Productive Organizer

One of the most popular category of app on the smartphone devices are To Do list applications. It is no secret why they are so in demand since

• most users have their phones with them just like their wallet
• with that, they are able to collect new tasks and review which tasks to carry out

Developers on the iOS have come up with great todo apps and in the process many of the most popular ones such as Omnifocus, Things, Toodledo and Appigo ToDo advocates users to use David Allen’s Getting Things Done to make sense of task management.

In a certain sense, Getting Things Done puts you in the role as the project manager and your job is to ensure the completion of many mini projects.

These apps work great for most people but for folks who does project management as a profession or plan projects at work, it may be lacking.

Some of the reasons why this is so:

• Projects managed typically defined by a start date and end date. Not all GTD task list does that.
• Projects can have infinite level of sub projects as defined by more granular milestones. Only Actionlists on the iPhone and iPad does this.
• Milestones affect main projects start and due date and they would have to adjust accordingly.
• Manpower resources needs to be allocated to tasks.
• Most todo list is not made for extensive review. Project management involves alot of review, adjusting start and due date and quick inputs. GTD todo list do not provide a eagle eye view on milestones and tasks to do that effectively.
• Most GTD task app syncs to the cloud but for most project managers they still use MS Project.

Being a project lead in software and system maintenance, I do acknowledge that task management app are found lacking in these area.

That is where SG Project comes in. The folks at SG Project came up with a very comprehensive management app for the iPad platform to carry out project management.

What SG Project does

To be honest I am astounded why there aren’t alot of third party developers who would tale advantage of the large screen size to create such a planning app.

SG Project comes in 2 versions SG Project Pro and SG Project 2.

SG Project Pro costs USD 39.90 and is made up of SG Project 2 (USD 9.99), SG Action Log(USD 5.99) and SG Risk Log(USD 5.99)

SG Project 2 is the task planning gantt chart review portion of SG Project Pro. My initial thought is that this is what i need only so if you want an app that can help you review big projects like how you would do it in MS Project then buying SG Project 2 could be enough.

SG Project Pro is able to do the following

Manage projects and sub projects

At the bare minimum, a project management app should allow the user to create milestones and sub milestones to it. SG Project does a Good job with that as you can freely indent and outdent your tasks.

Group tasks as their milestones or projects and have a clear overview

Easily reorder and delete tasks and projects

Specify greater detail for each task. This includes

1. Start Date
2. End Date
3. Duration
4. Notes
5. SG Project Risks
6. SG Project Action Items
7. Owner
8. Predecessors

Indent and Outdent, or add new tasks easily in the main task planning screen

Easily change the duration of each tasks or project on the main task planning screen

Easily complete tasks on the main task planning screen

Create dependencies for tasks constraint by other tasks

Set Predecessors so that tasks with dependency can be linked

Coloring and Predecessors enables user to view which tasks are constrain to only start after certain tasks.

Review in Gantt Chart

These nested task will be presented in Gantt chart format which can be maximized or minimized with a button.

You can move the timeline, that is, your start date of these tasks by dragging the task activity bar on the Gantt chart.

I find that the best view to review your Gantt chart is on a landscape view because you would be able to view more task details such as dependency, completion and manipulated them there and then instead of navigating within each task to carry them out.

Attach manpower to tasks

Often that is not provided in most To Do List app is assigning owners to the task or delegation.

SG Project allows you to assign a single owner to it

SG Risk Log Pro

Risk Log Pro enables you to create, manage the risk asscoiated with the project so that owners take a reponsibility in how they are handled.

It allows you to

• Document multiple risks for each project
• Set an Owner and Due Date for each risk
• Categorize risks into 4 main risk management strategies
• Quantify by assigning likelihood and severity values to each risk
• Sort and Filter the risk list for a project
• Maintain an organized history of notes for each risk
• Export a risk report to PDF and email from directly within the app

SG Action Log Pro

To be honest, I don’t really get the main difference between an action item and a task. I suppose if you use the concept of Milestones and Action Items, this will work well because Action Log will be linked to the milestones created in SG Project Pro

• Document multiple action items for each project
• Set an Owner and Due Date for each action item
• Set the state of each action item to move through a simple lifecycle
• Quantify by assigning a priority value to each action item
• Categorize action items into up to 10 custom-named groups
• Sort and Filter the action item list for a project
• View compressed view of the items using a pinch gesture
• Maintain an organized history of notes for each action item
• Export an action item report to PDF and email from directly within the app

Where SG Project Pro didn’t do so well

Duplicating tasks

We wish that duo locating tasks is easier as in the course of preparing this example I have numerous tasks that I would need to do that.

Collapsing tasks and milestones

All tasks are expanded and when reviewing, you really wish that you can collapse the tasks to view them on a high level

Limited colors to choose from

It would be better if they have more color tagging choices as for bigger projects these colors can easily run out.

Exporting to MS Project XML

Instead of exporting to a native ms project XML format, the app only allows you to export to ms project XML. The limitation is transiting between windows desktop and iPad will be a problem since most people do not save their document in XML.

Conclusion

SG Project comes across as a competent iPad app. This is the first iPad project management app reviewed and certainly I can envision myself managing tasks with a defined start and end date instead of processes on it.

The ability to review and see dependency not to mention delegation are pluses.

My gripe about it is that there are occasional crashes that is irritating me which I hope can be ironed lout in future releases.

Read my Getting Things Done series today!

I saw this good post at around the CHAOS that I thought I would highlight to my readers.

This is written by a guy with loads of experience in consulting for systems implementation and project management. Something that I am far far away from.

