Hello, Currently, I represent a software application developer who is in charge of, among other business related file-sharing applications, a development tracking application for projects. This is a webcentric application, using PHP/MySQL integration, with many addons such as realtime, in page file uploads, GANTT charting, messaging services and more. What I am currently in charge of is collecting information concerning the usefulness of an application such as a project management and timetracking application for the software community. While game design/programming is one facet of overall software design, I felt this was a good place to start,a s I had been active in the community prior to second gen consoles being released. So, to help, which is very much appreciated for, not only responding, but jsut for taking the time to read(thank you), I would ask for some simple points to be made for the usefulness of said software in an applications' and project's lifespan. My main thoughts concern a group and house using online project management software and online development tracking as opposed to standard software that is, for lack of a better verbiage, PC-Based. Would it be more beneficial to larger teams (25+) to use this type of software, or for smaller teams (10 and less)? Would this allow for your projects to go quicker and why? Would this software be more or less beneficial to your specific team makeup(for instance, would it have allowed you hire from outside of the house/state/country instead of bringing in more people who are physically at your body of work)? And is this software beneficial to your current or future projects, or would this simply be another unused tool that you would have to train users on and would be another bottleneck for you and your team? Thank you in advance for reading and a great many thank yous for responding. Also, I feel I should mention this, I am neither soliciting, nor driven any users to any site. If asked, I will neither mention my employ, the software I am asking about, nor direct users to any prototypes, so pleaase do not ask. Thank you again

Quote: Original post by draken2006
... Lots of poorly-written ramblings snipped ...

My main thoughts concern a group and house using online project management software and online development tracking as opposed to standard software that is, for lack of a better verbiage, PC-Based. Would it be more beneficial to larger teams (25+) to use this type of software, or for smaller teams (10 and less)? Would this allow for your projects to go quicker and why?

Is project management software good for teams of 25+? Absolutely. Are there already countless pieces of software for it? Yes.

Is project management software good for teams of <10? Absolutely. Are there already countless pieces of software for it? Yes.

Would this allow for your projects to go quicker and why? [sic] It can, but it is just a tool. Successful project leaders know their tools, the limitations of the tools, and can function without the tools. Bad project leaders are crippled by doing only what the tool suggests.

Quote: Original post by draken2006
Would this software be more or less beneficial to your specific team makeup(for instance, would it have allowed you hire from outside of the house/state/country instead of bringing in more people who are physically at your body of work)? And is this software beneficial to your current or future projects, or would this simply be another unused tool that you would have to train users on and would be another bottleneck for you and your team?

For the projects I've worked on, the project management software had nothing to do with allowing remote workers.

We don't train people on unused tools. We don't have time for that. If we use the software, they get on-the-job training and are expected to learn it by RTFM and asking questions. If we don't use the software often, pepole are expected to learn it by RTFM.




You implied the question: would good project management software encourage game studios to hire off-site workers? No. These concepts may not be obvious to non-developers, but they should be easy to figure out. You must consider that existing project management software can easily handle remote workers. Most of the best ideas and fun details evolve through idle banter in the office. The personalities of developers and interpersonal relationships dramatically affect the quality of the game. Creativity seems to flourish most when people are stuck in the same smelly office and joke around in an effort to avoid work.

The second implied question: would your own project management software be able to compete? Probably not.

There are very high quality 'project management' programs out there, both commercial and open source. The latest big entrance is Microsoft's TFS that beautifully integrates with their other products. It is far from a perfect fit, but it works well enough -- A small company, even a big company, would have a hard time writing competitive software for that.

Other projects spend their entire lives as a bunch of seldom-read summary documents, items on a spreadsheet, and a bug tracking list. Your software would need to be completely free and well-tested before being widely used by this group.

Thank you for your frank and indepth reply.

The aim of the software I am asking about was to provide a low monthly fee piece of software, or released free with user caps on it. The feature set would be/is already incorporating 'normal' data elements, as well as some advanced such as browser edittable spreadsheets(excel included -- and, in all truth, all of the office apps, except outlook and powerpoint are now browser edittable in this app), browser-edittable gantt charts, workflow viewing, chat accessory(in page chatting, through AIM/YIM/MSN/ICQ/etc.), inpage whiteboarding, dynamic UML construction, report generation,versioning, and a few more.

I did not want my post to be taken as a flybynight idea(I know your response did not assume, nor throw into question this, so please don't take my comment as an insult of any kind), as the software is there, but would need to be editted and retested to a certain extent.

And while I understand what you are saying, our application is not a smaller brother of, say, MSProject. It is a near, in feature-set and userinteraction, clone of Project and mindjet together.

One of our strategies was to release this application for free, or under certain restrictions(10 or fewer users, $5.00/month per IP, etc.), to get a better feel of it's appeal within certain industries, programming as one. We have also been researching the many expensive, cheap and free alternatives to get a gauge as to what was offered, and where the application stood within this crowd.

With reference to my question concerning 'users being turned away based on certain geographical restrictions', my main focus was on the multiple talents that are shortterm and/or freelanced in certain situations. In looking over whitepapers and reading other programmer-related discussion, we noticed audio and some graphic work to be more directed to freelancers, moreso than actual coding, level design, AI and overall project design and management responsibilities. If you could, is this happening as much as we have found(freelancing and 3-6 month temporary assignments within non-administrative, management, and coding areas of project within programming houses)?

Thank you once again for your reply, and to the other for taking the time to read my post.