I have been trying out the beta version of Devshop, a new web-based Project Management application and discovered that they had come up with a clever new idea.
Traditional project management measures the estimated completion percentage of a task against the actual time taken as a percentage of the estimated time for a task. This gives an indication of whether the task is on target, ahead or behind schedule. Devshop does this too but adds a new metric into the mix. It allows participants to register tasks outside the project scope as distractions. The system then works out a "Distraction Rate" for each user that is assigned to a task.
By using this new metric, Devshop can forecast possible overruns much sooner than with traditional project management software. It calculates a confidence percentage that allows the manager to see at a glance whether the project plan or resource allocation may need some attention.
I love this sort of business intelligence exercise, turning the masses of data that we generate every day into an easily understood and useful piece of information. As a developer I have always built dashboard overviews of my applications and as a Content Strategist I can apply myself to thinking up useful ways to extract meaningful information from the data available.
As for Devshop, I’ve never had the patience or discipline to record every little task that I perform. Until there is a simpler way to record this type of information, applications like this will suffer from lack of or innacurate data when users are pushed for time.
One Comment
I think you hit the nail on the head. There are a lot of neat things that one can do with data. But, if it is not convenient for someone to enter the data, it will never be available and therefore not be useable (no matter how cool the function using that data). Useability and adoption are definitely keys to good (and useful) project management software.