As web projects in particular become more and more advanced, understandably the code base grows and if you’re working on anything even remotely high spec you’re going to need proper project management. Most people think because it’s just them working on a given project that they don’t need any complex management system or routine but the reality is, they do.
Importance of Project Management
Obviously if there are more than 1 or 2 people on the team then project management becomes even more important as that is where things start to go wrong. Most commonly people not knowing what to work on or what others are working on etc.
Team Work – Made Easy
I guess the main attraction of these PMA’s is the fact that it makes team work so easy. If you’ve ever been part of a large development team you’ll know what a nightmare it is when people have different coding styles and are not working on your schedule.
There is overlap, people working on the same thing as you or things not getting done because they thought you’d be handling it etc. Project management apps take all of the guess work out of the process and you can clearly see how far you are in your own tasks but not only that, you can also clearly see what everyone else is up to on the team.
Project Management Applications
Obviously web application developers know better than anyone how important it is to manage a project properly. So obviously with this in mind there are a lot of applications out there on the market designed for exactly that.
One of my favourite ones (at the time of writing, it changes often) is MyCollab. It’s not the easiest to get up and running with but there are lots of tutorials around which can help you get everything up and running. Another favourite of mine is BaseCamp which has quite a few more features than MyCollab but I guess it’s a matter of personal preference.
When Management Becomes Important
Unfortunately most people realise that they need proper project management when they’re mid way through a project or when something has gone wrong. Someone might have coded something wrong that doesn’t work with a module someone else has written or even two developers working on exactly the same element.
It’s a common, recurring theme unfortunately and one that pretty much all web development teams experience – especially if they don’t follow a proper project management plan. Fortunately there are lots of apps to assist with this!
Reporting
If you’ve ever worked for a large organisation or a dev team with a bunch of managers, you’ll know that they simply love reporting. Reports for this, reports for that. It’s every developers worse nightmare but with the proper project management tools you’ll find that it’s extremely simple.
Pretty much all of the project management apps on the market have a way for you to easily generate reports for pretty much every aspect of your project whether it’s progress overall or time spent by individual developers of the project. Obviously anyone in the team can also easily log in and see how the entire project is progressing too as well as see what other people are working on so there is no overlap.
So as you can see managing a project properly has a ton of benefits and you’re probably wondering why you haven’t considered it before. But it’s not too late. Whatever your next project is, big or small.
Try specing it out properly and controlling it via a proper project management application. I guarantee you’ll never go back to the old way. It’s sheer chaos and in the fast moving world of web based applications of technology you can’t afford any screw ups. 🙂
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