Do project management apps help productivity?

No file are encrypted whatsoever... key or not !

And yes, support and upgrade are not free.
I hardly had to use support but the few times I did it was lightning fast and solved it for me.
And I think these are decent prices, I will gladly pay for the upgrade (and with the euro to dollar rate, I admit it’s even more attractive) !

Do I prefer open source ?
Yes !

If there are no open source alternative though (and there are none with such a feature set) I think commercial product like ActiveCollab are a blessing for small (or bigger, but prices make it accessible to small) business !

In retrospect I think that BaseCamp killed the open source project management niche. Before basecamp there were several interesting and popular open source projects, some with many more features than BaseCamp puts out. However, once the BaseCamp business model proved lucrative, no new open source project management applications became popular and the existing ones seemed to have stoped in time (the dotProject interface seems to be in the stone age). Several BC clones with the same business model pop up all of the time. I think that the modern open source project management app is a myth.

As for AC, if I had no history with them I may not be concerned. But I just am not ready to give them any money (although I would have gladly donated to it if it was open source, and did when it was).

ProjectPier is destined for stagnation. As the original AC developer quickly noticed, it is not very well coded and to make any modifications requires editing multiple files in multiple places. And the coding has no documentation so finding what you need to edit is a pain. It really is easier to start from scratch than to edit the ActiveCollab legacy code. The people at ProjectPier had some enthusiasm at first, but I think that they also came to the same conclusion that it is a hassle to build on the project.

I’ve had a fresh look at AC but DotProject, despite not being Ajax/Web 2.0 and tedious (but effective) permissions system, still stands out as the most thorough system. It would be wonderful if a clear reporting system was included and it was updated to the Ajax/Web 2.0 model. I think it stands as a great example of what, largely, a PM system should feature, but with better implementation.

Quote from: rx2 at Sep 20, 2008, 09:23 AM

I’ve had a fresh look at AC but DotProject, despite not being Ajax/Web 2.0 and tedious (but effective) permissions system, still stands out as the most thorough system. It would be wonderful if a clear reporting system was included and it was updated to the Ajax/Web 2.0 model. I think it stands as a great example of what, largely, a PM system should feature, but with better implementation.

I feel the same way abut my old favorite phpCollab, it has way more useful features than the current wave of 2.0 but has an interface that I would not like to present my clients with or be associated with at all.

Unless things have changed DotProject is a bit outdated for my taste... as Shane points out, UI is of the essence if you want users to actually adopt the tool. I must say this is where aC does the trick (for me at least) : when I upadted from aC 0.7.x (which was already way nicer than Dotproject) to aC 1.x, my adoption rate went up from 30% to 75% of my clients actually using the thing. It speaks for itself !

I am not sure I share your opinion about the fact it’s what a project management software should be... but everyone has different expectations and needs. As someone who was trained to manage project before I learned webdesign, I must say that ActiveCollab outperforms what I use to handle with MS Project + Phone + Emails.

Sure, you lack the bells and whistle of project management with critical paths, lag time, lead time and PERT but from my experience except if you have to handle a very big project those tools and features are overkill... just my point of view. Using rigorous methods is a good thing, thinking that rationalizing every step of the way with mathematically optimized tools ensures meeting the goals and/or handling ressources well is wishful thinking. A more basic (and actually used !) tool which enables communication and basic aspect of time management and tracking is way more powerful...

But here I am straying from the subject

Quote from: davidm at Sep 21, 2008, 02:26 PM

Unless things have changed DotProject is a bit outdated for my taste... as Shane points out, UI is of the essence if you want users to actually adopt the tool. I must say this is where aC does the trick (for me at least) : when I upadted from aC 0.7.x (which was already way nicer than Dotproject) to aC 1.x, my adoption rate went up from 30% to 75% of my clients actually using the thing. It speaks for itself !

I am not sure I share your opinion about the fact it’s what a project management software should be... but everyone has different expectations and needs. As someone who was trained to manage project before I learned webdesign, I must say that ActiveCollab outperforms what I use to handle with MS Project + Phone + Emails.

Sure, you lack the bells and whistle of project management with critical paths, lag time, lead time and PERT but from my experience except if you have to handle a very big project those tools and features are overkill... just my point of view. Using rigorous methods is a good thing, thinking that rationalizing every step of the way with mathematically optimized tools ensures meeting the goals and/or handling ressources well is wishful thinking. A more basic (and actually used !) tool which enables communication and basic aspect of time management and tracking is way more powerful...

