Do project management apps help productivity?

I know that most of us here are web professionals (developers/designers/consultants...) and I was wondering if you think that using project management apps (ie: BaseCamp, ActiveCollab, etc..) actually help with productivity?

I have tried using apps to help sort out tasks and other activities but I find that once you start getting into multiple projects and the projects get more complex that the time and effort to maintain a task/milestone list up-to-date and accurate can take a bit chunk out of your development time. I am now juggling multiple projects and it is getting to be a mess with out-of-date task lists and projects that I have already finished but never had the time to add to the system.

I must be doing something wrong in my approach

Do you find that these apps actually help?


Edit : changed " productivuty?" to "productivity?" in title

They can help, but it requires serious discipline to keep them updated.

I’ve found that juggling projects with multiple folks working on different (or multiple) projects, Basecamp is invaluable.

Quote from: dev_cw at Mar 27, 2008, 09:41 AM

I know that most of us here are web professionals (developers/designers/consultants...) and I was wondering if you think that using project management apps (ie: BaseCamp, ActiveCollab, etc..) actually help with productivity?

I had been using ActiveCollab since 0.6.x and it was nice but limited and not a nice GUI enough to have all my clients actually use it.
ac1.0 just changed that and I must say I always have a tab with it opened !

I have a global view of all my projects, and I can keep all the project information in one place (I manage to convince 80% of my clients not to send emails anymore but start discussions, assign tasks or submit tickets instead. It’s a time saver, really !).

It changed my productivity alright, mainly because it’s so much more usable. It’s not perfect yet, there are a numbers of things which can (and most will, waiting impatiently for 1.1) be adjusted, but all in all it’s a time saver and a great way to document a project / manage collaboration / manage client relationship. Very much worth the 400$ !

One key item I found was missing before 1.0 was timetracking. After several months using 1.0 and a strong discpline to log everything I do, I have a much better understanding of the time I spend on projects and thus where I stand as far as rentability and productivity are concerned. You can generate reports over a selectable time period and it can be exported to csv. Very handy.

One thing I also started doing is document every complex items I implement, especially when it’s something I am likely to have to do again in the future. I have started to build a chunk, snippet calls, PHx tricks library to be more efficient. I also store every modified core file or snippet, and add comment whenever I can to keep track. I also keep thread links as they can easily be buried and forgotten over time...

I have two goals this year :

• build a knowledge base in ac1.0 wiki pages to take less time to do things in the future, and make it easier if at some point, I hire people (not on my agenda but I am thinking long term).
• track every minute spent in projects so that I know exactly if my pricing is on target or not (considering I don’t charge by the hour, it means a lot for hourly rates) and also know if I am improving productivity or not as time goes by. It will also make me better at selling my services, being able to defend my prices when the client thinks it’s too expensive. More often than not, the time spent is way over what the "theoretical perfect world just technical factors" time is.

Quote from: dev_cw

I have tried using apps to help sort out tasks and other activities but I find that once you start getting into multiple projects and the projects get more complex that the time and effort to maintain a task/milestone list up-to-date and accurate can take a bit chunk out of your development time. I am now juggling multiple projects and it is getting to be a mess with out-of-date task lists and projects that I have already finished but never had the time to add to the system.

I would say that on the contrary, once you have 3/4 projects at the same time (which is my case 90% of the time) it’s pretty hard to work without them. Though it represents something like 20% of my time, I consider the time I spend driving the project as important as the actual legwork (so to speak, you could call it brainwork ). Clients like to see that the project is handled profesionnally, they also like being up to date on what you’re doing, why this or that is delayed... etc.

I have found it (now that they actually almost all use it) to be a great communication tool. It also places value to your work since they can track the time you spend working on their project.

As Susan says it takes discipline, at least at first it does, but then it becomes an habit and it integrates seamlessly with your work.

Here is how my (simplified) day is :

1) log into ac 1.0, check if there are new messages, tickets, tasks assigned (if I didn’t see that in my email notification already)

2) Check the task which are assigned to me, ordering by priority. I then evaluate time for each task, and set project priorities (this is not in aC, just in my head but I plan to submit feature request to that effect).

