A critique of project management software • Hacker News Board

Re: A critique of project management software

#41

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #17

My biggest problem with using these tools is mandates forced by someone in the company that no one on my team has ever met. As another commenter pointed out, I just want a big checklist, with sub check lists, and a handful of properties, that i can create update and delete at will. Instead of being a tool to help us do our job more efficiently, it has become a source of busy work, that requires extra employees to use…

> Instead of being a tool to help us do our job more efficiently, it has become a source of busy work, that requires extra employees to use properly.

Author here. I totally agree with you. We are currently using JIRA at Aptible and the general consensus is to use it as little as possible. I'd much rather have a system that is streamlined around delegating tasks to teammates and then a playground for the independent contributors to figure out how they want to break the tasks down.

I'm definitely keeping your feedback in mind if I continue to build this prototype out. If you'd like to receive updates about my progress, signup with your email at the bottom of the blog article.

Thanks!

Re: A critique of project management software

#42

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

jmfldn wrote: post #12

Jira in particular is everything I dislike in software. It's feature bloated, overly complex and yet, despite the overwhelming complexity, it's hard to shape to your needs very often. I want something much much simpler. Stick to the worse is better approach and adhere closer to the philosophy of doing one thing well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better?wprov=sfla1

> Jira in particular is everything I dislike in software. It's feature bloated, overly complex and yet, despite the overwhelming complexity, it's hard to shape to your needs very often.

Author here. I totally agree with you. Not only that, we purchase the software because it sells us on being able to fit the needs of the organization but at the end of the day most of the companies I worked for only use sprints successfully.

Re: A critique of project management software

#43

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

mch82 wrote: post #9

qudat wrote: post #2

Author here! Happy to answer any questions about the article or the product idea I'm thinking about building: wormhole. I'll be writing more articles about the product idea to make it more clear what I want to build. Happy to read any feedback or if I'm wasting my time!

I’m curious why Microsoft Project is not included on the list of project management software packages? Skip the default Gantt view, but the Activity Network view contains a lot of useful features. It’s based on the PERT technique that comes from Operations Research.

I'll add it to the list, thank you!

Re: A critique of project management software

#44

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

roland35 wrote: post #5

qudat wrote: post #2

Author here! Happy to answer any questions about the article or the product idea I'm thinking about building: wormhole. I'll be writing more articles about the product idea to make it more clear what I want to build. Happy to read any feedback or if I'm wasting my time!

Have you tried Wrike at all? Of all the project management tools I've used I enjoyed Wrike the most. What I liked most about it is that you can combine the same tasks together in multiple places... which helps me since many tasks don't always fit in a single hierarchy. I.e. a circuit board design could be in the "electronics" folder, but also could be part of a specific prototype build.

I have not, I'll add it to my short list of software to demo. Thanks!

Re: A critique of project management software

#45

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

svilen_dobrev wrote: post #13

qudat wrote: post #2

Author here! Happy to answer any questions about the article or the product idea I'm thinking about building: wormhole. I'll be writing more articles about the product idea to make it more clear what I want to build. Happy to read any feedback or if I'm wasting my time!

Can one say that circles are/can be used like tags, in a way? That is, Can one task belong to multiple circles? Think of aspects.. it's something i have always been missing, the graph-like nature of all these things, always being bricked into some tree-or-list-like single-parent stiff structure..

With my current thinking about how circles can work, a circle can reference another circle. So in a way, one task (circle) can belong to multiple circles. It's similar to how Workflowy allows the user to mirror list items.

Re: A critique of project management software

#46

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

mallahan wrote: post #7

qudat wrote: post #2

Author here! Happy to answer any questions about the article or the product idea I'm thinking about building: wormhole. I'll be writing more articles about the product idea to make it more clear what I want to build. Happy to read any feedback or if I'm wasting my time!

It looks great - it seems to add dashboard functionality to the infinite nesting idea of workflowy.com which gets the nesting right, but is missing metadata & dashboard tools (and an API).

Exactly! This product idea is the brain child of Workflowy, Basecampe, and Clubhouse ... combining all the features that I love from all of them into one product.

Re: A critique of project management software

#47

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

bobek wrote: post #11

You should fit Phabricator a try (there is a community fork at https://we.phorge.it ). It is fast, simple, yet powerful. Basically the best ticketing system, I've worked so far.

I'll take a look, thanks!

Re: A critique of project management software

#48

Post by correstco » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

I just logged into HN to mention Todoist.

I have a hobby of trying out different project management software and I even went back to a pen and paper notebook for a while.

But I’ve become a huge fan and advocate of Todoist. So lightweight yet very flexible.

*sorry if this sounds like a marketing message. I don’t work for the company or know anyone that does. I’m not invested in the company other than a happy customer.

Re: A critique of project management software

#49

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

asplake wrote: post #4

> Difficult to couple OKRs with tasks Depends perhaps on what you mean by “task”, but I don’t get this one. Surely your OKRs are how you measure success of most of what you do that quarter, and there are only a few of them. What value does task-level tracking really add? I’d go as far as saying that task-level tracking may be of value to the individual, but progress generally should be tracked at the level of deliver…

Thanks for the feedback! The leaf of a circle heirarchy doesn't necessarily need to be a task -- that's just how many orgs operate. The theoretical OKR feauture-set of Wormhole could simply be a place for message boards, docs, and a way to manually add metrics. You could reference other circles inside an OKR circle if you'd like, but it's not mandatory.

The main critique about OKR software that I don't like is that it's a separate system from where things get done. When thinking about a product team and having an OKR set, it's sometimes beneficial to think about what the team is doing every week that helps them achieve their OKRs.

Re: A critique of project management software

#50

Post by qudat » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

2bitlobster wrote: post #14

There is usually some point several times a year where things get hairy, and I need to do an analysis within a spreadsheet (ie sort tickets by effort + value to evaluate priority). Still haven't seen a tool that lets me quickly evaluate many tickets easily without config hell.

Totally agree and thanks for the feedback! I'll keep this in mind if I decide to build this product.