Project management software NOT MS Project?

February 26, 2004 10:28 AM

I'm looking for Project Management software for a software development shop. Please, no MS Project - it's just too big to get our hands around. Any reccomendations to help schedule a team of about 5 developers and 2 QA folks? I see lots of people participating in the scheduling (not just one "overseer") so flexibility is a must. We're looking for granularity by feature->components->tasks. We want to do a good job with time estimates and contingencies. Thanks
posted by dhacker to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

We just signed up for basecamp. It's super simple by design, but fits our needs well (2 Designers, Two Marketing Folks, A Programmer, and a pair of Higher-Ups). It's lists, To Do, milestones, etc can can be used for scheduling but aren't specifically designed for it. It's very distributed though and super flexible. Plus, it's popular with all the kids these days. It's subscription based and not a bad deal, esp. if you can bill it back to the client.
posted by rschroed at 10:54 AM on February 26, 2004

dotProject might work for you.
posted by cmonkey at 11:24 AM on February 26, 2004

I'll second the Basecamp recommendation; it's also no cost if you're using it for just one project.
posted by hijinx at 12:28 PM on February 26, 2004

I like FastTrack Scheduler. Not nearly as overwhelming as Microsoft Project, runs on Windows, Mac OS X and on Palm handhelds. I haven't used it that much yet, but so far I'm pretty impressed.
posted by JollyWanker at 1:30 PM on February 26, 2004

I recommend this article (and the associated software template): Painless Software Schedules by Joel Spolsky
posted by gd779 at 3:03 PM on February 26, 2004

Definitely Basecamp. But, then again, we wrote it!
posted by fried at 4:04 PM on February 26, 2004