Changes between Version 129 and Version 130 of ProjectManagementIdeas

Timestamp:

Sep 4, 2015, 7:21:17 AM (9 years ago)

Author:

figaro

Comment:

Further cosmetic changes

ProjectManagementIdeas

@@ -255 +255 @@
 We need a proposal for how to describe available resources within Trac. If tasks are tickets and tickets have owners who work on them, it seems reasonable that a resource is a Trac user. There may be information we need to track for a resource that it not part of the user configuration. It might also be necessary or desirable to allow tickets to have multiple owners. Or, we might want to have a way to have a list of `(resource,hours)` pairs independent of the owner.
 
-= Related Work
-
 == Trac Core
 
@@ -263 +261 @@
 == Trac Plugins
 
+=== Dependencies
+
+MasterTicketsPlugin supports FS dependency, but calls it ''blocks'' and ''blocked by''.
+
+The [http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/SubTickets SubTickets] proposal talks about adding composition type dependency (parent/child relationships).
+
+SubticketsPlugin and ChildTicketsPlugin provide composition type dependency that can be used for WBS.
+
+The TracDependencyPlugin was created in August 2009 and shows promise as a more complete and flexible solution than upgrading !MasterTickets.
+
+=== Time and Scheduling
+
+TimingAndEstimationPlugin and TracHoursPlugin add estimated and actual hours fields to tickets. There is some disagreement about whether the estimate is the remaining time (so total estimated time is actual + estimate) or total time (so remaining time is estimate - actual). A Gantt chart typically wants estimate and percent complete. It is possible to extract this from either recording convention and we should likely allow either convention via a configurable interface.
+
+DateFieldPlugin has some helpful wrappers around custom fields to validate them as dates.
+
+SchedulingToolsPlugin has a scheduler, resource availability and Gantt chart in a simple fashion. It is in alpha stage, however.
+
+TeamCalendarPlugin keeps track of user availability.
+
 === Gantt Charts
 
@@ -275 +293 @@
  [wiki:GanttCalendarPlugin GanttCalendar]:: provides nice views of tickets. It uses "Completed [%]" in 5% increments, "Start" (YYYY-MM-DD), and "End" (YYYY-MM-DD) custom fields. It includes an administrative calendar, perhaps where holidays and such can be recorded.
 
-Pale Purple's [http://github.com/palepurple Virtual Planner] is an alternative visualization tool.
-
-=== Dependencies
-
-MasterTicketsPlugin supports FS dependency, but calls it ''blocks'' and ''blocked by''.
-
-The [http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/SubTickets SubTickets] proposal talks about adding composition type dependency (parent/child relationships).
-
-SubticketsPlugin and ChildTicketsPlugin provide composition type dependency that can be used for WBS.
-
-The TracDependencyPlugin was created in August 2009 and shows promise as a more complete and flexible solution than upgrading !MasterTickets.
-
-=== Time and Scheduling
-
-TimingAndEstimationPlugin and TracHoursPlugin add estimated and actual hours fields to tickets. There is some disagreement about whether the estimate is the remaining time (so total estimated time is actual + estimate) or total time (so remaining time is estimate - actual). A Gantt chart typically wants estimate and percent complete. It is possible to extract this from either recording convention and we should likely allow either convention via a configurable interface.
-
-DateFieldPlugin has some helpful wrappers around custom fields to validate them as dates.
-
-SchedulingToolsPlugin has a scheduler, resource availability and Gantt chart in a simple fashion. It is in alpha stage, however.
-
-TeamCalendarPlugin keeps track of user availability.
-
 === Data Exchange
 
@@ -302 +298 @@
 
 Because Microsoft products are present in many environments, it would be nice if we could get availability information from Exchange to feed a project calendar. Just reading from the group calendar would probably be enough. That way users would only have to put in their vacations, etc. in one place.
-
-== Other work
-
-There is a [http://www.viewpath.net/Website/ganttcharts/googlegadget.aspx Google Gadget Gantt chart] which might be used for the visualizations once the data is made available (e.g., using [https://opensvn.csie.org/traccgi/swlcu/wiki/En/Devel/TracGViz/ TracGViz plugin]). That widget is developed and maintained by [http://www.viewpath.com/ ViewPath]. Besides users need access to the internet and their projects environments '''have to''' be available too so that the iGoogle container be able to retrieve the data to display in the chart. All this means that local deployments (intranets) are not possible.
-
-[http://www.simpleprojectmanagement.com/planner/home.html Planner] is an open source project management program.
-
-Gnome Office has a [https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/Planner Planner], which is also [https://github.com/GNOME/planner forked].
-
-[http://www.dotproject.net/index.php dotProject] is an open-source, web-based project management system. A quick review suggests its task management isn't as good as Trac. It has a Gantt chart but [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotProject wikipedia] notes "as of version 2.0 the task dependencies feature is not complete". It has a troubled history but is forked as [http://www.web2project.net/ Web2Project].
-
-The article [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/13/15-useful-project-management-tools/ 15 Useful Project Management Tools] mentions Trac. None of the tools obviously have scheduling in them. 
-
-[http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/ Jira] sounded promising but doesn't seem to have scheduling. Their chart examples don't include a Gantt. 
-
-[http://www.basecamphq.com/ Basecamp] is popular and promising, but it is also commercial and doesn't support Gantt charting capabilities:
-
-  For years project management software was about charts, graphs, and stats. And you know what? It didn’t work. Pictures and numbers don’t get projects done. Basecamp tackles project management from an entirely different angle: A focus on communication and collaboration. Basecamp brings people together.
-
-There is no automatic scheduling either. They have a nice feature where you can subscribe to milestone updates via iCalendar.
-
-Also:
-
- * [http://www.openworkbench.org/ Open Workbench] is a Microsoft Windows-based application not suitable for integration with a web-based tool like Trac.
- * [http://www.ganttproject.biz/ GanttProject] is a desktop application developed in Java.
 
