Project Management Systems and Drupal based options

Project Management System Planning & Discussion
BDUG meeting: December 5th, 2008
Chris Bryant & Jen Lampton

Introduction

* Cover purpose of the discussion

What does project management mean to YOU?

* Individuals managing a few simple projects
* Small teams & businesses managing
* Larger corporations
* Definitions and terminology
      o Methodologies
            + PMBOK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Body_of_Knowledge)
            + PMI (http://www.pmi.org)
            + PRINCE2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRINCE2)
            + Scrum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development))
            + Agile Project Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_Project_Management)
            + Waterfall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model)
            + Other related
                  # GTD (Getting Things Done) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done)
      o Types of projects
            + Software
            + Websites
            + Design
            + Misc.
      o Terminology
            + Message vs. Post
            + To-do vs. Task vs. Issue vs Ticket
            + Taxonomies/Categories: types, statuses, priorities, components

Business process, Workflow, Lifecycle

     1. Lead
     2. Prospect / RFP
     3. Initial Planning
            o Features
            o Schedule
     4. Proposal
            o Price
            o Deadlines
            o Outline
            o Contract/terms
     5. Invoice
     6. Collect Information / Assets from client
     7. Project Plan 
            o define actors,
            o use cases,
            o features,
            o patterns
            o Design considerations
            o Time 
                  + Budgeted
            o
              Assigned
            o Admin scenarios
                  + Timelines
                  + Due diligence
                  + Prototype Config
                  + Quality Assurance
     8. Development Plan
            o Challenges
            o To-Do's
            o Prototype = "FAST"
            o Production schedule
            o Product Spec
     9. Product Configuration 
            o Roles
            o Content types
            o Views
            o Menus
            o Taxonomy
            o Contrib Modules (panels, og, etc)
    10. Development  / Custom Code
    11. Theming / Skinning / Design
    12. Internal Review / QA round 1
    13. Generate Tickets
    14. Fix Tickets
    15. QA round 2
    16. Client Review
    17. Training / Documentation
    18. Client Approval
    19. Launching
    20. setup monitoring, backups, etc.
    21. Giving Back to Drupal Community
    22. Lead

Existing popular PM tools (commercial and open source)

* Desktop
      o Commercial
            + Microsoft Project (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project)
            + OmniPlan (https://www.omnigroup.com/omniplan/)
            + FastTrack Schedule (http://www.aecsoftware.com/products/fasttrack)
            + Ace Project (http://www.aceproject.com)
            + JIRA (http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira)
            + Project Insight (http://www.projectinsight.net)
      o Open Source
            + Gantt Project (http://ganttproject.biz)
            + Gantt Charts (https://exceltemplate.net/gantt-chart/)
            + ProjectLibre (https://www.projectlibre.com/)
            + ]project-open[ (https://sourceforge.net/projects/project-open/)
            + Task Juggler (http://www.taskjuggler.org)
            + Planner (http://live.gnome.org/Planner)
* Online/Web Based
      o Commercial
            + Basecamp (http://basecamp.com)
            + Active Collab (http://www.activecollab.com)
            + Wrike (http://www.wrike.com)
            + ManagePro (http://www.managepro.com)
            + ClearPoint Strategy Management Software (http://www.clearpointstrategy.com)
            + Comindware Project (http://www.comindware.com/project/)
      o Open Source
            + Redmine (http://www.redmine.org)
            + Trac: (http://trac.edgewall.org)
            + dotProject (http://www.dotproject.net)
            + eGroupware (http://www.egroupware.org)
            + Agantty (https://www.agantty.com/en/)

Previous/existing Drupal efforts

* Project
      o http://drupal.org/project/project (Drupal 5)
* Case Tracker
      o http://drupal.org/project/casetracker (Drupal 5)
* Storm
      o http://drupal.org/project/storm (Drupal 6)
            + (screenshots: http://www.speedtech.it/gallery/storm)
            + (has new maintainer [Magnity]: http://drupal.org/node/410784)
* ToDoList
      o http://drupal.org/project/todolist (Drupal 5)
* Tasks Advanced
      o http://drupal.org/project/tasks_advanced (Drupal 5)

