[Novalug] organizational process management

[Joseph Brinkley]

Multi page wiki :P

On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 5:05 PM, Jay Hart <jhart at kevla.org> wrote:

> Sorry, I can't answer your question either. Let me think on it for a bit. I
> have a little time on my hands...
>
> Jay
>
>
> > Well, not quite.  Basically, my perception of the various aforementioned
> > project tools (on which I'm more than happy to be corrected) is that
> > they're geared to address a single project.  Wiki, trouble tickets, task
> > management/tracking/priority, etc.  But we have a small staff and are
> > pretty much always overtasked (anyone want a job with a religious
> > non-profit?), and there are often several such Major Projects going on
> > each with its own task list and whatnot.  Plus the everyday
> > non-major-project stuff that nips at our heels all the time.  Jim's
> > getting an error on his CRM screen, and Joe's got a database problem,
> > and Sally's working with a vendor on a web micro-site project but they
> > need access to a production slice to bring it online, etc...  By the
> > way, how's that Major Project coming along, eh?  And we have a project
> > manager who does a really good job of trying to balance all this stuff
> > for us and give us clear tasking and priority.  How she keeps track of
> > everything on her own I have no idea, but the way she currently works
> > through stuff with the rest of us (we're geographically spread out) is a
> > Google Doc spreadsheet.  And it's handy enough for a quick glance at
> > what the current priorities are and who's working on what, but it's
> > obviously very limited.  There's no context, or ongoing documentation of
> > what's been done and why, etc.  Also, she's mentioned she sometimes gets
> > the feeling that others in the org don't quite understand why they have
> > to wait for us to take care of something for them, and she'd love to be
> > able to point them somewhere and say, "See all the stuff on our plate?
> > That's why we can't get to your issue for a couple of days."  But it
> > would seem unwise to just open up our spreadsheet to others with all the
> > internal comments and references and whatnot, and way counterproductive
> > to maintain two such spreadsheets for internal vs. external consumption.
> >
> > So I guess I'm asking if any of those tools (dotProject, Trac, etc.) can
> > work with this kind of multi-major-project environment, and/or if
> > there's anything else out there that can.  I haven't taken the time to
> > try to poke around much yet (because, you know, I've got stuff to
> > do ;) ), but I figured I'd ask around first to see if anyone knew of
> > anything offhand to point me in the right direction.  If not, no
> > worries, but I thought I'd ask anyway.
> >
> > - Joel
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 2008-06-26 at 12:36 -0400, Jay Hart wrote:
> >
> >> I've been trying to determine what you are really asking for here, but I
> >> must
> >> admit I can't.
> >>
> >> I think the gist of your question is "We have many small tasks that we
> want
> >> to
> >> track, but can't seem to find a good way to track the resource time
> >> allocation
> >> for these efforts".  Is that about the size of it?
> >>
> >> Jay
> >>
> >> > I'll take the deafening sound of crickets to mean..."ah, no."  :D
> >> >
> >> > - Joel
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Wed, 2008-06-25 at 13:14 -0400, Joel Fouse wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> So I know we've talked here about various project management tools
> >> >> such as dotProject and Trac for tracking various aspects of a
> project.
> >> >> I'm curious if anyone has used tools (possibly the same ones) for
> >> >> broader, org-level or department-level tracking.  In my department we
> >> >> have specific projects that come and go and have various fine-grained
> >> >> tasks associated and various internal contributors and external
> >> >> stakeholders with each project, but there are several such projects
> >> >> "in focus" at any time, plus a fair share of the everyday one-off
> >> >> tasks that come up and don't fall under any given project but still
> >> >> manage to eat up easily half our time.  Are there tools out there
> that
> >> >> would help us manage and track and prioritize the various tasks that
> >> >> are on everyone's plates, while keeping delineation between various
> >> >> high-level projects and stakeholders?
> >> >>
> >> >> - Joel
> >> >>
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> Novalug mailing list
> >> >> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> >> >> http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/novalug
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Novalug mailing list
> >> > Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> >> > http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/novalug
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Novalug mailing list
> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>



-- 
-Joseph Brinkley
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://calypso.tux.org/pipermail/novalug/attachments/20080627/b91324f6/attachment.html