You’re being sent to a remote but beautiful deserted island, where you’ll need to manage some seriously hard core projects (raft and hut building presumably). The problem is, you can only take 5 pm tools with you, so which ones do you squeeze into your tiny suitcase?

Here’s my essential pm desert island tool kit:

The public service ppm communities of practice site is a fantastic knowledge sharing resource.  Need a fully developed business case?  Need advice on which pm tool to buy?  Want advice on the past performance of pm consultants?  Just post a question on the lively forums and you’ll receive a deluge of valuable information from the 1100 members.

Huddle is my favourite project collaboration tool (closely followed by basecamp).  It makes document management a cinch, enabling docs to be shared with colleagues from other organisations, therefore a must for partnership projects.  The recently updated task functionality is also superb… it even chases people for you when they’ve been bad and haven’t completed their tasks as quickly as they promised too.

Microsoft project is the essential tool for validating complex project plans, especially when you are dealing with immovable project deadlines.  In this scenario, painstakingly mapping out all project tasks and interdependencies is the only way to confirm whether the timetable that’s been imposed is achievable.

Google docs is a beautiful product, and it’s free!  I like to use the spreadsheet functionality for my risk and issue logs.  The ‘change colours with rules’ feature enables some nice auto rag status visuals.

And finally…  Visio is the tool I use to prettify my diagrams and charts.  Bitter experience has taught me that no matter how technically beautiful my Gantt charts may be, the most important stakeholders are completely unable to interpret them. Visio is my preferred tool for dumming down complex visuals. Remember, the sexier the chart, the more likely it will actually get read!

I’d love to hear which tools you would take to the island.