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Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

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Re: Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

#31

Post by zswaff »

samstave wrote: post #11
zswaff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, really appreciate the detailed list here. Some of the reporting, history, dashboards, templates, etc. that you mention is covered now but Dart probably isn't quite ready to solve some of your more advanced needs. It's all pretty aligned with our vision in the long run though. We're particularly excited about all of the ideas around resource tracking and allocation--we'll get there! Very curious to hear how it wo…

I've built MILLIONs of SQ ft of hospitals, corporate, DCs, tech, commercial on billion+$ budgets etc... I've done AMAZING work. I never kept a good portfolio of my own accomplishments, and it would have really helped me as an independent consultant. I've seen so many smaller consultancies who are quite capable get "out marketed" by bigger consultancies - To have a running, ongoing portfolio - that you dont have to ha…

Yep, that makes a ton of sense. I totally see the value in building a portfolio like that.

Well, Dart can do a bit of the shorter-term weekly/monthly project reports/updates now, but I can definitely imagine adding 'full project summary for portfolio building' to the types of reports we can generate. Like you said, great for the team and a cool resource to hand off in deliverables if the owner wants to include as a success story.

Would love to chat more about some of these ideas--shoot me an email!

Re: Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

#32

Post by geniium »

jack_riminton wrote: post #16
hoskdoug wrote: post #6

Was it a deliberate decision to go with a name that clashes with a top 20 programming language?

Even as a dev I hadn't really thought about it clashing with a programming language, therefore I doubt most other people would care

First thing that came to my mind too.

Re: Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

#34

Post by lifeisstillgood »

I think project mgmt software suffers from the same problem as project managers - they think they should be in charge, visible and front and centre

I disagree (esp about the human ones)

I want project management that fills itself in based on work people do, not work people tell the tool they have done.

I am dubious that putting ticket numbers in commit messages is needed - let alone IRC, emails, phone calls meetings, vendor orders placed etc

I am not even sure how to do this - I think it’s to do with defining the outcomes via automated tests (Are there five servers available for use by the X team, as opposed to does the blue button send onclick)

I wish you luck but honestly saving the PM time filling in a report that simply “announces” things are done without being measuring actual results is ok but not the quantum leap. But I am grumpy today so perhaps I am Being too pessimistic

But still - solve “achieve these automated testable goals” might be the right answer - but way harder as you don’t control any of that surface area

Re: Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

#35

Post by samstave »

zswaff wrote: post #29
samstave wrote: post #4

This would be great: * Resource loading, availability, tasks summary, personal task completion reports.. * Maintain history of task time, cost, resource, as assigned by tasks, and resources completing their tasks. * Templates of tasks, or projects where if you say have completed a common project that have tasks you do (as if your a consultant with various clients with similar projects you can pull a gant, resource lo…

Just thinking some about your note about change orders. Honestly super interesting. We have been working on detailed audit history which I think can start to help here but really only scratches the surface of what you need to improve. Also thinking more about > show a report on the history of the projects' intent This is a really interesting one and is actually part of where we started with Dart. When I was leading e…

A change order is going to be either the change of a nameplate on a room, or a change to an entire layout of a project.

Regardless of the innocuous ones being a nameplate - to as drastic as floorplate change... here is where I see the master:

Project is El Camino Hospital - I was TPM.

Innocuous:

installing all LV net port in the MRI room, the LV consultant read the symbols wrong and cabled all the cables that were going INTO the room, on the EXTERNAL facing wall FROM the room.

Reviewed plans were correct... change order was obv in budget review as we determined fault... but they had to eat that cost - we had to eat that TIME... as Siemens needed ports live on their private stuff to commission their equip on their end... SO even though that starts small... we can track all of this now against INTENT of proj budget and scope, and see in full how certain butterfly effects affect the result from the intent... (+plus data... blah blah)

Bigger ones can be a relocation of a piece of equipment that requires extra structural... same but bigger ripple.

Others can be Owner desires...

