• Westward Bound
  • About Aaron Brander

The Saulzar Codex

~ and other writing by Aaron Brander

The Saulzar Codex

Tag Archives: Project Management

Scheduling Sucks (Or The Problem With Rampant Success)

09 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by Aaron Brander in On Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Mindscape, Project Management, technology

Life as a Project Manager at MINDSCAPE used to be pretty nice. I know, because I was a project manager for a couple of years.

We had a solid team and plenty of work to keep us busy. What made it nice is that it was manageable. Between two designers and two or three programmers, it was not so bad keeping their schedules straight.

We had a nice process. The salesperson would enter a form with the information I needed to make the schedule. I would take the form and create a Basecamp project using the information provided.

The Basecamp project would hold all of the tasks we needed to complete and the communication that we had on the project. Basecamp still works pretty well for this, and we use it daily.

Once a week I would sit down, write out by hand the hours needed for the different projects that came in, and get to work on Google Calendar. Each person in the company had a calendar, and I would put an All Day event in place for what they should be working on each day.

In this way, I could model the 4 days it would take for design, the 2 days of design revisions we would need in a week, and then the HTML and other programming that a different resource would need to do when the design was complete.

It took a little while, but it was manageable. And it was free. Each person could check their calendar each day, and know the main projects they should be working on. Here is a look at a schedule from February of 2010:

Pretty crazy looking, right?

Well, those quaint days are long gone, and yet we have not updated our scheduling methodology. We tried sticking with this process, but now there are two project managers, an entirely new department for marketing and double the number of programmers. It has become onerous to keep track of what project has priority and what each person is working on.

Want to find when we can fit a project in or get a new project completed? Good luck tracking that date down. We just don’t have it right now.

The issue came to a head over the last few weeks. New projects started pouring in, as our two salespersons worked their magic and Mike, Pete and Paul got in on the sales too. It became very clear that we needed to find something new. It was time to evolve.

So what is that something new? We don’t know for sure yet, but I have really enjoyed LiquidPlanner so far. It certainly makes scheduling a breeze compared to what we have done in the past. I have spent the last three days adding nearly two dozen projects into the system, assigning them to resources and adding tasks and estimated effort to each. And every time I add a new project Liquid Planner updates the schedule for me.

I am pretty sure I cannot go back to Google Calendar.

I will circle back to this subject in month and let you know a bit more about how we have solved the scheduling problem.

(If we have not solved the problem by then, Sisyphus and I will be best friends.)

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • More
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Devil is in the Details

26 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by Aaron Brander in On Technology

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Project Management, technology, work

I am a programmer and a project manager.  The company I work for builds websites. In my experience, 95% of the job is pretty easy. That is not to say that anyone can do it – I know there are things during the website process that I cannot pull off.

Front end HTML is difficult for me.

Sales – You can keep that for yourself.

Design?  That one is nigh impossible unless you also think purple and green go well together.

There are members of our team that handles those tasks very well.  I, in turn, find it a far better fit to program business logic, design databases, and organize the team to complete their tasks.  Over the last several years when I have been the Project Manager at Mindscape, we have been able to standardize and create processes for just about every aspect of the website creation process. We have become more efficient and less prone to mistakes.  We strive to get better every day so we can deliver the best project possible.  But there is one area that refuses to be completely processed away.

The Devil is in the Details

The Devil is in the DetailsI love details, to the point where there are times where I cannot see the forest for the trees and I have to remind myself to step back and take a longer look at where we are going.  Even with a love of details, it is difficult to keep track of the thousands of details that come up even on a small project.

To help in the task, we use a product called Basecamp from 37 Signals.  We have templated ToDo lists that we add to each project.  Doing so gives us a firm foundation to work from, and helps us know what major items need to be accomplished for each task.

And with those major items, we are rolling along right now.  We get through 95% of any project without difficulty.  It is that last 5% that presents problems. The small details that may not be visible for a while but can come back to bite you if no one is aware of them.

Most of our clients do not work on the web for a living. They have an idea of what they want to do, but no firm grasp on how that is to be accomplished.  We have to take care of the details they know they want, while also taking care of the details that they have no idea they need. These details can come up in any part of the website process, and it is our responsibility to look for them.

It can happen in sales – We’ve seen similar situations to what our client is asking for, so we know what we can do for a client that will work well and the client has not considered.  It is up to the sales team to identify these details and present them to the client.

It can happen when doing a website strategy for a client – Identifying something the client isn’t currently doing can have a huge impact on their business.

It can happen in design – Pulling together the items the client asked for, and still creating a site that looks great and accomplishes everything and more is a difficult art.

It happens in HTML and programming – The client doesn’t have an idea what goes on here. But watching out for every possibility, and making sure it always works no matter what happens, is the cross we must bear.

It happens in support – taking the time to figure out what’s going on and explain the issue clearly to clients is key. It is even better when we can anticipate the problem or go above what is being asked.

During any of those stages, a thousand details come up that need to be recorded and remembered in order to pull off the impressive things we do.  Basecamp ToDos is the tool we use to track this. When something comes up that must be remembered or done by someone else, we put it in Basecamp and make sure it is assigned to someone.  The assignment feature in Basecamp is a lifesaver.  Our team can filter out all the tasks that are assigned to them and see the day it needs to be done by.

Everything works great, as long as each team member keeps an eye out for the details. Did that link get connected? Did we assign a Google Analytics account? Did we remember to put in the call to action the client wanted on the home page?  Wasn’t that form supposed to have two address fields?

Often, when a team member completes their portion of a task, it still is not complete. It needs to be sent to another person on the project. Again, Basecamp ToDo’s come in handy.  The first team member adds in a comment, and then reassigns the task to the next one in line.

The process works great when everyone is on the lookout for those devilish details.  It can be a hard thing to anticipate every request, the hidden things each request represents, and still remember to link up every page, replace all of the insidious Lorem Ipsum that can find its way into the site during testing, and make sure the pixels line up the right way in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IE 8, IE 7 and that horrible monster – IE 6.

If you don’t use it already, I suggest you try out Basecamp. It’s a flexible way to manage projects.

How do you manage the details?  I’d love to hear your views on it.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • More
  • Email

Like this:

Like Loading...

Categories

  • On Books
  • On Miscellany
  • On Technology
  • On Travel
  • On Writing

Get Social


My Links

  • Brander Photography
  • Libzig.com
  • Mike July.com
  • Mindscape @ Hanon McKendry
  • Picture Perfect
  • Westward Bound

.NET 1 star 2 stars 3 stars 4 stars 5 stars 90 day challenge African Mythology Alexander the Great Basketball Bernard Cornwell Bob Lee Swagger China Coming Soon Dan Brown Danes David Gemmell diet Dresden Files Fantasy Fencing Fiction Final Four fitness Gladiators golf books golf practice Google Halo Hiking Historical Fiction History HTML James Clavell Japan Jim Butcher Kindle King Alfred Last of the Mohicans Lord of the Rings Magic Michigan State Spartans Microsoft Mindscape Neil Gaiman Non-Fiction Norse Mythology On Books programming Project Management Putting R.A. Salvatore ratings Richard Sharpe Roman Empire Roman History Romans Rome Samurai Saulzar Saulzar Codex Saxons Science Fiction Shattered Sports Books Stalin Stephen King technology Tolkien Travel Washington D.C. Wizards work Work in Progress Writing

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • The Saulzar Codex
    • Join 33 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Saulzar Codex
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: