High-level cross-project management
April 18, 2014 10:10 AM Subscribe
What software can I use for a high-level view of my team's available vs. allocated hours and budgeted time approved across our projects?
I manage a team of 8 people that does fee-for-service in e-learning and web development within a university department. We current have about 50 projects in various stages, sizes, and needs. We are good at planning and delivering on client needs, but I need help getting a high-level overview of the team.
The big questions are:
The other questions for each project (which Excel sufficiently answers but would be nice to include):
I've looked at many different project management platforms but none of them seem to deliver the team-level view in the way that I need. A couple of things that I've looked at come close but are too specific/limited.
This will be used primarily by me as a manager and doesn't need to be a collaboration-first tool. I'm also comfortable with something that isn't super polished as long as it does what I need. Web-based is preferred but I don't care whether it's cloud hosted or self-installed. Desktop software would need to be Windows or Linux.
If there is something that does this plus would serve as a Basecamp replacement, we'd consider it, though it would be harder to deploy since it would require a big change to the team's workflow.
Any advice on new tools or how to extend our current ones is much appreciated.
I manage a team of 8 people that does fee-for-service in e-learning and web development within a university department. We current have about 50 projects in various stages, sizes, and needs. We are good at planning and delivering on client needs, but I need help getting a high-level overview of the team.
The big questions are:
- For any given week/month, what projects are being actively worked on?
- For those projects, what staff are assigned to them?
- Of the staff assigned, how much of their time is allocated?
- How does the allocated staff time relate to the available hours budgeted for the project?
- How much unallocated time is available?
The other questions for each project (which Excel sufficiently answers but would be nice to include):
- What is the status?
- Who is the lead?
- What is the duration?
- Is the budget approved?
- What is the approved budget/number of hours?
I've looked at many different project management platforms but none of them seem to deliver the team-level view in the way that I need. A couple of things that I've looked at come close but are too specific/limited.
This will be used primarily by me as a manager and doesn't need to be a collaboration-first tool. I'm also comfortable with something that isn't super polished as long as it does what I need. Web-based is preferred but I don't care whether it's cloud hosted or self-installed. Desktop software would need to be Windows or Linux.
If there is something that does this plus would serve as a Basecamp replacement, we'd consider it, though it would be harder to deploy since it would require a big change to the team's workflow.
Any advice on new tools or how to extend our current ones is much appreciated.
I feel you in trying to find good PM tools. There's never a perfect all-in-one solution, is there? So frustrating.
We use HubPlanner for this (along side a task tracking tool). It gives you a good overview of who's doing what and for how many hours.
posted by lindseyg at 2:44 PM on April 18, 2014
We use HubPlanner for this (along side a task tracking tool). It gives you a good overview of who's doing what and for how many hours.
posted by lindseyg at 2:44 PM on April 18, 2014
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posted by MyFrozenYear at 10:13 AM on April 18, 2014