3) Work on the task sequentially. Each time I complete a task, I input a time record at the same time and take the opportunity to check messages, tickets and tasks again.

4) At the end of the day, I check the total time spent for the day. I then give a look at what I’ve crossed to see if this was a good day or not. If you’re like me, there are days when you strike a lot of important items and days when you’re not productive at all...

Let me tell you, the other week-end I hadn’t an internet connection and I wanted to plan my week... and I realized how dependent of the tool I have become...

I think that a project management tool is essential for development work of all kinds, from cars to pharmaceuticals to websites...

For me, it is one of the four pillars of working productively along with time management (to’do, calendar), email and client management (can go from an agenda to a CRM).

But BaseCamp, ActiveCollab, Netoffice, etc are just tools... you need to know a little ( or a lot) of project management theory to make them work for you. There are literally tons of websites with project management info and tutorials from basic to the PMI (project management institute) courses on how to do it.

Try matching it to your process... create a template that covers it and let the application tool "direct" you through the work of one or multiple projects. We have a project template (project schedule) for each of our development services and each schedule includes everything, even things that are rarely done because it is easier to just set the time of a task or block of tasks to zero (and thus virtually deleting them) than to add a custom block of tasks, its durations and its dependencies.

Then each time a new project "arrives"... create it in the tool, assign to it the kind of project template to use (logo, stationary, website, application, etc.) and fill in the constraints (start date, end date, phases, etc.) and then in its easiest of forms use it as a todo-calendar combo... or as a complex project management tool that lets you stay on top of your multi-task, multi-person, multi-country project.

Thanks for the replies.

@davidm: wow, thanks for spelling out your approach with so much detail. Very interesting and insightful. There are a few things that worry me though.

20% of your time is a lot of time, this is exactly what I see with myself and this is what is bothering me. I need to spend that time doing production work in order to keep up with the work load as well as other stuff. I was hoping to get it down to less then 10%.

Getting 80% of your clients to use is great, this really helps streamline since the tool itself becomes useful as a communication tool. In my case my clients just prefer to send me e-mails. Previously I had tried to establish a support ticket system but no one ever used it. I think it has to do with the personal touch issue, clients just like to talk to me directly...and the fact that no one wants to have to remember any more passwords. Even with such friendly tools like BaseCamp they shy away from using them and I end up copy/pasting all the messages over and still no one uses them, at least I get organized. Maybe AC1 has bridged the usability gap with clients but I don’t imagine my clients making the shift away from e-mail.

Also I have an issue where I fall behind with keeping the tasks up-to-date and the clients get the feeling that nothing is being done. It is a commitment and a responsibility to keep these up.

@sottwell: I agree the discipline is 100% important. It is a big issue.

@rthrash: I agree that these tools are fundamental for group or team projects. But would you be inclined to use it for projects that you work on alone?

@charliez: You are so right, if you don’t know HOW to manage a project than no set of tools will do it for you. I am sure I need to learn a lot in order to get this right.

Has anyone used any desktop GTD apps to help manage projects/tasks? I recently ran into this list on Zen Habits with some desktop apps that look helpful. But I don’t well with desktop apps either, I have tried a few desktop billing apps that I just could not get into using.

http://zenhabits.net/2008/03/5-amazing-mac-apps-for-getting-things-done-plus-a-custom-rigged-setup/

We’ve been using DotProject and have found it to be quite helpful. I am also investigating ProjectPier as possibility as well but couldn’t initially as it requires PHP5 and mySQL 5 which I had locally, but not on our servers until recently. It looks like it may have more support behind it and has similarities to BaseCamp. But both are open source and you can host them yourself.

The 20% time that was mentioned saves you time later and it can be spread out if you discipline yourself (i.e. finish a task, mark it finished, task runs into problem, put the problem in the system, etc.) Most of the time, I find, is taken in the planning stage anyway, and PM tools help with that as well. Enter the project, the details, projected timelines, projected tasks, deliverables, etc.

It allows you to manage more clients and for us, really, get out of a lot of production and have others do that while we get more clients (that money you’re paying out to others can be offset by increase volume of projects.) It does take some time to integrate these systems and build the discipline to use it (for example, when things go to hell or a rush, people revert to everything by email rather than entering in the system, which will generate the email, but you can reference it later within the structure that a PM system gives you.)

