Ask HN: Best task management tool for non-developers?
Looking to incorporate some rigor outside the development team but I've never had to shop for tools that weren't developer oriented. Does HN have any suggestions on what task/project management tools are worth assessing for a small organization?
8 comments
Trello, Asana, Basecamp, etc.
Having spent a lot of time assessing my team's needs and trying to figure out a solution that works, I'd add that picking a tool is the easy part.
Since most of these tools are very flexible in how you use them, without enforcing incredibly strict workflows/process of their own, the really tough part is defining your own workflow/process. The even tougher part is getting people to actually follow that.
A task management tool is only as effective as it is religiously used by all involved. The moment a project conversation gets side-barred into an email thread, communication gets scattered and is no longer consolidated. Someone consistenly forgets to update their project status every time something changes? Suddenly others are out of the loop, and others stop updating project status because it that seems to be acceptable.
While you don't want to be a control freak about this stuff, it is critical to make sure any user is committed to using it religiously. It is also important to make sure the process is clearly defined in a simple, SHORT, and easy to find list somewhere. Expect lots of questions on edge cases for "how do we handle X," and think of good ways to give friendly reminders to those who forget to do something, and less-friendly reminders to those who are frequent offenders.
Having spent a lot of time assessing my team's needs and trying to figure out a solution that works, I'd add that picking a tool is the easy part.
Since most of these tools are very flexible in how you use them, without enforcing incredibly strict workflows/process of their own, the really tough part is defining your own workflow/process. The even tougher part is getting people to actually follow that.
A task management tool is only as effective as it is religiously used by all involved. The moment a project conversation gets side-barred into an email thread, communication gets scattered and is no longer consolidated. Someone consistenly forgets to update their project status every time something changes? Suddenly others are out of the loop, and others stop updating project status because it that seems to be acceptable.
While you don't want to be a control freak about this stuff, it is critical to make sure any user is committed to using it religiously. It is also important to make sure the process is clearly defined in a simple, SHORT, and easy to find list somewhere. Expect lots of questions on edge cases for "how do we handle X," and think of good ways to give friendly reminders to those who forget to do something, and less-friendly reminders to those who are frequent offenders.
I totally agree that the tool itself is only a very small sliver of the problem and I'm well prepared to fight the cultural battle of adding process to task management and communication.
My greater concern is picking a tool that won't buckle under it's own weight. I use Trello personally but from what I can tell it won't hold up well when a team starts throwing a lot of tasks into it. Basecamp seems to have a similar issue with not handling volume well. Basecamp quickly becomes unruly because of the sheer number of places where the same information can live although I will grant that with enough discipline that shouldn't be too big an issue.
Brightpod seems like an interesting option because it's almost identical to Trello but with multiple views to narrow the problem space depending on the goal you're trying to assess/accomplish. Asana is another top contender for me.
My greater concern is picking a tool that won't buckle under it's own weight. I use Trello personally but from what I can tell it won't hold up well when a team starts throwing a lot of tasks into it. Basecamp seems to have a similar issue with not handling volume well. Basecamp quickly becomes unruly because of the sheer number of places where the same information can live although I will grant that with enough discipline that shouldn't be too big an issue.
Brightpod seems like an interesting option because it's almost identical to Trello but with multiple views to narrow the problem space depending on the goal you're trying to assess/accomplish. Asana is another top contender for me.
Interesting--sounds like a similar challenge to what I face. Just to make sure I'm grokking you...are you describing the use case where you might have a single project, potentially have it live in multiple boards/lists (Trello) or projects (Asana), and update all instances from a single place? That's been a major headache for me where we might have a Marketing calendar in Trello, but then want sub-boards for each individual project, while still keeping all of them current. Or having an individual have their own board pulling in cards from a parent team board.
Is that the problem you say Brightpod solves?
Is that the problem you say Brightpod solves?
First of don't go for tools first. Develop a strategy for process flow and then look for tools that meet your needs.
> Looking to incorporate some rigor outside the development team
Why? What's going on that you need a program to solve it?
Why? What's going on that you need a program to solve it?
Don't bother. Non developers always end up resorting to Email.