Common Features, Requirements, Actors & Use cases

* Actors / Roles
      o Internal
            + Sales
            + Management
            + Designer
            + Developer
            + Project Manager
            + Accounting
      o External (Client)
            + Management
            + Content editor
            + Designer
            + Developer
            + Accounting


* Features / Requirements
      o Must Have
            + Companies
            + Contacts
            + User management
            + Access controls or permissions
            + Dashboard
            + Projects
            + Messages or Posts & Comments
            + Milestones or Schedule
            + Calendar view
            + Todos, Tasks, Tickets
            + Files:  uploads (Project Assets, proposals, comps, etc)
            + Categories/Taxonomy
            + Email notifications
            + Search
      o Nice to Have
            + Time Tracking
            + User profiles
            + Wiki, Notebook
            + Simple Markup (markdown, etc.)
            + Chat
            + Reply by email
            + RSS Feeds
            + iCal support
            + Revisions
            + Integration with code versioning repository (cvs, svn, git, etc.)
            + Charting & Graphing
            + Gantt Charts
            + Activity/News feed
            + Import/Export
            + Integration with other systems/platforms
            + CRM
            + Accounting (Quickbooks)

Drupal Configuration: Content types, fields, categories/taxonomies, view, etc.

* Content Types & Fields
      o Company
            + title
            + address
            + phone
            + primary contact
            + website
      o Contact/Profile
            + firstname
            + lastname
            + picture (image)
            + company
            + email
            + website
            + birthdate
            + user
            + jabber
            + skype
            + yahoo
            + twitter
      o Project
            + company
            + project_lead
            + file
            + image
      o Prospect
            + people
            + companies
            + file
            + image
      o Use Case (nice to have)
      o Feature (nice to have)
      o Message
      o Milestone
      o Ticket
            + project
            + assignee
            + milestone
            + ticket
            + message
            + hours/time spent
            + file
            + image
      o File
      o Wiki Page
* Categories/Taxonomy
      o Project Status (Project)
      o Status (Message, Milestone, Ticket)
      o Priority (Feature, Message, Milestone, Project, Prospect, Ticket)
      o Component (Ticket)
      o Resolution (Ticket)
      o Category (Feature)
      o Contact Type (Contact)
      o Prospect Status (Prospect)
      o Tags (Use Case, Feature, File)coo
* Views
      o Companies
      o Contacts
      o Prospects
      o Projects
      o Messages
      o Milestones
      o Calendar
      o Tickets
      o Files
* Panels
      o Specific panels created for dashboards and other layouts where views isn't enough.
* Menus
      o Pretty much the same as the above main level views
* Blocks
      o TBD/Misc

Drupal modules

* Standard
      o Content (CCK)
      o Views
      o Panels (for dashboards and other layouts)
      o Pathauto
      o Imagecache
      o Rules (workflow successor)
* Additional
      o Activity log
      o CCK Widgets/Related
            + Comment CCK
            + Computed Field
            + Content Multigroup
            + Content Permissions
            + Email
            + Fieldgroup
            + FileField
            + ImageField
            + Link
            + Node Reference
            + User Reference
      o Content Profile
      o Content Profile User Registration
      o Comment
      o Contact
      o Calendar
      o Date
      o Markdown filter
      o Messaging
      o Notifications
      o Organic groups
      o Automatic Nodetitles
      o Comment upload
      o Node convert
      o Pathauto
      o Taxonomy Defaults
      o Taxonomy Other
      o Todolist
      o Rules
      o Services
      o User Relationships
      o Administration Popups
      o Popups API
      o Popups: Add & Reference
      o Views Bulk Operations

Difficult areas/challenges

* Tieing it all together
* User Interface & Theming (making it look good and usable)
* Keeping it simple

Next steps (work together to implement? Create Patterns?)
Other thoughts & future ideas

* Intranet integration (and other systems/services)
* XMPP/Jabber integration
* Asterisk Integration
* Monitoring sites/servers
* Site/system dashboards

Additional resources

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management
* http://groups.drupal.org/projectManagement
* http://xamox.net/drupal/case+study