I suspect we’re like many consultants juggling multiple projects with multiple shifting deliverable deadlines. Has anyone had success using project management software such as Teamwork Projects or Liquid Planner to track and display what is due on which project and when and who is working on what?
Good question. I look forward to an answer.
I have found a good time sheet program. I use it for my clients that pay me by the hour, and to track my own productivity. It is easy to use and has been very helpful.
i use asana. I made a project template that has all the steps in a project, and then copy that for each new project. you can plug in assignee’s, deadlines etc.
One of the advantages of being just another team member is that someone else has to keep track of who’s doing what; all I have to do is enter time.
My problem has always been getting the information I need from the rest of the team. Despite meetings, calls, and email, things always pop up during the last week before issuing documents. Is there software that can help manage that type of information?
I use SmartSheet for a host of things, it can do this too.
Sheldon: Nathan’s suggestion about SmartSheet might help with the late breaking flow of changes from the design team. We’ve worked on a team that used SmartSheet collaboratively for owner comments and responses. https://www.smartsheet.com/
This sounds like it would be a great topic for a program at our SCIP meeting this fall. I know I could use some help in that area.
For a one-person firm, I sometimes wonder if a white board would not work just as well, be simpler to use, and more likely to be used.
depends on how many active projects John. I was struggling to aggregate all the daily tasks/deadlines from numerous jobs. Asana helps with that.
Margaret - great idea. Maybe different people can show how they use various platforms in their respective businesses
A couple of others that might do you well is Basecamp & Manage It.
We’ve used Basecamp with a couple of clients. It and many other collaboration/project management programs are written by software programmers for software programmers. Our work is different. We handle projects with 100 to 300 files each. I couldn’t make Basecamp’s file structure work for us. Otherwise, I liked it.
Update: Found a posting of Nathan’s from 7 years ago (Colin: I love your search function) and am trying out Wrike (www.wrike.com). So far seems more robust than Basecamp, Asana; simpler and less $$$ than Liquid Planner, and better suited to our work than Teamwork. Good familiar folder structure. Easier learning curve.
LP is good but requires a minimum of 10 users.