Project management is "the discipline of defining and achieving finite objectives," typically in a collaborative project. Simply speaking, it involves determining how to achieve specified objectives within time, personnel, and resource constraints. Thinking about projects -- especially group projects -- in terms of project management can help you determine what is possible and where your energies should go.

For a quick overview of project management, see DIIA's project management tutorial. Project management is a discipline, not a simple set of guidelines, but this tutorial should give you a foundation to build on as you begin to think of your projects in these terms.

Fortunately, software exists to help you plan and manage projects. Here's a list of Web-based project management tools. (This list does not constitute an endorsement or a guarantee of these services.)

Basecamp. "Basecamp is a unique project collaboration tool. Projects don't fail from a lack of charts, graphs, or reports, they fail from a lack of communication and collaboration. Basecamp makes it simple to communicate and collaborate on projects."

activeCollab. activeCollab is an open source Basecamp workalike, built on PHP+MySQL and locally hosted. You can try out activeCollab at a hosted service called Blogsen.

Zoho Planner. "Online organizer to maintain your todo’s, reminders, notes, attachments etc."

Zoho Virtual Office. "Zoho Virtual Office is a groupware that provides a virtual collaboration platform using which individuals and groups can communicate, collaborate, organize and share information seamlessly using number of useful applications like E-mail Client, Virtual storage for Documents, Personal and Group Calendar, Task Scheduler, Contacts Manager, Instant Messaging, Discussions board, etc."

Central Desktop. "Central Desktop is a web-based collaboration tool for business teams to manage projects, share information and communicate with others."

inventionDB. "InventionDB.com is a free project-blogging engine built on top of an interconnected database of people, organizations, projects, resources and vendors. It allows anyone doing creative projects to quickly build online project portfolios connected to multiple team members, project resources, organizational affiliations and vendors used."

Near-Time. "Through Near-Time, individuals and groups quickly come together. Private Weblogs, team pages, group calendars and shared files are integrated in a hosted, secure collaborative environment. Near-Time content can be personal, group-based or published to the world."

Projectplace. "Projectplace is a web based project management service which helps you and your colleagues to collaborate easily through a single point-of-access."

ProjectSpaces. "ProjectSpaces is a simple, powerful web-based extranet tool that enables effective online collaboration across organizational and geographic boundaries. The interface is simple and intuitive to help your users find what they're looking for quickly and easily."

Veetro. "Veetro is an online team and small business management platform that helps you to work more efficiently and become more profitable. Including tools such as electronic timesheets, projects, billing, sales pipeline, helpdesk and document management, Veetro makes your organization work better."