Project Management Tool

[kokigfc]

Hi all,

What project management tool do you use to organize your tasks and schedule?
My team is growing up and i will need to use a tool like this.

Thanks in Advance,

Gustavo

[destron]

hey gustavo,
don't take my word for this, but i'm guessing a lot of indie companies don't have schedules and stuff - a lot of times there's not some kind of deadline to meet, (:D) since they develop their stuff on their own time mostly - but if you are thinking of buying one - then let's see...

microsoft access is probably the best for what you want - it's not that hard to learn and it's a pretty good standard for database software - you can add groups, cells to those groups, etc etc etc, like any good database program.

keep in mind that for all commercial software you will legally have to buy a separate copy of the program for each computer you will be using it on - as seen by the viciously enforced Microsoft online-activation scheme.

or, of course you could go for free software - i would suggest searching freshmeat.net or sourceforge for them.

cheers destron. :)

[baegsi]

http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net/ is quite good. http://www.openworkbench.org/ is also free but needs some time getting used to.

[Hotwire]

We are using Scrumworks - http://www.danube.com/scrumworks and are at the moment attempting to strap it together with TRAC to have easy access to backlog/burndown charts/etc.

[PaulModz]

You might want to check out FogzBugz from FogCreek software (the company owned by Joel Spolsky of "Joel on Software" fame). It's a nice web based tool more centered around issue tracking than schedule management, but the two go hand in hand so it probably has some scheduling features as well. It also lets you create publicly accessible pages to help integrate your internal tracking and customer support. I think it costs $129 per seat.

http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/

[Hiro_Antagonist]

I use notepad, word, and excel.

For small teams/projects, they can be surprisingly effective with the proper discipline and structure -- especially excel...

I've tried to force myself to work with MS Project, but I found it pointlessly cumbersome for a team of 5.

[Shaz]

has anyone looked at dotProject? We're just starting to use it at work (council) and it falls quite short of the MS-Project functionality, but I'm thinking it could be pretty good for my own projects.

[PaulModz]

Hiro wins, Excel is really good. In fact, Joel used to work on the Excel team at Microsoft, and he said that the only thing Excel programmers actually use Excel for is scheduling, so all kind of features that just happen to be handly for scheduling just happened to make it into the app. He wrote a great series of blogs detailing a simple and effective method a few years back.

[SteveZ]

BaseCamp - http://www.basecamphq.com/

[Emmanuel]

Notepad (well really the built-in text editor of MSVC) for tasks and Excel for bugs while in production or support afterwards. Quite effective if you know what you want to accomplish.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[dntoll]

We use trac, http://www.edgewall.com/trac/

It is a project tool, with wiki, task management and subversion.

It rocks and is free, but can be a bit complex to install...:)

[Fost]

todolist (http://www.codeproject.com/tools/ToDoList2.asp)

Is also a very handy and free tool. Packed with many features you wouldn't expect from its name alone.

[Polycount Productions]

Some that were mentioned here (http://www.gameproducer.net/2006/02/23/project-management-bug-tracking-software/)

PHProjekt
Microsoft Project
indiepath.project
DotProject
BugZilla
TRAC (project management really nice one)
FalySpray (bug-tracker, php, nice)
Mantis
phpBugTracker

[Mike D Smith]

We are using Scrumworks - http://www.danube.com/scrumworks and are at the moment attempting to strap it together with TRAC to have easy access to backlog/burndown charts/etc.

It's pretty simple, and promotes the agile development process. We've been using this on Tiger Woods Golf 2007 for PC and have had amazing success.

We are all now huge fans of agile development and Scrum in particular.

If you have more than one person on the project, use Scrum Works!

Oh yeah, It's free!

[Hotwire]

Not only free, but created by extremely nice and supportive people who really know their way around Agile/Scrum. Highly recommended! (again)

It's pretty simple, and promotes the agile development process. We've been using this on Tiger Woods Golf 2007 for PC and have had amazing success.

