What a great thread. I have a similar problem at the moment - kicking off the development stage of a project with over 30 functional areas to implement which we want to build and rollout incrementally with lots of interpendencies and factors to think about in relation to the order in which we tackle the implementation.
For what its worth, I don't think Toms Planner (which I use) does it. Good for timetabling things out once you have worked out the order but not good for capturing the dependences and thinking about the order. Trello (which I also use) is Ok for helping you put things in to order (in my case, putting the functions into different workblocks) but doesn't show the dependencies (you can only record these in the notes). I was planning to use this despite its limitation because a) it is very good in group situations and b) you can keep a history of your thoughts and reasoning on each 'card' I agree with Dwight that a Pert style approach makes sense but I don't know of any software that does this. Dwight do you have any suggestions. And thank you pottser for the link to Scapple. Those diagrams look like the diagrams that I tend to draw a lot. And also the reminder about Mindjet - it appears to do dependences (but I am not quite sure how). But not cheap ($399!!) Great stuff Richard On Thursday, 5 June 2014 15:21:28 UTC+1, Lisa S wrote: > > Thanks, Dwight! I've not had time to look into all the solutions > proposed yet and this is helpful to narrow it down. I think Perth is closer > to what I'm looking for to start...but finding the time to actually map out > the project (even in my own head) has been difficult. It might just be a > matter of figuring out which ball is coming at me more quickly, at this > point. > > Lisa (feeling overwhelmed :) / [email protected] <javascript:> > > > __________________________________ > Sent from eM Client | www.emclient.com <http://www.emclient.com/get> > > > > On 6/3/2014 11:06:41 PM, "Dwight Arthur" <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > > > Lisa, I imagine that you are well aware of what I'm recommending below >> but I thought I should add it to the conversation. > > > You talked about wanting to visualize the overall project as an aide to > understanding it and getting it organized. Two leading visualization > techniques (there are others) are Gantt and Pert. The Pert chart presents > the project as a collection of bubbles, each representing a task, or a > group of tasks, or a deliverable, and arrows representing dependencies. In > my opinion the Pert is especially helpful for taking a jumble of tasks and > turning them into a well organized project. The Gantt presents the project > as a series of bars against a timeline. In my opinion the Gantt is > especially helpful during execution of a project to see what's done, what's > running late, what's impacted and how to recover. > > One other technique that bears mentioning is CPM, the Critical Path > Method. If you have recorded all of the tasks, have correctly identified > the dependencies of each, have estimated all of the resources (including > your time, other people's time, and other scheduled resources such as use > of the shop vac) and the amount of time needed of each resource, as well as > the amount of time per day each resource is available, then CPM will tell > you which tasks you have can work on today in order to bring the whole > project to the quickest possible completion, and which tasks really can and > should wait. If you find yourself in the familiar situation where the > project quickly moves to somewhere between 50% and 99% complete and then > stalls, using up lots of time and effort but getting no closer to > completion, then you need cpm. > -Dwight > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MyLifeOrganized" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <javascript:>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/d3854242-eb8e-4088-ae7d-7e1f47ee253b%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/32614a56-858e-4599-a768-7ae5c611d6fb%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
