Project/idea/task management software?
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What've worked for me personally is just a text-file managed through a simple text editor (ie. gedit/geany). It could also be a spreadsheet, even a shared or cloud one. For my next-gen projects I'm just sorting a list at the bottom of the main source-file though, so even simpler setup, closer to the relevant code and a nice addition to TODO-comments.
What you need at the start is probably the bare bones. For ideas, a simple but concise description text. Question mark may help emphasize uncertainty (most ideas are rubbish anyway). I put an "X" in front when "completed", "P" for Postponed, "N" for No (aka negative outcome/bad idea/not worth the effort). Often I append final conclusions/reasons/experience after the description + colon : ). Each entry is just one line and not too long to view. What you need/want, is to go through the list and get rid of items just lying there. If it's not done, it's worthless. Sometimes you forget the original idea and just need to put it away in the "inactive" pile too. A number in front of description may help remember prioritization, but such complexity shouldn't really be needed. Always keep the active pile short. Inactive stuff will anyways become obsolete, so don't fret about it. Sometimes more piles can be handy to separate stuff (many untested ideas), and doing everything ad-hoc is empowering.
This works when you have full ownership of your ideas, experimentations and resources. If this is meant as a coordination/process tool, you're bringing with alot of baggage that might actually become destructive to your real goals. It might be better to lead by example and let people find their own solutions. Trying to document half-baked ideas will be painful and worthless for the most part.
You'll get much better attention if you talk with the people and ask them what they need, than putting various random software in between random people.
What you need at the start is probably the bare bones. For ideas, a simple but concise description text. Question mark may help emphasize uncertainty (most ideas are rubbish anyway). I put an "X" in front when "completed", "P" for Postponed, "N" for No (aka negative outcome/bad idea/not worth the effort). Often I append final conclusions/reasons/experience after the description + colon : ). Each entry is just one line and not too long to view. What you need/want, is to go through the list and get rid of items just lying there. If it's not done, it's worthless. Sometimes you forget the original idea and just need to put it away in the "inactive" pile too. A number in front of description may help remember prioritization, but such complexity shouldn't really be needed. Always keep the active pile short. Inactive stuff will anyways become obsolete, so don't fret about it. Sometimes more piles can be handy to separate stuff (many untested ideas), and doing everything ad-hoc is empowering.
This works when you have full ownership of your ideas, experimentations and resources. If this is meant as a coordination/process tool, you're bringing with alot of baggage that might actually become destructive to your real goals. It might be better to lead by example and let people find their own solutions. Trying to document half-baked ideas will be painful and worthless for the most part.
You'll get much better attention if you talk with the people and ask them what they need, than putting various random software in between random people.
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Well if you had looked at Jira you would have come across Confluence, seriously, is there no one else left in the world who actually explores any more!
Given some of the largest companies in the world use these tools if they are no good then there's something wrong with your business process, simple.
WHITEBOARD!....
I use three --
pre-printed month calendar (econ events, etc.)
and two 3' x 4' -- placed within eye view, with markers handy.
I can write shit on the fly, and never lose track.
I grew up with a List Of Things To Do -- lived and died by it in college/grad school, but fell out of the wonderful habit for a decade or more.
I'm back now (3+ years??) and WOW, will never look back.
DON'T TRY TO 'REMEMBER' -- just write it down, and use the brain for other stuff.
I use three --
pre-printed month calendar (econ events, etc.)
and two 3' x 4' -- placed within eye view, with markers handy.
I can write shit on the fly, and never lose track.
I grew up with a List Of Things To Do -- lived and died by it in college/grad school, but fell out of the wonderful habit for a decade or more.
I'm back now (3+ years??) and WOW, will never look back.
DON'T TRY TO 'REMEMBER' -- just write it down, and use the brain for other stuff.
This assumes a software project of some sort while a lot of my todo's are non-coding (read prospectus X, have a call with lawyers re Y, analyze specific effect in Excel etc).
