I am a new manager in a small engineering company. My team is small (2-3), but is involved in many different projects (10). I can provide each project manager with an estimate of the tasks and time it will take us to do each project, but I struggle to pull all the project commitments together so that I can figure out when we need to focus on which project. I know we are committed to well over 100% of the team's time, but I don't have a way to look at this.
Can you please recommend an approach or tool for that will give me an overview of the workflow of my team and their time commitment to all our projects? An 'at a glance' summary would be especially useful.
Kanban
You might try a Kanban board.
It Depends
If the projects and your clients are reasonably disciplined (ie they meet deadlines, are organised, structured in feedback and sign off loops etc) then there are software tools which consolidate project plans into a single master view (Clarity is one example)
If you have more random attacks of things that need to be done NOW then a tool like FogBugz is great
I also really like the idea of a Kanban board - even if you don't fully implement Kanban creating tangible visibility about the issues that that team is facing is great
Softwares to Track Team Workflow
If you have only a few people you can actually use an excel spreadsheet to structure it out. Put the project on the first column, the tasks of each on the next column, the people the task is assigned to on the next column and each day of the month on the following. Write down the number of manhours for each task on the day you are planning to get it done. Sum it all at the bottom (if sum, condition to each person) and you can see who is overloaded (more than 8 hours a day). You can use a different color for the cell for tasks already done or copy another spreadsheet same as the planning one to track the tasks done and number of hours used for each.
It works well if you don´t have too many tasks or too many people to control. If you start spending too much time on the spreadsheet then it is not working anymore and you can move to (or you can start off straight away too, it is worthy it) for a project control or collaboration software where you can see tasks in a Gantt chart and also summaries of utilisation rates. They are also nicer as spreadsheets as people can update status of tasks and login manhours used.
I have used ActiveCollab and Wrike in the past and they are both affordable and well worth the cost for the information they provide (as long as people use it and update it). ActiveCollab you buy the software (we payed USD 800 but I think it has gone up) and install on your server, or Wrike you pay a monthly fee (USD 20/month) per user which can create projects and tasks (viewers are free) and have it all store at their server.
If you decide on any of these options and want further help, let me know, I will be happy to share what has worked for me (I used them to manage engineering project too).
Nara
We use AtTask
If you have some money to spend, we have found AtTask (attask.com) very useful. It covers project and task management, hour tracking and reporting and has issue/bug tracking support as well as ability for customers to enter their own issues from the web.
Importantly, it also provides resources analysis and loading - so you can clearly see where resources are over/underloaded and will do resource levelling for you too.
It's a web-based / cloud solution.
-- Peter
DISC: 2564
@pjwestley
Thanks
Thanks for all these suggestions. I appreciate it and will let you know which makes the most sense.