What Does Everyone Use For Task/Project Tracking?

JerBear0 writes "I work as the sole IT employee at a company of about 50 people. I handle programming, support, pretty much anything that is IT related, or even that plugs in. As seems to be true with many small companies, the priorities seem to shift quite frequently. As a result, I've always got multiple programming (both new systems and improvements/changes to existing systems), integration, research, maintenance tasks/projects on my To Do list, in varying stages of completion. At any given time, I need to be able to jump back to one of these items and pick up where I left off. I am currently using Outlook Tasks, and then end up referencing my notebook and email for those dates to figure out exactly where I left off. It works, but not well. If it's been a while, I'll end up losing an hour or two just tracking everything down. I looked at using MS Project / OpenProj, but they want an individual file for each project, and I want at least the project/task list all on one screen. Essentially what I'd want would be a Task List on steroids, allowing for hierarchical subtasks, attachments, and prioritization. Ideally it would be a desktop app, but a locally-hostable web app would be okay. In some of these projects I may want to include proprietary information, which I really don't want floating out in the cloud outside of my control. I know I'm not alone in this problem, so what do you guys (gals) use to address this?"

Comments

Agile / Scrum better than RUP / Waterfall for SW

[lamapper]

Ever since I learned about Agile/Scrum, I can not imagine a successful Software development company preferring either MS Project or Open Work Bench, it just does not make sense.

Of course many companies do not do Agile/Scrum correct. Even more do not maintain a sustainable velocity in order not to burn out their staff.

Joel on Software use to blog about KISS, yes, Keeping it Simple S------, you can use whatever word that begins with "S" for the second word. He had a very simple spreadsheet that would let you very rapidly work up your Tasks, Projects and plan the big picture. It was extremely effective and very, very fast.

The real joke, and I have been on a number of these, are projects where you are the sole developer, tester, etc... for all the work, yet your Mgr still requires you to put all your information into a project schedule program (I have used most of them even Primavera...) so that your Manager can email a copy to his Manager (none of who will ever look at it). When a project like that does NOT roll up into anything else, Project Management software is way over kill.

Not sure if Joel on Software still keeps that blog post up as they have software that they push for others to buy these days, but it made a heck of allot of sense.

So a simple spreadsheet (OOo Calc, Excel, heck even VPPlanner or SuperCalc would work, if anyone still uses those, awww VPPlanner's Dimensional Spreadsheets (think pivot tables back in the old DOS days and you get it) would work) would be what I would recommend for you to plan your task/projects big picture. And straight to Agile/Scrum from there, so no MS Project, Openwork Bench or P3 would be needed.

For Agile/Scrum you could use any "white-board like tool" (there are many of these) that would let you collaborate in real time together online. This information could be copy/pasted into OpenOffice.org Writer if you wanted, with graphics, links, code snippets everything and you would not need any software. Tie it in with a Wiki page and you have a very inexpensive Share Point. I started copy/pasting anything and everything into OOo Writer a couple of years back and have never looked back. It was funny, because MS started pushing Share Point junk and I thought, wow, I am already doing that now.

There was a small hic-up with the OOo 2.5 upgrade that was fully worked out and eliminated by OOo Writer v. 3.0.0 and above. So my method would be:

Plan with Spreadsheet

Create a master file in OOo Writer (v. 3.0.0 and above), either outright copy images (or links to images, databases, wikis, etc) into this file.

Implement Agile/Scrum correctly

Arrive at a sustainable velocity and prevent anyone, esp upper management from screwing the pooch by trying to artificially inflate the velocity.

Keep my developers, testers happy and productive, publish frequently and publish often. And thanks to a lower turnover of staff, develop superior products as compared to my competitors who allow non-programming Mgrs to push their people to death.

You have not developed a pair until you have had to tell a Director, Vice President, President or CEO that they can not have their way and here is why, once shown the facts, thank you and give you a raise for doing your job effectively.

Hint to all: Does your Human Resources monitor Turn-over under specific managers, its the most over looked metric that will identify poor performing Managers and get them the training that will prevent them from ruining their group, other groups and valuable employees for the company. Especially if they have calculated what it costs to on board an employee, as every time a poor manager churns through an employee, that should be viewed as a negative cost on their part towards the productivity of their group and the company. While many type A Managers get into Management for the wrong reasons (anything other than developing people while maximizing profit to the company applies here) and no one bothers to h