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Start your free trialErnest Grzybowski
Treehouse Project ReviewerProject Management
Has anyone tried any project management software or task management software?
For various places I've worked for, I have used:
Now the products above are not the same (some are quite different actually), and some are made for different types of business, but I'm curious about how certain people or companies go about certain tasks.
I've tagged this as "Business" because I feel like it relates to those taking the Business course at treehouse. I want to see if anyone organizes their lists, tasks, projects, assignments with this kind of software.
Though I haven't had work in design/development for very long (about 3-4 years) I'm wondering if those with more experience can give us some insight from their past. What has worked, and what has not? I know most of the treehouse team has worked for a bunch of places (including startups). So what does someone like Ryan Carson use for treehouse, or Nick Pettit for planning content, or Ben Jakuben and Amit Bijlani for Android or iOS projects.
Last piece of advice: If you are using "Email" as a means of project management, please use something listed above. It will change the way you handle tasks, and will definitely help you and your coworkers get stuff done.
What do you use for keeping your projects organized?
13 Answers
Twiz T
12,588 PointsWhat about some project management love built by a current treehouse student?? Yours truly!
Basically, I created it with this tagline in mind - Get your coworkers to do anything for you (without looking like a complete jerk).
Would not have been possible without the wonderful content from treehouse, thanks Ryan Carson for putting together such a great team and portal :)
Ryan Carson
23,287 PointsI use Asana for personal tasks because of the powerful recurring capability and Trello for company-wide todos as it's visual and easy to parse. I don't think we pay for either (!)
Ernest Grzybowski
Treehouse Project ReviewerPublic Trello boards are a trend these days...
Bryan Zavestoski
12,475 PointsI've used Trello, Pivotal, and Basecamp and found them all useful in different contexts.
Trello and Basecamp are both great, but I find myself preferring Trello. It seems easier to hand different parts off to different people and get a good overview of projects/priorities. I could see Pivotal Tracker being extremely powerful for a agile development team with a dedicated project manager, but there are a lot of features that would go unused for day-to-day todo management.
Emilien Eloy
1,407 PointsGive a shot to podio.com, trully amazing.
Randy Hoyt
Treehouse Guest TeacherThe real trick with picking a to-do list tool is to understand how you think about your to-do list, what they call your "mental model" of it. (The polarity of opinion you find on these tools stems from this fact: if a tool thinks about your to-do list the same way you think about it, there's a good chance you'll love it.) I formed my to-do list mental model in college with a pencil-and-paper planner that displayed one week at a time in a spread. I now use TeuxDeux for my personal tasks because it uses that same model, and I love it.
Pivotal Tracker is amazing for managing software projects. I love that, also. I actually wish I could use an agile methodology for my personal to-do list so that I could use Pivotal Tracker for it!
I have mixed feelings about Trello. It works really well for us at Treehouse, but I've tried to use it on a few other projects without the same level of success.
J V
1,774 PointsI use trello for business and personal life.
Luke Flood
1,184 PointsUsed Basecamp for about five years. Couldn't live without it!
Sharon Walls
9,234 PointsI've tried a few things on your list, most notably Basecamp. I use Podio for work (it's very customisable) and a Chrome app called To-Doist for my personal tasks.
James Barnett
39,199 PointsI converted the company (all 2 dozen of us) over to using asana at a previous job, I'm pretty big fan of it.
I think I like it even more than my beloved note taking app Workflowy.
Graham Davidson
Courses Plus Student 14,966 PointsBasecamp all day long and twice on Sunday
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse TeacherIn my corporate life we used some tools like TeamPlay and some monolith from HP, both of which were gross. At Treehouse I became a big fan of Trello and use it in my personal life as well. Though lately I've been souring on Trello for performance reasons. It seems it became too popular too fast or something!
My mobile projects at Treehouse have been small enough that I've managed them myself mostly by writing things down as TODO items in comments. I think Trello could work really well for larger projects, though, as having cards for requirement, use cases, stories, etc. could be very useful in that framework. I love the visual aspect and passing of cards in Trello.
That said, I'd like to see Asana for that, too. Pasan Premaratne is a big fan of Asana, and I really like it.
Pasan Premaratne
Treehouse TeacherI do love Asana that's for sure. One of the reasons I prefer it to Trello is the ability to sub task any item so that I can really understand what's holding up a certain task.
Both Trello and Asana have APIs as well and I use a few of the tools people have built around it. Instagantt for example allows you to map out an Asana (or Trello) project onto a Gantt chart. I really helps me visualize a project and how I need to plan for it.
Amit Bijlani
Treehouse Guest TeacherAs everyone mentioned, we use [Trello](trello.com) at Treehouse and it works great for us. Personally, I prefer using https://workflowy.com/. I just prefer simple tools.
Thiago de Bastos
14,556 PointsHey guys, I have been struggling to find a good all-round (or duo-combo) app for my project management and accounts. I have only just started freelancing and I am extremely excited. I only met my first client last week! I have the Treehouse Team to thank, which I will as soon as I have sent off a quote and made it 100% official ;) I am looking for an app which will help me keep track of tasks/projects as well as expenses and invoicing. I was giving thrive.solo a go but it seems way too clunky and I found myself spending hours adding and re-adding entries as they would not register. At the moment I am giving Basecamp and Freshbooks a trial but if any of you know of a better all-round solution, please do let me know if it exists!