Dear all,
(I am not a manager and I do not wanto to be )
my boss asked me to supervise some of our tasks.
I have tried to find an opensource program that will help me organize my work. So I would like to have your experience concerning this topic.
Just to help you understand what I have to do.
I am supervising 9 different tasks,
Every tasks depends on persons but also on hardware (eg. platform that does this).
I would like to keep events and memos about not only tasks but also for persons and hardware.
Just a few examples
1.Task-Example
Have a reminder on Next Monday to check for updates from partner
Person-Example
Has the X person ordered this yet?
Ask from the Y to update you on this
Hardware-Example
Have the new tires arrived?
Find usb-hubs
I have tried a little bit planner and openproj but it seems that both are built-around the notion of the tasks which only the 1/3 of the work I want to do.
Moreover, I would like to have some reminders,alarms,notifications to remind me things. I know this can be done from kalendar but then I have two use more than one program that I want for now to avoid.
Could you please spend some time to give me your experience on the topic?
On 05/13/2011 05:06 AM, alaios wrote:
>
> Dear all,
> (I am not a manager and I do not wanto to be )
> my boss asked me to supervise some of our tasks.
>
> I have tried to find an opensource program that will help me organize
> my work. So I would like to have your experience concerning this topic.
>
> Just to help you understand what I have to do.
> I am supervising 9 different tasks,
> Every tasks depends on persons but also on hardware (eg. platform that
> does this).
>
> I would like to keep events and memos about not only tasks but also for
> persons and hardware.
>
> Just a few examples
> 1.Task-Example
> Have a reminder on Next Monday to check for updates from partner
>
> 2. Person-Example
> Has the X person ordered this yet?
> Ask from the Y to update you on this
>
> 3. Hardware-Example
> Have the new tires arrived?
> Find usb-hubs
>
> I have tried a little bit planner and openproj but it seems that both
> are built-around the notion of the tasks which only the 1/3 of the work
> I want to do.
> Moreover, I would like to have some reminders,alarms,notifications to
> remind me things. I know this can be done from kalendar but then I have
> two use more than one program that I want for now to avoid.
>
> Could you please spend some time to give me your experience on the
> topic?
>
> Best Regards
> Alex
>
>
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All project planning and tracking applications are built around the notions of tasks and milestones. This is what you manage. Has the task been performed (on time, and with adequate quality), did the milestone occur on time? Which are the two thirds of what you want to get achieved that aren’t (or can’t be seen as) either tasks or milestones?
Moreover, I would like to have some reminders,alarms,notifications to remind me things. I know this can be done from kalendar but then I have two use more than one program that I want for now to avoid.
Now, here is the problem: for reminders and for what you might call regular checkpoints, you need something other than just a project management app. Part of management is talking to people, finding out what their issues are and keeping up to date on how progress is really tracking the predictions. For this, you need to be looking at the tasks at appropriate intervals, checking with the people doing the work, etc, etc.
The purely electronic route (send out an email, get a confirmation back, never talk to people) method is always a disaster, eventually; you always find out that people have fiddled the definitions of tasks, no one is managing the whitespace, the tasks have changed so that was originally planned has become non-constructive, everybody is too busy fingerpointing at everybody else to do any actual work or they have just flat lied so that you really need to know what is actually happening. If you leave it long enough, you find out all of the above at once. This is less than ideal.
You need to go through the Gantt chart and check all of the current tasks. You need to do it. This is something that you just need to do regularly, and the team need to expect it.
It may be a help to have a reminder app. but that depends on whether you actually go through the Gantt chart and check the tasks; it is not an absolute need, if you work in the right way, but it might be a worthwhile convenience. If you go through the Gantt daily/weekly/monthly (whatever is appropriate) consistently, you probably don’t need it. It probably is a help to remember that you’ve got a 10:00 meeting, though…
I’ve been doing quite a bit of research recently on open source project managers, mostly for Enterprise deployments and not for the single individual.
There are literally zillions of available software to choose from due to an explosion of new Projects within the past couple years.
Recommend as markone suggests that you do some preliminary research on what software can do, or at least draw up a “wish list” of requirements.
If you need help getting even this started, try reading this Wikipedia page on Project Management software https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Project_management_software
Also, if you’re looking for a more “Enterprise” solution, don’t overlook Web Frameworks like Drupal, XOOPS and more that support module plug-ins, a Project Management plug-in might be what you’re looking for.
As I said, I’ve been doing quite a bit of research and testing over the past couple months on this, so if you have a specific wishlist I might be able to recommend something also.