You might want to consider TMail21 (https://tmail21.com). We just soft-launched a couple of weeks back. It is what we call a Lean BPM app.
The idea behind TMail21 is that is starts with Topic-Oriented Discussions and then allows a user to progress to Goal-oriented Discussions and finally to what we call Lean Processes.
TMail21 was designed to look and feel a lot like e-mail, so it feels instantly familiar to most business users.
Until now, traditional Business Process Management (BPM) has been a code-oriented solution not geared towards regular business users. TMail21 is definitively geared towards regular business users. We refer to this as Lean BPM and in fact have created a Lean BPM Manifesto https://tmail21.com/lean-bpm-manifesto/ to enumerate the principles of our approach.
I should also mention that Lean BPM and Project tools like Asana/Basecamp/Trello solve different problems. Some differences 1) The Process-to-project ratio in a typical work environment is very high (often 100:1). So there may be 10,000 process instances vs. 100 projects. So, obviously this calls for a very different interface. 2) Processes are really good for capturing recurring work patterns. In Lean BPM, patterns that repeat often can be easily institutionalized into Process Templates. 3) Unlike tools like Asana which are primarily orchestration tools, a key element of Process tools is capturing and evolving a meaningful process state.
These points are best illustrated with an example. Let's consider the example of a Blog Post. An organization may do hundreds of Blog Posts. These could be done as Projects, but are probably better done as Processes as they tend to have similar goals, process state and tasks.
So the Sections (Process State) of a Blog Post may contain a) Title Ideation - A text Section, to brainstorm titles b) Article Outline - A rough outline of the article c) The Actual Article - A text Section with the actual article d) Blog Form - A form Section with fields like Blog Title, Process State (CONTENT-CREATION-> OUTREACH-STARTED -> OUTREACH-ENDED), Blog link, Tweet link, Facebook Post link, Google+ post link, e) Planned Tweets - A text Section f) Hashtags and keywords - A text Section with hashtags and keywords that will be g) Influencer Outreach - A Grid Section with a list of influencers that will there will be outreach to. Each row will represent a single influencer and their outreach state h) Checklist - A checklist that lists the tasks required to complete this Process.
The idea behind TMail21 is that is starts with Topic-Oriented Discussions and then allows a user to progress to Goal-oriented Discussions and finally to what we call Lean Processes.
TMail21 was designed to look and feel a lot like e-mail, so it feels instantly familiar to most business users.
Until now, traditional Business Process Management (BPM) has been a code-oriented solution not geared towards regular business users. TMail21 is definitively geared towards regular business users. We refer to this as Lean BPM and in fact have created a Lean BPM Manifesto https://tmail21.com/lean-bpm-manifesto/ to enumerate the principles of our approach.
I should also mention that Lean BPM and Project tools like Asana/Basecamp/Trello solve different problems. Some differences 1) The Process-to-project ratio in a typical work environment is very high (often 100:1). So there may be 10,000 process instances vs. 100 projects. So, obviously this calls for a very different interface. 2) Processes are really good for capturing recurring work patterns. In Lean BPM, patterns that repeat often can be easily institutionalized into Process Templates. 3) Unlike tools like Asana which are primarily orchestration tools, a key element of Process tools is capturing and evolving a meaningful process state.
These points are best illustrated with an example. Let's consider the example of a Blog Post. An organization may do hundreds of Blog Posts. These could be done as Projects, but are probably better done as Processes as they tend to have similar goals, process state and tasks.
So the Sections (Process State) of a Blog Post may contain a) Title Ideation - A text Section, to brainstorm titles b) Article Outline - A rough outline of the article c) The Actual Article - A text Section with the actual article d) Blog Form - A form Section with fields like Blog Title, Process State (CONTENT-CREATION-> OUTREACH-STARTED -> OUTREACH-ENDED), Blog link, Tweet link, Facebook Post link, Google+ post link, e) Planned Tweets - A text Section f) Hashtags and keywords - A text Section with hashtags and keywords that will be g) Influencer Outreach - A Grid Section with a list of influencers that will there will be outreach to. Each row will represent a single influencer and their outreach state h) Checklist - A checklist that lists the tasks required to complete this Process.
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