MS "Tasks" on steroids?

March 24, 2009 12:47 PM

Project management software seems to be focused on a small number of complex projects. I'm looking for software to juggle around a large number of rather basic projects.

I was playing around a bit with Openproject and looking at screenshots of Open Workbench, and it struck me that they are all very focused on tracking pretty complex projects. The user is basically forced to go "in" a project, and check out the status and planning of all the subtasks in said project.

My problem is that I have to keep track of a large number (think: 40 or 50) of simple to medium complex projects (basically: input > planning > execution > feedback > delivery).

I need to stay mostly "out" of the projects and supervise them, prioritize one or another without entering into the project itself (this should be done by my direct reports). I want to have a good, intuitive overview of all tasks (in what stage are they? which ones are urgent? which ones are nearing deadline?). I want this on a 24" computer screen without endless scrolling up, down, left and right.

Sometimes however, I need to "inside" the project to see which subtasks are being worked on. I probably need some filters/dashboards(due date, client, direct report working project, type of project).

A "Tasks" list (MS Office) on steroids, is what I'm looking for basically. Am I being unreasonable?

posted by NekulturnY to computers & internet (12 comments total)

A Sharepoint site for Project Management (a free template) can be used and integrates directly with Outlook Tasks and Events. You can do Gantt charting and other reports or just look at Task timelines and Calendar events. Worth looking into.
posted by emjay at 12:53 PM on March 24

You need a program/portfolio management solution. You won't find one that doesn't integrate more or less directly with a project management solution. Have you looked into MS Project Enterprise? It allows you to create a new "project" that's made up of linked data from all of the other projects in the portfolio. If your PM's set up their individual projects well, the data you pull into your portfolio view will be very well structured, with milestones and "super tasks" easily viewable without too much detail. This also gives you the option of diving in to the detail when required to. It can also spit out GANTTs, resource utilization reports, etc.

One thing that Project doesn't do well is give you a Red/Amber/Green (RAG) status for projects or deliverables. I have not yet found a good solution for Program Dashboards like this. One thing I did at a previous job was have my PM's log their updates on a SharePoint Site, link the site to an Access DB that spit out the data into a formatted dashboard. That worked well enough, but was a lot of work -- and did not integrate with the PM software we were using.

I don't have a perfect solution for you, other than trying MS Project Enterprise, but I love talking about this stuff. Feel free to memail me if you want to bounce some ideas around.
posted by bluejayway at 1:24 PM on March 24

I love talking and thinking about this too - geek much, I know.

Well, sometimes asking a question gives you ideas, so I started searching for "task list" in google instead of "project management", which was interesting. I found this, which is basically an expanded task list.

The only problem is that there seems to be a very fixed division in this software between a "task" and a "root" (that holds the tasks). So you have to know pretty well in advance which portions you want to treat as a "root" and which ones you want to consider a "task". Getting it wrong could result in some frustrating typing and dragging and dropping.

So if anyone knows of any software that's a bit more flexible than this "Swift To Do List", I think that would do great.
posted by NekulturnY at 1:43 PM on March 24

Just call the root "All My Stuff" and put your projects under it, unless the roles of the root and tasks are fixed and there is no real way to have subprojects under the root (i.e. everything under a root is a task, with no placeholders possible). Then again, you could just call your projects "master tasks" under the root, with subtasks under them.
posted by rhizome at 2:37 PM on March 24

You might be looking for an issue tracking system. While these are typically used for managing support tickets, they can also be used to manage small to medium-sized projects. If each of your projects has a complex schedule, or more than a few supporting documents, it's probably too big for an issue tracker. But if it's smaller than that, an issue tracker is ideal for what you're talking about. There are several lightweight (even free!) versions online -- check out my earlier explanation for some suggestions.
posted by ourobouros at 3:33 PM on March 24

Just call the root "All My Stuff" and put your projects under it, unless the roles of the root and tasks are fixed and there is no real way to have subprojects under the root (i.e. everything under a root is a task, with no placeholders possible). Then again, you could just call your projects "master tasks" under the root, with subtasks under them.

Yes, the problem is that the roles of root and task are fixed. Tasks can have notes and attachments, roots cannot (only the tasks in the roots). Roots can have subroots, but tasks can't have subtasks.

So basically you're forced to think a project out bottum up (task > subroot > root), and input it top down (root > subroot > task).
posted by NekulturnY at 3:40 PM on March 24

You might be over-complicating this. Try using Excel.
posted by charlesv at 4:46 PM on March 24

Basecamp is very simple and has a nice overview page where you can see recent activity in all projects in the system. It has RSS feeds for the whole site or particular projects. It's lightweight but powerful. I recommend it unreservedly.
posted by rachelpapers at 5:29 PM on March 24

Tasks and Tasks Pro is hosted /self-hosted web software that I've played around with in the past. Simple and very usable.
posted by johngalt at 7:23 PM on March 24

+1 Basecamp, though it doesn't really cascade.

You use the calendar to set up milestones & then create task lists based on the milestones & assign the task to each user. They check off the tasks as they do them.

You can drag/drop the tasks in the order in which they should be done.

There's also a message board & file uploading, which is useful for general communication in a way that's logged & traceable so you know who said what when.

Though I don't think you get the "dashboard" view you're looking for, but the homepage has an overview of all recent activity on all projects & any overdue milestones.
posted by MesoFilter at 10:25 PM on March 24

I've used Tasks Jr and it was pretty good, but the sorting/filtering options weren't robust enough for me. Tasks Pro has group options, but since we've adopted Basecamp, we haven't looked back.
posted by MesoFilter at 10:27 PM on March 24

Looking a bit further I think I found what I need in TaskFreak. Free, web-based, very simple but very effective it seems.
posted by NekulturnY at 7:38 AM on March 26