But here I am straying from the subject

I actually find AC’s interface extremely annoying and tedious actually, as have my entire production team, far to clicky as well, but the presentation is nice, and of course, tastes vary wildly. Our clients demand Gantt charts and critical paths, and we have our production teams on critical paths as well. Haven’t had any problems getting clients to make requests by assigning tasks either. I just find it is far more deep and makes managing over 30 concurrent projects much more easier than AC but in truth I’m not happy with either of them entirely.

We use Netoffice Dwins, an offshoot of phpCollab (which, by the way, is trying to re-birth...). phpCollab has a new
theme/skin which modernizes it and looks very similar to the "NEW" 2.0 applications... but the core is the same,
it is amazing that the looks of an app is more important that the substance for some people. I guess is the same in
the real world...

What we love is the "client site"... a place integrated with the app where all the info and comm with the client is shared.
One place for all, makes it really handy... it makes adoption a snap, just put everything there, give the client
their username & pass and when a client wants to communicate by email or else, respond with a link to their client site...
adoption will be 100%.

It is lacking of a bunch of things as all the offline/online PM tools do but the
worst is entering a project... all this tools are designed by people that do not know PM or have very small projects or
do PM as if it was a huge ToDo list... why can anybody just allow us to enter a project in a spreadsheet/grid/table way
instead of having to click a million times to enter all the info a task needs to be complete...

There is no way that any of all these new apps get even closer to MS Project... in features, usability, etc... the problem is
that it is MS, it has way too many features, you have to pay every single time they want to change it and cannot modify/tweak it
to your liking...

Well, as I said, everyone has different needs... with Quick Add and pubic pages I don’t see where is the over-click problem with aC but that’s going into too much details and requires to actually use it for a project.

it is amazing that the looks of an app is more important that the substance for some people

It’s not what I said, or it’s a simplification of what I said. First, we’re not talking all people but clients, translate : end users. I don’t know about your clients but mine are small and medium businesses which means that more often than not my contact is a layman. If it’s not easy and fast to use, they won’t use it and UI is a big part of making it easy for the end users.

As I said, everyone has different needs and approach : if you work for big or highly technical companies, they’ll want a GANTT chart it’ll re-insure them no matter if your GANTT is built well or not (by the way, there is a GANTT plugin for aC).

There is no way that any of all these new apps get even closer to MS Project

I beg to differ. If you’re talkink feature set, sure none of this apps are getting closer for sure but let me shock you : for most of us that’s a good thing ! Sure, if I am working with big businesses where people are more specialized and likely to understand a critical path and gantt chart, then maybe it can be relevant if the project is big and has too many tasks and milestones for a simple software to handle all the parameter. But most projects (IMHO) don’t belong to that category, or can be divided into smaller projects with a coordinator handling the higher level supervision.

I have used MS Project intensively for a pretty big project when I was working for MS France (they first trained me, which took several weeks !). More often than not, this kind of tool is used to plan the project but it’s not the best tool to drive the project. I don’t think it’s that usable (or else my brain is wired wrong, which is perfectly possible ).

... the core is the same, it is amazing that the looks of an app is more important that the substance for some people. I guess is the same in the real world...

I don’t believe anyone is saying it the app looks good, it works better. We are saying that presentation helps the app’s usability (and that usability is largely subjective of course). People don’t mind clicks for example, it’s if the clicking path is confusing or difficult (enter AC for me).

I love MindMaps for example and other structural diagrams for project overviews whereas other do not. For those that do, it helps them understand the project objectives and goals tremendously, and we use standard task and task lists for the details (though sometimes we mindmap the details as well as assign tasks). Some respond to Gantt, some can’t be bothered. A very flexible system that allows you to use what you need would be wonderful and that took care of everyone’s needs would be wonderful, but that’s asking for heaven, and only MODx is close to that.

Well, actually I love mind maps and use them a lot !

I understand GANTTs and GANTTS value, yet I don’t share many project manager’s control illusion about them. That’s a personal opinion based on my limited experience though, but it’s a very strong one. Then again I am an eager reader of books about chaos theory and complexity science, I am definitely biased

Anyway, don’t let me ramble - I love it

Not every tool is made for everyone, you don’t click with aC and many people don’t click with MODx (back when I was @textpattern’s many didn’t click with it too).

We’re all wired differently.

We’re all working in different context.

What I know is, aC works for me and enabled me to work way more efficiently. On top of it, clients like it too.
Now, it’s not a perfect product : many things can be improved but they actually do improve regularly and that’s one key aspect of the software which I like a lot.