Project Management Solutions

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feyd
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Project Management Solutions

Post by feyd »

I've sat down the past couple days looking through the open source, online, project management tools out there. So far I can't say I've found much that are usable, mostly due to lack of any form of installation or scarcity of documentation to help decipher the what's needed for the install to work. So I'm wondering what people use for project management, be it online or offline, open source or closed source. What features do you like about it? What features do you not like about it?

I'm tempted to create an open source, online one. If you're interested in participating by being stakeholders, I'm willing to listen.
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Post by cj5 »

I like to use dotProject, which I somewhat highly recommend. It helped in outlining my tasks for large scale web projects, and sped up the process, because of linear organization. It also had a great gannt chart plugin, to show execs a visual of timeframes. Although I think it's a great program, it was very difficult to navigate, and learn how to use. I learned how to use it fine, but it was the non-technical staff, that couldn't be bothered. It's definitely worth a shot.
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Post by feyd »

Just so others understand, stakeholders in the instance I use it here simply means persons who have an interest in this project. I am not in need of finances nor code, simply your input is enough for now. This requires no contracts, just your ideas and feedback.
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Nathaniel
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Post by Nathaniel »

I would love a feyd-designed project management system. As cj5 has, I've used dotProject. Functionally it's fine, but the user interface is horrid. I would gladly give ideas and feedback.
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Post by Roja »

Personally, I really like the tools provided at Sourceforge, and the opensource version of that system is Savane. Another version (more developed and supported) of that same code is GForge.

A number of opensource groups also use TRAC, which I dislike.
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Christopher
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Re: Project Management Solutions

Post by Christopher »

feyd wrote:So far I can't say I've found much that are usable, mostly due to lack of any form of installation or scarcity of documentation to help decipher the what's needed for the install to work.
I have had a similar experience of not being able to find a usable one, but that is mostly due to their design than installablity.
feyd wrote:So I'm wondering what people use for project management, be it online or offline, open source or closed source. What features do you like about it? What features do you not like about it?
Probably the closest for me is Trac, but when it comes right down to it I don't like a wiki for anything other than a reference site. My experience has been that project managers pile a bunch of stuff into Trac up front and then say, "it's all there -- go build it."
feyd wrote:I'm tempted to create an open source, online one. If you're interested in participating by being stakeholders, I'm willing to listen.
I might be interested, but I would recommend resisting temptation until you are clear what you really want. Most systems are task trackers plus a couple of other features that the implementors wanted -- but never the mix I need. Task tracking is the core, but I have never seen a system that could take the tasks from design to implementation to documentation, or track changes to the tasks/design. And I have yet to see a clean way to tie the tasks to modules/deliverables. Plus, it should be as dead simple to use as a to do list.
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Post by feyd »

Roja wrote:Personally, I really like the tools provided at Sourceforge, and the opensource version of that system is Savane. Another version (more developed and supported) of that same code is GForge.
I think we may have gotten our wires crossed a bit. I'm talking more about a product development tool, and not so much a software project housing/distribution/bug tracking tool. Guess I should have been a bit more specific and literal. :lol: I can see the confusion though, being as I posted it in Enterprise and all.
arborint wrote:Probably the closest for me is Trac, but when it comes right down to it I don't like a wiki for anything other than a reference site. My experience has been that project managers pile a bunch of stuff into Trac up front and then say, "it's all there -- go build it."
Trac seems more like a bug tracking tool than a project management tool. It's a bit strange to use a wiki as the basis for it, I would agree, although I can see some usefulness, sort of.. namely the versioning and simple page editing. But the editing is still quite manual unless I read it wrong.
arborint wrote:I might be interested, but I would recommend resisting temptation until you are clear what you really want. Most systems are task trackers plus a couple of other features that the implementors wanted -- but never the mix I need. Task tracking is the core, but I have never seen a system that could take the tasks from design to implementation to documentation, or track changes to the tasks/design. And I have yet to see a clean way to tie the tasks to modules/deliverables. Plus, it should be as dead simple to use as a to do list.
I'm already fairly sure on what I want in course direction: Microsoft Project, since I'm most familiar with it than any other project management software out there. As for being dead simple to use, yes, absolutely. I would love if my father, a medical business executive, or my mother, a jeweler, to be able to use the software will relative ease. Sure they will likely need some introduction, but it should be pretty straight forward. Hopefully with really well written documentation, both for "users" and "developers" (separately housed,) it will make it much easier to figure out what they need and how to get it. There's potential for wizards as well, but that's pretty much a given for consumer-ish level products these days. I think the final litmus test will be if my grandmother can use it with little input from myself. :D
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Post by feyd »