But - if you could advertise a change request/order via a system and just have each trade reply in appropriate format when they are impacted - then incorporate that to the core project - then push back a summary with a simple "approve this interpretation, your responsibility and your first born shack, check the box"

Now you can graph all the interrelated charges, parties, approvals - but you push out summary change reports and simply ensure each stake check yeah. else voice issues and just keep a fn journal of the process for litigation if it were to come to that (which is often)

(OH Yeah in addition to project timeline impact --- change orders always include unexpected labor, equipment, negotiations, permits, blah blah blah -- they are CRITICAL money devils if plagued by them... this is what sets all stellar engineering firms apart... so if change mitigation is imbued in the process organically... $$$ - continuously align understanding of intent with the outcomes is wise...

Re: Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

#36

Post by samstave »

zswaff wrote: post #30
samstave wrote: post #4

This would be great: * Resource loading, availability, tasks summary, personal task completion reports.. * Maintain history of task time, cost, resource, as assigned by tasks, and resources completing their tasks. * Templates of tasks, or projects where if you say have completed a common project that have tasks you do (as if your a consultant with various clients with similar projects you can pull a gant, resource lo…

Loving the detailed product feedback, thanks so much. We'll process and take action to improve asap. Email also sounds great, support@ or zack@ whenever you like. Sounds like HN was rate limiting you from posting all of your feedback? That's awesome hahaha In short term, some quick thoughts - Right now you only have one draft, and you can access it through the 'Resume draft' button in the top left - We're planning to…

Cleaning garage today - so come back to respond when need a break. (or think of an edit)

EDIT:

HAHAH -- I clicked on INBOX like three fn times... the orange S above stole my upper perfiferal focus, so the draft button was invisible or subconsciously appeared greyed out and not a botton... - need a draft underneath INBOX, not above it - the same way every email side menu works.

Re: Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

#38

Post by samstave »

zswaff wrote: post #31
samstave wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've built MILLIONs of SQ ft of hospitals, corporate, DCs, tech, commercial on billion+$ budgets etc... I've done AMAZING work. I never kept a good portfolio of my own accomplishments, and it would have really helped me as an independent consultant. I've seen so many smaller consultancies who are quite capable get "out marketed" by bigger consultancies - To have a running, ongoing portfolio - that you dont have to ha…

Yep, that makes a ton of sense. I totally see the value in building a portfolio like that. Well, Dart can do a bit of the shorter-term weekly/monthly project reports/updates now, but I can definitely imagine adding 'full project summary for portfolio building' to the types of reports we can generate. Like you said, great for the team and a cool resource to hand off in deliverables if the owner wants to include as a s…

Those could be plugins... or expose an api for people build own on data they auth to do so...

Re: Launch HN: Dart (YC W22) – Project management with automatic report generation

#39

Post by zswaff »

ck_one wrote: post #33

Can you share some insights about your dev process? App locks pretty slick! Congrats! What allows you to ship quickly and in high quality?

Yeah, great question. This is something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about. Honestly probably worth a whole blog post/PG-style essay at some point. Shipping and iterating at top speed is honestly paramount for a startup.

Probably the biggest thing we've done has been to focus on hiring for people that can and will move quickly, and building a company culture around that. Our team is very strong, works unusually hard, and ships quickly at all costs. For a startup, I would recommend hiring startuppy people rather than engineers with 20y experience at the magnificent 7.

One of our most counterintuitive/provocative/potentially wrong practices has been to deemphasize automated tests. I'll probably catch a lot of flak for this but I think that spending a bunch of extra time writing thorough tests for something that will change next week when we iterate and improve is a waste of time. In my experience you can make up for this with thorough manual testing by someone (e.g. founder, product owner) that really, really cares about the product and UX. This is part of the overall "do things that don't scale" ethos and as the product has matured we have started to evolve to a higher level of test coverage. tl;dr I recommend less time spent engineering tests pre-PMF.

Otherwise we generally follow established best practices. Review fast, ship fast, roll forward. Extreme ownership and responsibility to ICs. Use Dart for project management to save time ;)

Overall, I think the first thing is most important: build a team and a culture that moves uncomfortably and unusually fast and breaks things (then fixes them immediately).

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