Project management tool - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 05:27:23 pm
content: Hi, I'm working in a changing team, lead by a software engineer, who set an agile tool (Yodiz) as our project management tool for the hardware and firmware development. Some time passed, and now we have a general chaos, as it is primary not intended to be used as such, and there was very little time maintaining it. Now I'm placed in the position, where I have to manage the team.First , I made it clear and it was accepted, that we cannot do hardware agile (because it takes months to do certifications and send it through notified bodies). This was accepted. Now it was questioned by our manager, if this agile tool is actually the right one to manage hardware. I'm trying to make it work, but it seems to be too focused, and it is difficult to enter data efficiently. Basically, there is Project, Epic, User story, task, and the only way to organize them one after the other is to create releases. It is broken down mess, there are days, where I booked my hours to 5 different tasks. I would like to try a different approach, and compare the two.I've used SAP as management tool, but I don't really want to implement that by my own free will.So the question is this: Do you know any project management tool, which is suitable for Waterfall/V-model? Can you recommend any? Pricing a few EUR/month/user is acceptable. Should have time tracking, and I like gantt charts.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 07:23:14 pm
content: MS Project?If you prefer a more collaborative/web-based/free tool, RedMine is not too bad.PS: Condolences on working in an Agile setting.In my experience, it usually kills even very motivated teams as soon as there is anything else than software involved. (And even for software-only, it's dubious, but that's another debate.)

author: HoracioDos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 08:20:02 pm
content: How about Jira, Asana, Slack, Trello

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 08:35:01 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 09, 2018, 07:23:14 pmWe haven't worked in an agile way, but at least now it is discussed and stated.I think MS Project would have too much resistance. Some colleagues didn't even manage to install MS Office after they got keys for it.Redmine looks interesting though.Quote from: HoracioDos on July 09, 2018, 08:20:02 pmI know that you are just throwing names at me, but we are actually using Slack for communication. So I guess it has plugins for this?

author: HoracioDos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 10:18:58 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on July 09, 2018, 08:35:01 pmI work for a customer who uses Jira for agile and waterfall project management and they feel comfortable with it. They don't need to pay for any additional jira plugin or app like bigpicture. (gantt charts). I've been also discouraged to use gantt charts for agile by many IT providers to track software development activity. They argue that everything must be detailed in advance, uncertainty can't be handled and sprints are no longer than 30 days. One of them only uses Slack and reports us with it. (I don't know if they use plugins or not) With this in mind I ignored most of your post I answered too quickly. I should have asked in more detail why Yodiz doesn't work for you. BTW: I've never worked with Yodiz.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2018, 11:01:34 pm
content: I've looked into a whole bunch of these a while ago. Plan.io (commercial Redmine) seemed to tick most of the boxes for software development and keeping track of time spend. I still need to evaluate more thouroughly though because it will also be used for more generic projects like hardware development and customer deployments.Installing Redmine on a local server appears to be a real pain but the projects I intend to use Redmine for are shared with others which also work remotely so using an online service like Plan.io solves two problems at once.

author: larsdenmark
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 07:08:22 am
content: Jira is one of the most used tools these days. It is developed by Atlassian who also makes Confluence, Trello, Bitbucket and a lot of other tools. The good thing is that it is customizable. The bad thing is that you often have to customize something. Plugins are supported, but they often come at a cost (both time and money). I use these tools every day and they work very well.The most powerful and easy to use tool I've seen (and used) is Celoxis:https://www.celoxis.com/features.phpThey have an extremely responsive interface. It is so fast you actually enjoy using it

author: abraxa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 09:37:17 am
content: I don't know about you guys, but I would feel *extremely* uncomfortable with the prospect of business-critical company data being stored on the servers of a 3rd party (e.g. Atlassian). So unless I was able to set up my own Jira server locally, this would be a no-go for me.

