing.

Here, you have one person in charge. But as a committee usually does, they want to know everything that’s going on. The person in charge has full permissions on the Jumpchart project, but can choose to add the committee members as view-only collaborators. This way, they don’t have to bear the burden of making comments, approving design mockups or editing content; after all, they have other things to do. But they always have a bird’s eye view of how things are progressing.

Situation #3: The Committee Checks in Every Now and Then. 

When the committee must give their final approval, chances are they want to see the finished product, and maybe check progress a couple times in the interim. Without adding another login to their list, the person in charge can show the committee the public wireframe view. Whoever’s interested can browse page by page, without ever having to log in.

The committee approval process isn’t always the easiest, but if you collaborate your way, things go a lot smoother.