We are all now huge fans of agile development and Scrum in particular.

If you have more than one person on the project, use Scrum Works!

Oh yeah, It's free!

[carl]

Mypreferred scheduling tool is a wiki - it makes it easy for everyone to see the latest and greatest version.

If I need something more "formal" to email to stakeholders, I'll break down and use a spreadsheet (OpenOffice calc or Excel).

[Musenik]

I'm using Text Edit on a Macintosh. I've been thinking about upgrading, but what scheduling programs exists for the Mac? I have Excel and might look into that, but what else is there?

[Tertsi]

Wordpad and Notepad because I'm the only programmer of Mitorah Games.

[jeb_]

I can really recommend Basecamp for task and milestone scheduling - especially if you are working with people online:

http://www.basecamphq.com/?ref=free

[Hotwire]

I'm using Text Edit on a Macintosh. I've been thinking about upgrading, but what scheduling programs exists for the Mac? I have Excel and might look into that, but what else is there?

We use OSX in our office environment, so I've seen quite a few solutions for OSX (doesn't matter to us because we're using TRAC majorly and Scrumworks has an OSX client and server) ;)

Just from a quick Google search (meaning, I don't know if they are worth trying):

PMX Project Management
http://www.jtechsoftworks.com/

Project Desktop
http://www.webintellisys.com/project/desktop.html

Shared Plan
http://www.sharedplan.com/product_media.html

Tutos (Apache/PHP/MySQL-based, so any platform/browser)
http://www.tutos.org/

..or if you feel like going crazy: http://proj.chbs.dk/ - Meta list of open source project management software. Surely to be some web-based/OSX tools listed there.

.......OR http://java-source.net/open-source/project-management - Meta list of JAVA open-source project management software.

Good luck!

[Polycount Productions]

Almost forgot:

- paper & pen (my definite favourite :rolleyes: )

[Hotwire]

Almost forgot:

- paper & pen (my definite favourite :rolleyes: )

SO true, I keep a little moleskine and a pen with me at all times. GTD for the win! ;)

[seguinsound]

Scrumworks loops pretty nifty -- thanks for the tip.

I'm on a Mac, so here's hoping the Mac version works pretty well.

Not to completely change the angle of this thread, but along the same lines, have any of you had much luck with any Customer Management Software?

This is most useful for consultant types / contract workers (I'm a contractor for music/sound design work) to keep track of clients, follow-ups, projects in progress, etc.

One for Mac, that's commercial that I've seen is daylite:

http://www.marketcircle.com/daylite/

It looks pretty sweet, but it *is* $150. Anyone know of any OSS projects that may be more or less the same (Mac-compatible -- X-Windows is fine -- please!)

Thanks!

-John

[Hotwire]

Daylite looks EXTREMELY nice and we'll be evaluating it sooner/rather than later.

Daylite reminds me of many GTD (Getting Things Done or Getting To Done) apps, although the most powerful one I've seen. Here are some other goodies if you are interested in productivity ("GTD" and non) in an OSX environment:

Tracks (productivity, time tracking, todos, etc).
http://www.rousette.org.uk/projects/

Chandler (Calender, time tracking, todos)
http://chandler.osafoundation.org/

Hot Plan
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/hotplan.html

Curio (Visual brain-storming app)
http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/

Apple Productivity Tools
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/

[DanGTD]

If you'd like a tool for managing your time and projects, you can use this application inspired by David Allen's GTD:

http://www.Gtdagenda.com

You can use it to manage and prioritize your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A mobile version and iCal are available too.

[moose6912]

I am using Google Docs document and spreadsheet now to keep track of stuff. Much better and more convenient than attaching XLS spreadsheets and Doc Word documents.

[WaveRider]

I'm currently using OneNote (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/HA101672671033.aspx) which came with Microsoft Office. It's been a life saver so far.