author: larsdenmark
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 09:41:18 am
content: Many - if not all - tools these days offer both the possibility of running in the cloud as well as hosting things yourself. This includes Jira.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 11:27:42 am
content: Quote from: HoracioDos on July 09, 2018, 10:18:58 pmIt is too focused on Agile. It only has Ghantt charts as a "mee too". If you want to enter dependencies, you need to remember numbers. It has too many levels of organization, and there is no way to skip some. Basically it doesnt give you the tools and customization, to make it not an agile tool. And no support whatsoever for processes, like waiting for the PCB.I'm actually looking at teamghantt and I really like the UI and the data entry method. Only it doesnt tick all the requirements checkboxes though, because it doesnt support bugs for example.My problem with Jira is stated on the first page of it:"The #1 software development tool used byagileteams"

author: Kalvin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 11:41:07 am
content: If you cannot find a good enough solution for managing the SW&HW project together, just separate the HW and SW parts in the project into separate (sub)projects and manage them separately, but keep them still connected. Do not try to force the project to use the same methodology (agile vs. waterfall) if it creates problems with project management or in the SW/HW-teams. Try to think that there are two project managers managing the project, one for SW and one for HW. Probably you need also a third, top-level manager which will manage the the project as a whole. So, basically you need to wear two/three hats - one for each management role. Now, select the tools most suitable for each role.

author: HoracioDos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 12:01:52 pm
content: Hello!If you have a little extra time, you may look at openproject. It can be installed on premises or you can pay for their cloud service. There's a community and enterprise edition.https://www.openproject.org/collaboration-software-features/Gantt ChartsAgile and scrum support.Work packagesBug reportingTime trackingIt has been in my mind for a while but I didn't evaluate it yet. We have other very small customer who doesn't want to pay for ms project server and we were looking for cheap alternatives.

author: Kalvin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 12:38:42 pm
content: Quote from: abraxa on July 10, 2018, 09:37:17 amOr using Github or similar cloud service to store the source code and documentation of the products. Yes, it is effortless but also very stupid, unless you encrypt the data before pushing the stuff into the cloud.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 12:50:10 pm
content: Quote from: abraxa on July 10, 2018, 09:37:17 amYou can run most Atlassian products (and definitely JIRA) on your own hardware. It's a fair amount of work to manage the server (not Atlassian's fault, just the fact of running another app, doing backups, patching the OS, patching the app, doing version upgrades, testing them, etc.).I'd much rather have my bugs, open tasks, and plans in the hands of a third-party in the business whose reputation matters than run it myself. I also keep my work email in Office365, source code in GitLab, CRM in Salesforce, and financials are moving towards SAP Hana (from on-premise).

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 03:48:08 pm
content: Quote from: Kalvin on July 10, 2018, 11:41:07 amI agree, and this is what I would do if it would be my decision. FW can even get OTA updates, and after release it could work in an agile way. But we dont have the (human) resources to do this separation at the moment.Quote from: HoracioDos on July 10, 2018, 12:01:52 pmThis looks very interesting. After playing around for half an hour in teamghantt, I run into several missing features. Basic ones, like bug tracking. Looks like this could be an alternative. I'll try this tomorrow.

author: HoracioDos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 06:24:04 pm
content: Quote from: NANDBlog on July 10, 2018, 03:48:08 pmYou made me want to check it out. Here it is up and running under nginx and linux mint 18.3 xenial (16.04). It's not the recommended setup. You must install apache2 instead if you want to take advantage of Git/SVN repository integration according to docs. Tomorrow I'll have a busy day but If you need any help send me a PM and i'll try to answer ASAP.

author: hendorog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 08:58:14 pm
content: This is an aside, but I think this is recommended reading for project types. Certainly helped me to understand some common situations which arise, and has given me some ideas to try.At the place I'm currently working (manufacturer) I see the manufacturing 'patterns' arising pretty much daily. There is also a project management aspect of what we do, and I had some success there setting production lead times based on ideas from the book.$12 on Amazon for Kindle.https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Chain-Business-Eliyahu-Goldratt-ebook/dp/B0764KRQZT/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531255808&sr=8-1&keywords=critical+chainSame underlying logic, but written for IT ops environments: (Edit: fixed link)https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business-ebook/dp/B078Y98RG8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531261007&sr=8-1&keywords=Phoenix+projectThe first book - targeted at manufacturing:https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement-ebook/dp/B002LHRM2O/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1531255916&sr=8-3&keywords=The+Goal

author: JohnG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2018, 09:14:48 pm
content: A relatively simple, traditional, and open-source tool is GanttProject (https://www.ganttproject.biz/). I have only used it for relatively small projects, but the learning curve is much less steep than a tool like MS Project.The only people I know who actually liked MS Project were people who had training on the tool, and the majority of their job, maybe all of it, was sitting in front of the computer moving stuff around on it...John