The stuff I trade has a fairly short shelf life, which forces me to spend a lot of time on R&D - not sure this is due to my creativity. I'll check out some mindmap tools, but from what I know about the concept it's not going to do exactly what I want
I have looked at Confluence. While it's probably a great software team management tool, it's an overkill for me. Plus, something like that would have to go through the firms purchasing etc.
The easiest solution is probably to maintain an Excel spreadsheet - I kinda-of already do that, just need to be more structured about how I represent things. I was hoping for a canned solution with a nice mobile interface but...
The same type of list can be done on your mobile using a "Sticky Notes" type app (text editing really). In fact, I maintain a list on mobile which I then manually export to PC. It'd be a pain to manage something like this manually on mobile, but maybe a task-app may be found, though I'm wary marrying tools like that.
For meetings and date-based events/tasks, use calendar, which you can access through both PC and mobile (ie. GCalendar or corporate Exchange/Office365). You'll get reminders and often you can find old items in the history if you need it later.
Mail is good for both communication and personal notes, you can use tags/folders/colors to sort/prioritize them, and that too can be accessed from anywhere.
Main point is really, no tool will do the structuring for you, or "everything you ever need", without you losing control. Keeping the list short and non-complex is almost always better as individual capacity is best used for the most promising stuff. Do you want to do work by a task-list, or by using your brains and senses? Often we can provide more value by doing less, and doing the smart things instead. Sometimes, the smart thing is to get bored, or lazy, and then automate something.
Thunderbird and Outlook have tasks, and can be set to expire at date-times. It might even make sense to separate where you put what, as a too long list is just not that readable if you keep adding more items than you stuff away. Looking for perfection in the one and only tool is futile as there are so many different ways to do a "task list". Probably many apps for this that can be tested though, if you really need to marry something (which may later go away, or later turn out to have limited functionality anyway).
In the end, what brings value is actually having done the stuff, not managing lists. For R&D, learning by doing is very valuable, although not directly. When items are done, often that includes the documentation, so the item could even be permanently deleted as it's Done, or moved somewhere else.
Be wary: Whenever I start searching for "holy grail" tools that will somehow lift my burdens, it's often when I have no clue what I should be doing and would be better off talking to more people! When it's clear what to do, the tool become irrelevant, and just pick the best for the job, which is known enough to make meaningful decisions, and then progress or failure.
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Sorry, the fact that I would rather use Excel instead of adding yet another tool to my technology stack points to my "social de-evolution" how exactly?
PS. FYI I am a PM at a top 100 fund, not retail but your derogation of a small time investor is touching
I used to use mail as my main "organization tool", but this time around it's getting out of hand. A simple execution engine spawned 7-8 threads with different results, todos etc. That's why I decided to upgrade my process.
Reporting and monitoring should never be done via mail. Anywhere that is used, better to present reports in the best accessible way (eg. web/webservice) as an improvement activity. Most auto-generated mail become spam. Usually lots of process-improvements are needed to optimize the processes and minimize information overload. Eg. It may be better to delay sending mails until a form is edited and left alone for some time. Most tools fails to optimize for max usability and relevance, without taking over too much control or creating unnecessary surprises and snags. Monitoring shouldn't be personal, but a shared service that can be accessed anywhere by everyone. Getting this right can be tough, but is feasible by a smallish and competent core group that take full ownership and action.
Though, using mail to organize personal interactions and followup/actions has worked well for me. I usually remember what is left to be done or follow up just by keeping the latest mail in each thread. Interestingly, Outlook/Thunderbird offers a way to gather mails from the same thread, which really helps until the title changes too much. If you need to scale across more people, a CRM-type solution may be a better fit, preferably one that can log messages and conversations across multiple communication tools.
If what you're requiring is more in between of all this, it'll really depend on your minimum requirements for the tool and may be hard to find a good fit that isn't too heavily customized (you most often want off-the-shelf for this).
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