topic Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List in Project data & BIM

Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Karl Ottenstein — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:43:37 GMT

Do any of you have suggestions for software for maintaining a master project 'to do' list?

We're not looking for charting/scheduling/etc (e.g., Microsoft Project), simply a multi-user database of open project issues that can be accessed by anyone to add items, revise, or query. From big things down to the trivial things like "Saw that X needed to be fixed (but it wasn't in my workspace)", or "Somebody needs to sign in as TL to do x ...".

Email/verbal communication with the appropriate team member works until a team member is sick, on vacation or otherwise out of the office and other members need to know what was on that person's list to get the project out the door. A centralized list also lets a project manager see all open tasks at any time.

Personally, I've only done solo work, so haven't had to look into this management issue. I assume there are decent off-the-shelf solutions...?

What do some of you do?

Thanks,
Karl

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Eduardo Rolon — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:18:12 GMT

Some Options,

MS Project Alternatives

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniplan/

http://www.merlin2.net/

Task Management
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/

Organization

http://www.basecamphq.com/

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Eduardo Rolon — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:23:01 GMT

Another One

http://www.liquidplanner.com/

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Brad Elliott — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:31:34 GMT

Are you looking for a wiki type system? I haven't used these but they may be what you want.

http://www.wetpaint.com/
http://www.springnote.com/en

They are web based but everyone can access them from anywhere.

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:44:26 GMT

Thanks, Eduardo!

Basecamp seems like the closest from those you list. Being web-based, it is accessible from PC as well as Mac and anywhere. But, I would prefer to see this kind of data on a company server and have more reporting, archive, etc options. Wouldn't want to be dependent on somebody's web site uptime and responsiveness.

Basecamp allows filters by 'topic' (list) or the person to which a task has been assigned. But, I'd like a solution that has fields that filter the list by other arbitrary tags - such as DD vs CD, tasks requiring Team Leader exclusive access, tasks requiring PM review, etc, etc...as well as being able to assign multiple people to a task, so that it filters into the lists of all affected people. So...something a little beefier than Basecamp.

The firm that I'm asking on behalf of uses Windows, so the Mac options that you listed won't work for them.

Hope to hear some more ideas. 😉

Thanks again!
Karl

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 03:52:21 GMT

Thanks, Brad - and for the other link, Eduardo.

Yeah, the wiki thing would be good for group editing of specs, etc - but not for having a dozen people manage to-do lists, and it definitely cannot support querying that list in dozens of ways... and I prefer not to go with anything web-based. (Wiki editing usually gives a user exclusive access to the page being edited for some short period, too, and immediate responsiveness as would be the case in Basecamp is needed IMHO for a centralized task system to be used without complaint.)

Thanks,
Karl

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Eduardo Rolon — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 04:00:16 GMT

There's always

http://www.archioffice.com/

Have not tried it but it is based on Filemaker AFAIK.

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:16:21 GMT

It's a solid architectural office solution...
And the next version will be web-based not hosted (installed in your own server).
I'm looking forward to see it!
This will be my next buy.

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:55:44 GMT

I know its been a while since this post and you've probably found a solution but for what its worth to you or others.....

Our office is headed in the direction of using a web app with forums. One forum is dedicated to training questions, much like this forum but specifically dedicated to our office standards. This way when a person asks a question they do it on the forum and the BIM mgr replies via the forum so that when they decide not to take notes on the response and ask the same question 2 days later, they have a location to reference. Also they can share it with others who have the same questions later rather then the BIM mgr performing the broken record act.

Another forum will be dedicated to changes made to the template, standards, library part additions/changes. THis is also where people will post information like "This detail/object was created for this project and the PM thinks it will be used again frequently, please evaluate it for proper location". (Office library, standard template, remain in project library etc. or does it stay an attribute to be imported when needed...)

There will also be a forum for each current project. All project team members are responsible for posting all information, scheduling information particularly, (for some reason our small firm of 12 can't talk to each other about deadlines....) so that a new team member can be brought up to speed momentarily by browsing the forum. THis eliminates, I don't have access to that info because..... which is another scapegoat for our 12 person firm.

THere are a lot of particulars that have to get worked out still (such as incentives for checking and consequenses for not using) but this is where we are headed. Any feedback would be great! Have you done this, will it work, won't it work, why etc......We are still in the development phase so this is the time to make changes.

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Rob — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:50:17 GMT

Do any of you have suggestions for software for maintaining a master project 'to do' list?

We're not looking for charting/scheduling/etc (e.g., Microsoft Project), simply a multi-user database of open project issues that can be accessed by anyone to add items, revise, or query. From big things down to the trivial things like "Saw that X needed to be fixed (but it wasn't in my workspace)", or "Somebody needs to sign in as TL to do x ...".

Perhaps Mark-up tool in AC is supposed to be this kind of thing. However I have not used it to this extent.

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:11:36 GMT

Karl wrote:
The firm that I'm asking on behalf of uses Windows, so the Mac options that you listed won't work for them.

Hope to hear some more ideas. 😉

I've been using Microsoft's Entourage for this for several years. It doesn't track time or link to accounting but the sharing function on a network takes care of all the rest. Not perfect, but "Office" seems to be around most offices, anyway.

My main complaint is the inability to share emails. If that could be done all project emails could be accessibly to everybody in one place.

Dave

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:35:42 GMT

Karl,

Here is my project window for one project. The calender, tasks, contacts, clipping, and notes sections all can be shared (or not) with everybody on the project. One caution though if too many projects are being shared by one person, say the office principle, his auto-update can sometimes interfere with AC operation for a second or two. Another nice feature is that people can be added to the project as it proceeds and all the info archived at the end.

Dave

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Karl Ottenstein — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 15:34:34 GMT

Thanks, Dave. Entourage on Mac isn't at all the same as Outlook on Windows though (it is the one program in Office for Mac that has no Windows counterpart)...but the firm might have an Exchange Server, so with custom filters/etc might be able to get Outlook to do the trick.

Thanks,
Karl

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:27:00 GMT

Karl wrote:
Entourage on Mac isn't at all the same as Outlook on Windows though (it is the one program in Office for Mac that has no Windows counterpart)

Should have known, except for AC, cross platform is really hit and miss.

Dave

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Karl Ottenstein — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:50:21 GMT

Dave wrote:
Should have known, except for AC, cross platform is really hit and miss.

Not that bad, actually... Adobe CS3 is great on both platforms (except their video components - which have more features on Windows), Artlantis is the same (I think more responsive on Mac though), Piranesi is the same, Google Earth and Sketchup are the same...

Thanks again though!

Karl

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:10:42 GMT

Rob wrote:
Perhaps Mark-up tool in AC is supposed to be this kind of thing. However I have not used it to this extent.

Has anyone? I just poked at it a bit, and it seems like it could be, but it's rather tedious. If anyone does use it for this purpose, I'd be very interested to hear more info/reviews of the process.

Re: Project Management: Master Task/'To-Do' List

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:17:19 GMT

Karl, FWIW We've been using Archioffice for several years now and find it very useful. Some irritations like all software, but its the foundation of our QA system now, used by all staff every day from mundane office diary to cost control. Our system currently is a PC server and Mac workstations. Hope this helps. Believe the software was originally developed by architectural practice.