One of the most difficult things, I’ve found, is getting acknowledgment discipline. I like to know that the tasks assigned have been acknowledged and know, asap, if the time line is reasonable or if there are any other issues, although if you have a critical path and agreement on a critical path, you’ll have some idea if your production staff (or you) have the cycles to devote to it.

We bill for project management time, as it’s required for project success and is part of our process in general.

Quote from: dev_cw at Mar 27, 2008, 05:59 PM

Has anyone used any desktop GTD apps to help manage projects/tasks? I recently ran into this list on Zen Habits with some desktop apps that look helpful. But I don’t well with desktop apps either, I have tried a few desktop billing apps that I just could not get into using.

http://zenhabits.net/2008/03/5-amazing-mac-apps-for-getting-things-done-plus-a-custom-rigged-setup/

I use Things and love it. I don’t use it for huge projects (I go Basecamp/Jira/Trac for those), but for personal productivity, it is excellent.

It’s simple, quick, fast and has a wonderfully-designed UI. I use it daily, and spend only 2% or less time with it.

Quote from: dev_cw at Mar 27, 2008, 05:59 PM

@davidm: wow, thanks for spelling out your approach with so much detail. Very interesting and insightful. There are a few things that worry me though. 20% of your time is a lot of time, this is exactly what I see with myself and this is what is bothering me. I need to spend that time doing production work in order to keep up with the work load as well as other stuff. I was hoping to get it down to less then 10%.

Yeah well, 20% is with the detailed documenting if you "just" manage projects it a bit less, around 10%.
Not everyone is a knowledge management groupie like me, I consider those additionnal 10% are really important.

Quote from: dev_cw

Getting 80% of your clients to use is great, this really helps streamline since the tool itself becomes useful as a communication tool.

Indeed, and it took some effort to get there : documentation, explaining the benefits of using the system versus keeping it disorganized...etc. One thing I did was systematically reply some clients email in the system : the client would send me an email, I would post it as a message in a discussion with his account, subscribe him to it and then reply there. If you do it consistently enough, the client ends up following. He get the answer in his email, since the system is notifying him but he has a link to reply to the message in the email and it’s easy to just click and go

Hell, I am even considering making it part of business proposals : I’ll throw in a 5% discount if the client agrees to systematically use the system (e.g assign me task instead of send me an email to request that the task be done, start a discussion instead of sending an email, upload a file instead of sending it via email... etc). If he then does not, I charge the 5% with the last bill.

Quote from: dev_cw

@rthrash: I agree that these tools are fundamental for group or team projects. But would you be inclined to use it for projects that you work on alone?

I mostly work alone, even if I work with MODx developpers more and more (currently Laurentc and Gildas).

One of the main benefit of this tools, to me, is not only project management and collaboration with other professionnals but also help make the client part of the project (which often they stand a bit aside from... I often get a "build me a nice looking website for my company" and then the client is silent and I have to constantly stimulate participation).

Quote from: dev_cw

@charliez: You are so right, if you don’t know HOW to manage a project than no set of tools will do it for you. I am sure I need to learn a lot in order to get this right.

True.

Yet, as someone with extensive project management training, I would say that a well built tool tend to help you focus on project management better. Project management is not (for most of us at least) fun. Efficient and usable tool is key to actually get down to managing projects (for me at least).

Quote from: dev_cw

Has anyone used any desktop GTD apps to help manage projects/tasks? I recently ran into this list on Zen Habits with some desktop apps that look helpful. But I don’t well with desktop apps either, I have tried a few desktop billing apps that I just could not get into using.
http://zenhabits.net/2008/03/5-amazing-mac-apps-for-getting-things-done-plus-a-custom-rigged-setup/

Wow thanks for that list !

I had a few apps, but I prefer having it all in one place and more importantly : online.
But I am sure giving a look into this !

As for billing apps, one very sexy Mac app is Billings (http://www.billings2.com/)

Quote from: rthrash at Mar 27, 2008, 10:25 PM

We bill for project management time, as it’s required for project success and is part of our process in general.

Funny you’d say that, I was considering doing it also... I’ll make sure to include that in my future business proposals...