Recent Posts by ThreeDPeruna

Topic: project management / Managing small projects during one large project

What you’ve outlined seems to make sense. I’m assuming that it works well for more than one team, too? That is, we want to have a complete picture of what needs to be done. In the above outline, are you creating a “month” as a project (using LP terminology) and then slotting the work items?

I suppose what I’m still unclear about is the multiple person flow. Each person is working on different tasks in parallel. Using your example above, Person 1 is assigned Apollo and Person 2 is assigned Gemini. I’m assuming that this doesn’t muck up the scheduling since they’re different “projects”.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Task Progress as Percent Complete

Based on what you’re saying is that at the end of the day, the task that is incomplete gets a revised estimate of what will take to complete it. Then, everything else will get adjusted. This then gets tracked on the Analysis tab (it appears to be so)?

Topic: project management / Managing small projects during one large project

I think it was the nomenclature that got us all confused. “Category” for us corresponds to “Project” in LP. “Projects” then correspond to the “Task List” that needs to happen.

But I’m still fuzzy on “parallel” tasks between individuals in the same space.

How do we mix & match effectively & in parallel between people?

Or, here’s another way to express our confusion:

We have a client project. Staff member works on client project until 90% completed, at which point I need to review the project, provide corrections. Staff member finishes and we bundle it up and ship it out. In the mean time, while the staff guy is working on the stuff, I have other tasks I’m doing—I’m not needed on that particular project until near the end.

So in the Project view, do we schedule projects by person? Doing it purely by workitem can get confusing, too, as some of my work items aren’t needed until the end, but I’m doing stuff between now and then.

Topic: project management / Managing small projects during one large project

OK… that seems fine. But I run a small business. Each client has their own projects (and sometimes multiple projects). However, I also have the day-to-day tasks of running a business: filing, responding to correspondence, employee management, accounting, meetings, that aren’t related to a particular project, but need to be done.

One way is to only schedule myself to work say 80% of the time (4 days) on the billable projects, leaving the other 20% for unbillable, but equally necessary stuff. But that means I might have two spaces I’m working in, without one common list. I don’t like that idea either.

This isn’t multi-tasking, but the reality of being the guy who wears multiple hats. However, the last thing I want to do is include “mundane office tasks” in the middle of our client projects. It mucks up the clarity of seeing what needs to be done for that particular project.

I don’t know if this is the right place—but is it possible to add an item in the priority list that belongs to a different project? So that the priority items are arranged according to priority, not necessarily by project?

I’m perfectly fine setting aside x amount of time during the day for the “little” stuff, but I can’t figure out how to effectively make it work with the current set up.

If it helps, we have an architecture office.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / List of Common Work Items

Thank you. This will help us set up project templates.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / List of Common Work Items

Thanks.

The instructions are fairly general. Are there any template files available for download—even for a look to see how one might set up the spreadsheet?

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Task Progress as Percent Complete

For many tasks, I’d prefer to record the task as a percent complete, rather than time spent on it.

Actually, it would be nice to record time spent AND percent complete. Then, get a report of time spent vs. % complete. This would help track how accurate our estimates are.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / List of Common Work Items

Some of our projects have work items that are common to various projects. Would it be possible to create a list of commonly used tasks that can then be checked off as applying to that particular project? This would make it easier to set up projects.

Topic: feature ideas & requests / Vacation Days (and Holidays)

It would be great to be able for each person to list vacation days in their own personal calendars. Then, their work items would flow around the days they’re gone.

It would also be good to define global holidays, and other “non-productive” days (for instance, regularly scheduled office meetings).