But essentially, here he shows you a personal GTD system that is basically free. It makes use of free Google Apps

Getting Things Done (GTD) , heard of it? Chances are you have and are probably using it to some extent. GTD is a extremely popular organizational method created by David Allen.It has been described as the productivity cult of the new info age.Over the years there have been many variations of this method, but the essence has remained same.The popularity of the system is evident from the number of systems that have become avilable that support. They range from simple papaer based systems to automated software systems. The post however is not about what GTD is , but about creating a GTD system using Google Apps.I will try to keep the information on what GTD is to the bare minimum, if you need more information or help on GTD. Just try Google search. There are a lot of excellent sources out there.(A comparison of the most popular GTD apps)

The Set-up

So why use Google Apps? Firstly It is free.All the Google applications used to set-up this system are free. Secondly it is accessible everywhere i.e You are not bound by system, hardware or software. You can access your system from anywhere as long as you are connected to Internet. You can even access it on your smart phones, both iOS,Android or Blackberry.However the most compelling reason for me is that I am yet to come across a application or a product which has all the components of a GTD system i.e. mail,to -do lists,calendar and a filing system.

Before jumping to the set-up details, lets quickly summarize the elements  of a basic GTD system

• The Inbox (Or the Capture System) – Dumping everything for later processing (Gmail,Google Tasks, Chrome Plug-ins)
• Next Action Lists – Storing your next actions (Google Tasks)
• Projects Lists – For storing your projects and associated tasks (Google Tasks)
• Waiting Lists – For your waiting and delegated tasks (Google Tasks)
• Calendar – For your scheduled events and tasks (Google Calendar)
• Reference Filing System – Storing for reference (Google Docs)

[Read the full article here @ around the CHAOS >>]

I have blogged about this iPhone Mindmapping software that is really good and how you can use it to incorporate into your GTD system.

Their Version 2.2 is currently in the approval stage and what i like about them is that they don’t rest on their laurels but are coming up with more and more ways to make this mind mapping software as functional as the desktop applications.

Here is a video showing how you can map relationships between related nodes.

What i really hope to is that they can come up with Tagging and Tag filtering of nodes. That will be awesome

Also check out:

GTD Series Part 6:Project Review through iThoughts Mind Mapping Software

Mind Mapping Software for iPhone:iThoughts Review

Introduction

This is part of a series where i talk about my GTD experience and  my setup.

Part 1 here talks about my plan and overview of my GTD system

Part 2 here talks about why i eventually chose iPod Touch 2G as my main to do list console

Part 3 here talks about why i choose Appigo ToDo for iPhone as my main task manager

Part 4 here talks about how to plan for big projects and smaller projects

Part 5 here talks about how to make use of Contexts, Tags to Execute your tasks

Part 6 here discuss about how you can review projects better using iThoughts mind mapping software

In today’s article i will share with  you how I normally go about planning for tasks, projects and sub-projects.

Where are we now?

Ok, so in Part 1 I have presented this workflow chart which is how i would illustrate my collection, planning, processing and execution model.

Today, I will talk a fair bit on project planning. I skipped the collection portion cause I think this is a more complex portion of GTD thus i would explain more on this first.

What Constitutes as Projects?

When you collected an idea, piece of information or a probem, you decide if it is actionable. If it is, the key to decide if it is a project or a simple actionable task is how much steps you need to execute to reach your successful outcome.

Remember, thinking about your successful outcome is important, just like defining clear and manageable goals, it keeps you on the right direction on what you are suppose to do.

Personally, that was what is described about projects, but to me there is no hard and fast rule. Why this is important is because you need to break a task down to actionable steps.

If it is too complicated, you do not know how to start the blardy task and you end up procrastinating on it.

So for task that is named:

“Get Son a new bicycle”

It can be a very simple actionable step, like go downstairs go to the nearest bike shop and buy the bike. That is, if you already know what you are looking for.  But most of the times it is not so simple.

That simple task normally consist of:

1. Ask Son what kind of bicycle he likes
2. Find out how much your family have to pay for the bike (budgeting)
3. Research on where to buy the cheapest bike on the internet
4. Give son a look at the bike see if he likes it
5. Find out what to look out for if it is the first time you are buying a bike
6. Go down and buy the bike
7. Wait for the bike to be delivered to you

So, you see, our task may not be that simple at all.

Another small problem that maybe isn’t that small

In life, most of the time don’t end up the way you wanted it to turn out. Take the example that in your work as an IT engineer, you are suppose to solve a problem on your IT system you are supporting.

So again, the simple task will go something like this in your normal to do list:

“Solve why the entries do not show up on the procurement page.”

It is a simple task, if you investigated and found that a bug in your source code will delete off these entries when the user view it. So Simple

Or it could be you investigated and turn out that the entries don’t come just from your system but goes to another system and then back to your system.

Then it becomes a bigger problem that could go something like

1. Find out from database whether the entries are there
2. If database entries are there, investigate at source codes to find out if there is a problem with the codes
3. If your codes do not have a problem, find out if the other system did give us the right entries to combine to ours
4. If they didn’t inform the engineers from the other system to investigate and get back to you
5. Engineer gets back to you say that the problem is related to them but they do not have the expertise to fix it nor the budget
6. Inform your boss about this and discuss with him
7. Set up a meeting between the manager of both projects
8. more shit stuff
9. more shit stuff

Yes, sometimes our lives can get quite bad in IT line. but it is a good illustration and our friends in other industry can attest that one small problem can remain small but most times they just get bigger and bigger and take longer and longer.

The above 2 serves as examples of why certain task, you have to break them down into projects with actionable steps. Had they remain as the original task entry, you will not see what needs to be done. I can list down the steps to this xamples well because i have experience with them, but sadly not everything is like that. Making them actionable and asking “What is the next action?” would enable you to kick start the engine to perform the work.

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