Some thinking about the Task portion of dotProject:
Tasks
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Tasks include (among other things):
- title
- description
- assignees
- watchers (those who want status updates
- a start date, which can be entered, or it can depend on other tasks and/or the start date of the process or project.
- deadline, or it can be computed from the deadline of the project or process
- estimated number of days the task will take to complete
- estimated number of hours the task will take to complete
I think tasks should be categorized in some way, so that Tasks of the same categorization can give you information when you're entering them for time budgeting purposes.
For example, you're entering a Task to "Build a deck". The Task depends on other Tasks, like "get lumber delivery". "Build a deck" could be categorized as a "minor construction project", or it could be categorized as "Medium sized deck" or whatever. Then when you're entering a new Task of that type, in this case "Build a deck", you're given information like:
The 15 tasks in the past of this type:
Budgeted 2 days - Took 3.2 days (min 1.3, max 15, s.d. 2)
Budgeted 8 hours - Took 11.3 hours (min 3, max 55, s.d. 5)
And the default number for the budgeted amount would be 3.2 days and 11.3 hours.
- I need to do some more thinking about Processes, and how they relate to Tasks and Projects. Especially how they relate to Projects.
Dependencies
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Different types:
- can start after other tasks starts (is this necessary)?
- end at the same time
- start when the other is finished
Any feedback is welcome. I'm especially curious how these ideas work in real practice. Anybody using project management software in their company? How do these ideas sound?