 == Microsoft Project Task Properties
@@ -362 +333 @@
  * Custom Fields
 
-However, this doesn't seem to be all the data Project records for a task. If you add a column to the WBS in the Gantt chart, there are many more options. The most interesting is Work which is the amount of work required to complete a task. Only when a resource is assigned 100% are Work and Duration the same. We'd like to specify the ''work'' required for a task and let the system calculate its ''duration'' based on available resources.
+However, this doesn't seem to be all the data that MS-Project records for a task. If you add a column to the WBS in the Gantt chart, there are many more options. The most interesting is Work which is the amount of work required to complete a task. Only when a resource is assigned 100% are Work and Duration the same. We'd like to specify the ''work'' required for a task and let the system calculate its ''duration'' based on available resources.
 
 == Roadmap
@@ -368 +339 @@
 There seems to be a consensus that grandiose project management features for Trac should be implemented with a combination of plugins. The following plan assumes that approach:
 
- * Tasks will be represented as tickets. Additional non-core data will be needed. In object-oriented terms, you might say that Task is a subclass of Ticket.
+ * Tasks will be represented as tickets. Additional non-core data will be needed. In object-oriented terms, Task could be a subclass of Ticket.
 
  * We need a way to express WBS relationships, assuming !MasterTickets will be used to express dependencies. 
@@ -555 +526 @@
 ''I specifically was of the line of thought that I would like to pull some of these values directly from my requirements specifications somehow, hence the lean toward some sort of configurable "provider" for the entries, as I have no idea how I would "pull" the data from the requirements at this point, other data from calculation and projections using different projection methods, as well as "override" capability where data is entered by hand sometimes.  -- JW, 03 Aug. 2011''
 
+== Third party software
+
+There is a [http://www.viewpath.net/Website/ganttcharts/googlegadget.aspx Google Gadget Gantt chart] which might be used for the visualizations once the data is made available (e.g., using [https://opensvn.csie.org/traccgi/swlcu/wiki/En/Devel/TracGViz/ TracGViz plugin]). That widget is developed and maintained by [http://www.viewpath.com/ ViewPath]. Besides users need access to the internet and their projects environments '''have to''' be available too so that the iGoogle container be able to retrieve the data to display in the chart. All this means that local deployments (intranets) are not possible.
+
+[http://www.simpleprojectmanagement.com/planner/home.html Planner] is an open source project management program.
+
+Gnome Office has a [https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/Planner Planner], which is also [https://github.com/GNOME/planner forked].
+
+[http://www.dotproject.net/index.php dotProject] is an open-source, web-based project management system. A quick review suggests its task management isn't as good as Trac. It has a Gantt chart but [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotProject wikipedia] notes "as of version 2.0 the task dependencies feature is not complete". It has a troubled history but is forked as [http://www.web2project.net/ Web2Project].
+
+The article [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/13/15-useful-project-management-tools/ 15 Useful Project Management Tools] mentions Trac. None of the tools obviously have scheduling in them. 
+
+[http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/ Jira] sounded promising but doesn't seem to have scheduling. Their chart examples don't include a Gantt. 
+
+[http://www.basecamphq.com/ Basecamp] is popular and promising, but it is also commercial and doesn't support Gantt charting capabilities:
+
+  For years project management software was about charts, graphs, and stats. And you know what? It didn’t work. Pictures and numbers don’t get projects done. Basecamp tackles project management from an entirely different angle: A focus on communication and collaboration. Basecamp brings people together.
+
+There is no automatic scheduling either. They have a nice feature where you can subscribe to milestone updates via iCalendar.
+
+Also:
+
+ * [http://www.openworkbench.org/ Open Workbench] is a Microsoft Windows-based application not suitable for integration with a web-based tool like Trac.
+ * [http://www.ganttproject.biz/ GanttProject] is a desktop application developed in Java.
+ * Pale Purple's [http://github.com/palepurple Virtual Planner] is an alternative visualization tool.
+
 == References and Related research
 
@@ -562 +559 @@
 
 ----
-== Old design notes
-
-(I'm reworking these into a better flow for the whole document.)
+== Old design notes (to be reworked in document)
 
 === Component Data