TaskAlot 4 - Use cases
Adding cards: Keep it easy (2023.03)
How to keep the task of adding cards easy?
It's always temping for me to add more and more fields to any object, including to tasks, to achieve the dream of a perfect planning. However, the more tedious it becomes to add a card, the less likely it will be done correctly, or just at all. But there's hope. And like more often, it seems to be along the lines of Program today for today and tomorrow for tomorrow, or be in the here-and-now, or where are your feets? or Let's cross that bridge when we get there:
Only add Clusters when you need them: E.g.:
- Don't add clusters when adding a card/task, unless you know for sure you are going to need that cluster right away
- Only add cluster(s) when needed
- Example: Person X does WebShops. He can do general Webshop-related stuff, but his specialty is theming. Only add the cluster Theming when person X is running out of jobs.
Have a unique ID for each task
Tasks should have autonumbers:
- Preferably starting at 1 for each project/operation
- Automatic: When figures have to added manually, it will be messy.
Purpose:
- Using these numbers, I can have an easy correspondence with files & folders
- These numbers are practical for referring to tasks, like during meetings.
Filter tasks for GrowSpurt
In the spring of 2023, we defined an operation called ShopUp (the name was used before for a certain project), which comprises all website development tasks for everything that's not part of a project. A steady flow of such tasks comes from a source called GrowSpurt. This used to be a project of its own (terribly overlapping with ShopUp and other similar projects) but now those tasks are incorporated in ShopUp, which is quite a catch-all.
Within operation ShopUp, I want to be filter for the tasks related to GrowSpurt.
Identify available tasks (2023.03)
When going to a board, how do you identify tasks that are not yet assigned to someone?
Solutions:
- Probably the most practical way: Tasks where the field person has not been filled-in yet. Maybe better: Change this field's name from Person to Owner?
- When something needs multiple people, e.g., to decide something: Just fill in both their names
Keep overview when there are too many items in one column? (2023.03)
How to keep an overview when there are too many items in one columns?
Some thoughts:
- You'll always have problems like this. E.g., even when using a PostItPlanning, I sometimes had too many PostIt papers and I couldn't. Worse: It became really hard to understand what they actually stood for
- Create additional views with less information per item? E.g., a board view with only the title of the task?
- Partition using Clusters? → That seems to be a painless and easy approach: Nothing gets messed up when experimenting with clusters (contrary to e.g., partitioning projects)
- Partition the project into multiple projects? → That often makes it just more difficult to know where to find a task
I often find myself in the situation, that concerning a project, there is some things that I don't want to share with others. E.g. check invoice of this person: It may be a real legitimate task, but not one that I like to be visible to this specific person. So, I often feel like creating a 'secondary' board for the same project, with stuff that others can't see - Not very practical.
I would like to be able to share some parts of a board, project or task, but not everything.
→ Unfortunately, this is not possible through sharing: Relations only work if the tables at either side of the relation, are fully shared
How to include an overall-planning within TaskAlot? For each project, some planning-related info can be included on the project page, but what would be a intuitive way for an overall planning?
Some ideas:
- Include it on the starting page
- It can be done implicitly, by indicating deadlines for tasks & projects and turning it into a Gantt diagram, etc.
- I'm looking for something more explicit, like a bulleted list with priorities
- Plannings change all the time and it is important to keep historical plannings (e.g., for evaluation purposes) → Plannings need to be dated
- Sometimes planning include long documents (e.g., the big project overhaul I made on 2023.03.15) and maybe sometimes those documents should be included
- But above all, it should be something you glance at and you know what has priority + deadlines - Keep it simple