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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "project management". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. I'm looking for a project management tool similar to gantt but... different

      I'm wondering if this type of tool exists. Basically, I am senior dev of a 3 man dev team at a non-tech company. I maintain 60 or so web apps for our 300-400 users (all internal apps) as well as...

      I'm wondering if this type of tool exists. Basically, I am senior dev of a 3 man dev team at a non-tech company. I maintain 60 or so web apps for our 300-400 users (all internal apps) as well as act as jack of all trades when it comes to SQL, IIS, self hosted and cloud hosted windows server boxes, VMware, etc. Basically, I have a lot of spinning plates.

      We are in active development but we get interrupted a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Because of this, we don't really work based on deadlines but more on timelines. Upper management knows that things get priority over other things and we have to move things around and pivot a lot, so as long as we can explain why a project took 6 more months than we projected, it's fine.

      So having said all that, I'm looking for a timeline system similar to gantt but I want the ability to have more than one "timespan" per task/row.

      So for example let's say I'm building a to-do app and one of the tasks is to figure out the theme/color scheme of the app. I think this will take 3 days, and I don't really need to be more specific than that, they aren't trying to micro manage. However, I got interrupted and pulled off the project in the middle of that task, so I worked on it for 1 day, I had other things for 3 days, and I came back to finish the last two days.

      In this case, in a gantt chart, your task can only be one "timespan" per "row" and in order for me to chart what actually happened, I need to add multiple subtasks to that task and the task ends up taking 3 rows of space.

      This is rough to read and annoying to have to rearrange and insert new subtasks and rearrange subsequent tasks along the timeline.

      Is there a tool out there that handles this more "ad-hoc" scheduling that I'm looking for?

      Ideally what I would like is for me to be able to put together a full estimate of time for the project (say 3 months) with the ability to cascade schedule changes down when a task in the middle goes on longer than expected or gets interrupted.

      I would like to have categories or color mapping so we can see which timespans are interruptions and which are tasks done and tasks to do.

      Am I asking too much? Does gantt have this ability and I've not found the right vendor?

      Right now my temporary solution is excel but it's a beating to have to go shift things every time I have an interruption, I feel like I spend more time explaining what happened than I do actually programming, haha

      Edit: I've seen things like Monday.com and Microsoft project, but these are really heavy and too specific for my needs, I don't want a lot of context or setting up a kanban board or anything like that, I just want effectively an interactive timeline with simple "I'm doing this for x days" and not much else in terms of percent complete, details of the task, sprint integration, etc.

      Think trello in complexity, just time-based and sideways 😅

      I don't want to be a project manager, I don't have time for that - I just need the ability to quickly track interruptions and be able to use it as backup if upper management comes poking around

      24 votes
    2. What is a good free project management tool for a very small team?

      Technically two people are a team, right? :P If it was only me I would use Org Mode, but that's not the case. Our projects are all artistic in nature, mostly screenplay collaborations, film...

      Technically two people are a team, right? :P

      If it was only me I would use Org Mode, but that's not the case.

      Our projects are all artistic in nature, mostly screenplay collaborations, film criticism, YouTube, podcasts, etc [1]. It's easy to get overly excited about this kind of stuff, but we need to follow up too. And we don't have an external demand that would incentivize us to put in the effort.

      Even though we're only two people, we both have trouble sustaining long term goals, organizing schedules and information. My partner is a brilliant writer, but for him concentrating is even more of an issue than it is for me. He needs something visual. This tool must also work very well on mobile since he currently does not own a computer. It also must be graphical and easy to learn for someone that only knows Windows and MacOS.

      To be more specific, I'm looking for something that allows me to track what we have done, what we're doing now and what we're going to do next. A calendar and some kind of notification system would be nice, but, as I say in the title, it must be free (I'm Brazil and our currency is worth nothing, so even the cheap is expensive for us...).

      Google gives me dozens of results, reviews, etc, but it's hard to assess how good each tool is without experimenting it. And I would like to avoid learning an entire platform just to conclude it is subpar (I know this is largely unavoidable, but we can do better with a little help from our friends!).

      Any suggestions? :D

      [1] Even though our projects are artistic, their execution involves many things that are not artistic at all, such as understanding, budgets, legislation, registering our works with the copywriting authority, participating in public contests, networking, etc. There are lots of menial tasks that are easy to forget.

      15 votes
    3. Input please: How to identify the right IT project stakeholders

      I'd like your input for an article I'm writing. Let’s say you’re starting a new IT project. It could be custom software; perhaps it’s a migration to cloud services; maybe it’s a shiny new IoT...

      I'd like your input for an article I'm writing.

      Let’s say you’re starting a new IT project. It could be custom software; perhaps it’s a migration to cloud services; maybe it’s a shiny new IoT project.

      The point is that you're here to build something great. You’re in charge of the design (or an important part of it), and making sure that the resulting system makes everybody happy.

      How do you make sure that you are interviewing the right people to find out what “make them happy” looks like? What do you do to get input from the people who matter for the project’s success… without inviting so many suggestions that it’s impossible to deliver everything?

      Case in point: Ten years ago I was in charge of an online tech community. The company I worked for hired custom developers to build the software platform, but the developers never talked to me. They interviewed the boss, two levels above me (who just so happened to be the person who signed the checks) even though she had never used this online community or any other. Needless to say, the community software they delivered was horrible, missing basic-to-me features.

      Formally this process would be called “identifying the project stakeholders” or “master the requirements-gathering process” but that seems too corporate-speak. I’m looking for real-world examples of what works and what doesn’t, so I can write a genuinely useful article with practical guidelines.

      Note that this is NOT about the questions to ask those stakeholders; that’s another discussion. Here I am writing merely (merely!) about making sure you are speaking to the people whose input you need.

      My questions:
      • How do you decide which people to ask for input? In what way do you find those people? How do you know when you have everyone you should?
      • How do you decide whom NOT to invite? Where do you draw the line?
      • Tell me about the manner in which you learned that lesson. (The hard way. Anecdotes are good.)
      • If you want to be quoted (it's good for business!) tell me (via PM) how to refer to you in the article: Name, title, company name, short company description, URL.

      7 votes