Here's an in-progress version of the product definition document (PDD) I'm fleshing out. I'll be updating it as often as I can, albeit unannounced, before I hed out for semi-vacation Tuesday morning and after I get back until I either determine not to do the project or go through with it.

http://tatzu.net/examples/RedWidowPMS.pdf
Feedback, ideas and whatnot are all welcome.
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Post by Nathaniel »

I really like how you plan to make almost everything pluggable. With many open-source softwares, default installs are too bloated, and installing new features is a pain in the butt. *cough* phpbb *cough*
the product definition document wrote:Unobtrusive upgrade to real-time editing and edit-in-place when supported via Javascript/ECMAScript.
Sweet. Very sweet. This would definitely encourage me to actually use the software instead of scribbling stuff on scrap paper :)
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Nathaniel wrote:I really like how you plan to make almost everything pluggable. With many open-source softwares, default installs are too bloated, and installing new features is a pain in the butt. *cough* phpbb *cough*
Yep, my biggest peeve with most open source software I've run, although some are awesome the way they are -- Subversion. I could modify them and submit a patch, true.. I'm hoping to do that with phpbb (sans patch) actually *nods to Roja* .. we're going to "fix" some of the major issues we have with it. Although neither of us appears to have started tinkering. :lol: We'll figure it out eventually.
Nathaniel wrote:
the product definition document wrote:Unobtrusive upgrade to real-time editing and edit-in-place when supported via Javascript/ECMAScript.
Sweet. Very sweet. This would definitely encourage me to actually use the software instead of scribbling stuff on scrap paper :)
Yep, that is probably the most critical thing to get right for myself to like it. The feel of a desktop application without the need for fancy -- Java -- or special widgets -- Flash -- is important to me. Although it would be fun to build an actual application, I'd rather be able to view and work in this tool from virtually anywhere in the world with limited resources, both personal and technical, required.
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Post by Roja »

feyd wrote:I'm hoping to do that with phpbb (sans patch) actually *nods to Roja* .. we're going to "fix" some of the major issues we have with it. Although neither of us appears to have started tinkering. :lol: We'll figure it out eventually.
*Very* soon. The last things on my list were to get the Advanced branch of BNT committed, and then do a batch of changes to php.net. The advanced branch is finally committed, and the batch of changes should be done within the week. Nextforum is up after that. :)
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Post by Christopher »

I broke out your list into categories, which you may or may not agree with. There is a lot more to the core than you list and that is the important part. I think that way to build this thing is to create a project/task engine that provides the ability to add plugins that provide the other functionality you describe. So all import/export, reporting, wizards, etc. should be plugins.

Core
• Simultaneous projects in a single installation.
• Multiple users with varying scope views and rights to data, application
control and the like.
• Built-in restriction ability based on user, role or any combination
thereof. This could be based on times
• Multilanguage support. Not only in software messages, but allowance of
multiple languages to be spoken in user entered data. Allowance for
multiple language versions of user entered data.

Installer
• Simple installation; as much automated as possible.
• Unobtrusive upgrade to real-time editing and edit-in-place when

Import/Export
• Multiple competing project management file formats for both import
and export of data. Specifically, Microsoft Project formats (mpx, mpp,
mpsdi, mpd and xml;) various XML formats specific to project
management such as Open Project Management Exchange Format,
Project Management Specification DTD, ProjectXChange XML,
Opensched, PyGantt, Project Management XML Schema (PMXML,)
aecXML; dotProject; and TaskJuggler. There could easily be more to
support, but this seems like a nice baseline.
supported via Javascript/ECMAScript.
• Pluggable importation for everything reasonable.
• Pluggable exportation for everything reasonable.
• Live RSS and iCal outputs.
• Human resource listing pages have vCard export.

Reporting
• Gantt and PERT charting. Pluggable.
• Ability to generate PDF and static XHTML views from anywhere.
Pluggable.
• Scheduling automatic report generation. Pluggable.
• Automatically book mark all reports, allow user tagging. Pluggable and
tunable.

Documentation
• Excellent documentation, both for developers and users, written in
simple sentences, lots of whitespace, and so forth. Hopefully this will
be available in multiple languages upon major release.
• Action logging. Pluggable; the power of undo, on an application level
scale. This feature should be scalable so the administrator can reduce
server bandwidth consumption without adversely affecting the
application itself.
• Automatic cost and time adjustment. Pluggable.

Addons
• Scheduling email reminders. Pluggable to add other services to remind
people on.
• Skinning ability which is user, role or globally alterable based on rights.
• Simple integration of a forum through a plug-in system.
• Project Definition Document creation and filling helpers.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Thanks arborint, I was going to do that during the planning stage (the one following this part) so I'll keep that all in mind. You actually went along the lines I would have gone myself although I may have place a few in other categories.. ;)
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