Manage Your Basecamp Projects Like 3. Note: This piece was written when 3. Signals was the parent company responsible for creating Basecamp. As of February 2. Signals is now just known as Basecamp.

If anyone knows project management, it’s 3. The web- app firm behind Basecamp (a tool that’s been used to manage over 8 million projects), 3. Its company blog, Signal vs. Noise, draws 7. 5,0.

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Co- Founder Jason Fried is a leader in not only the industry, but business in general. His manifesto “Rework”—penned with Co- Founder David Heinemeier Hansson—is a New York Times bestseller, and espouses the company’s philosophy: speed and simplicity is the key to success. Naturally, this philosophy is reflected in 3. Product Manager Ryan Singer has been with the company since the beginning, and is co- designer (along with Fried) of the original version of Basecamp itself. So I caught up with Singer to find out how they manage their projects—and I learned some surprising things. In this article, you’ll find out: Why organizing your Basecamp projects by role is all wrong; Why defining all your to- dos up front is a waste of time; Why you shouldn’t use Basecamp to plan; and,Why 3.

You’ll also learn the importance of creating a “kill list,” and what it means to make “chowder” for a project. In short: if you use Basecamp, you’ll want to read this.

Here’s how to manage your Basecamp projects like 3. Identify Key Areas of Customer Concern. When you get a new project, all the tasks that are involved can seem overwhelming. At 3. 7signals, they start by breaking a project up into a few key areas of customer concern. Say, for example, they’re working on a conference registration app. First, they break that up into the independent items that need to be worked on in order to deliver a finished product to the customer: e.

Then, the team tackles these areas one at a time, in order of what’s most important and what’s going to inform the rest of the project. Singer represents this process as a map of sorts, with the key “territories,” or areas of concern, demarcated: CONFERENCE REGISTRATION APP Like many companies, 3. But what’s unique about 3. They create a mockup; implement a prototype that can be clicked on and used; see what’s working and what’s not; revise it; add more; revise that; and so on. Whether you follow a clear methodology or an iterative process, identifying the key areas of customer concern will help you focus your efforts, Singer says, and move the project towards completion step- by- step.

Divide Your Basecamp by Projects, Not Roles. Some companies divide their Basecamp projects by workplace role, with separate to- do lists for, say, Design, Programming and QA. Each item on the list is a task that department is responsible for. Going back to our example, within the “Conference Registration App” project in Basecamp, they might set up their to- do lists as follows: However, Singer notes that if you’re managing projects this way, you’re not using Basecamp to its full potential. At 3. 7signals, they divide their work by project, not role. They create to- do lists that represent areas of customer concern and that incorporate everybody’s to- dos.

So, instead of the “Design” to- do list, with “registration form” as a task, they have the “Registration form” to- do list—which integrates the Design, Programming and QA tasks. Here’s what the reconfigured to- dos would look like: “The overarching purpose for this is that, as a manager, I want to be able to get a “state of the world,’” Singer explains. I need that in order to plan, estimate and know where we stand on projects.”If every project is being housed in the same place in Basecamp, it can be hard to make heads or tails of all the information.

But if you have a dedicated Basecamp project that corresponds with the project you’re working on, you can see exactly when there is only one to- do left for that project. The “Catch Up” feature comes in particularly handy here: you can get a snapshot of everything was completed for the project on a given day, without having to toggle between the projects for different roles. And when it’s done, the whole project goes away—as opposed to having, say, a Design project that never ends, but just adds and subtracts to- do lists as customer projects come and go. Define To- Dos One Area at a Time.

Instead of trying to define all of the necessary to- dos for a project in the beginning, Singer says, he picks out one area of concern that is the most valuable, and defines to- dos for that area only. He then ranks the other areas of concern in order of importance, and works through them in this same fashion one by one. To go back to the registration app example, say the registration form is identified as the most important area: break that out into specific to- dos, but don’t worry about trying to define to- dos for other areas of the project. The to- dos for the primary area of importance are listed in Basecamp—but Singer notes that they use Basecamp as a communication tool, not a tracking tool.

To- do lists serve to communicate to team members what they need to get done, not as a way to keep tabs on their progress. Going back to Singer’s illustration, here’s the “areas of concern map” for the registration app, with darker colors being more important: These rankings, Singer says, are a question of how far ahead he can see to the end goal (in this case, having a functioning piece of software).

Maintaining a big- picture view is important for the project leader, but focus is the number- one priority for the team. Singer ensures that his teams works through the area they’ve currently identified as most important before moving on to something else. Use Basecamp to Communicate, Not to Plan.

Many project management software programs include such traditional features as Gantt Charts. Basecamp doesn’t—and that’s intentional.“Gantt Charts are a tool people use for planning,” Singer says.

That’s a deep difference in approach.”Instead of creating a detailed plan with dependencies and phases and tracking how the team implements that plan, Singer lays out the state of the world for a project—and then lets the design and development process unfold. The state of the world—the key areas of concern and the to- do list for the area at hand—provides a common reference point that the team can see the status of and communicate on. But they are learning along the way, adding and completing to- dos as they come and re- prioritizing areas of concern when necessary. This, says Singer, allows them to see exactly where they stand at the end of each day. Instead of using Basecamp to manage plans, 3. Manage Scope, Not Task Due Dates. Basecamp has a “Dates” feature that allows you to assign deadlines to specific to- dos.

But 3. 7signals doesn’t use it.“Basically, we don’t work that way,” Singer says. We know the things we need to do, and we’re very careful to avoid doing things that are unnecessary.

I would rather control the scope of a project than control the amount of time people spend on specific things.”In other words, they manage project scope, not task due dates. So how do they ensure they hit deadlines without setting due dates? On major projects, Singer reports, the team will reach a point near the end where they must assess whether or not they’ll be able to finish in time. To determine this, they do an audit of all outstanding to- dos and attach hourly estimates to them. They break up anything that’s too big, physically write the estimates into the to- dos and multiply them by 1.

This clearly shows the team what they can manage and what they can’t in the amount of time they have. They can cut what isn’t absolutely necessary and, occasionally, shift milestones. In fact, Singer describes how in the original version of Basecamp, the only date- specific feature was “Milestones,” meaning high- level dates along the life of a project. An average project for 3.

Basecamp Competitors: 5 Alternative Project Management Services. There are dozens of outstanding project management solutions out there, with Basecamp being among the most popular tools. Project management software has been around for quite some time now and it can have other functions aside from just those designed for managing projects. Modern project management tools can carry out cost control, scheduling, budget management, collaboration, resource allocation, communication, documentation or administration, and quality management. These features are meant to handle various aspects and complexities of bigger projects and help reduce costs. With its main headquarters in Chicago, Illinois and offices in 2. Basecamp is a well- known firms in the field of business and project management software development.

Privately- owned, this company actually started 1. It has since changed its business name to match their most successful product: Basecamp project management software that was launched in 2. However, there are quite a few Basecamp competitors that also offer top project management solutions and may be a better alternative for your company. In this article you’ll find a detailed overview of Basecamp and five of its competitors, including their advantages and disadvantages, pricing, most distinctive features, and other key factors that may affect your buying decision. Overview of Basecamp. Pricing: starts at $2. Basecamp offers a comprehensible solution across various devices.

Basecamp is a hugely popular and largely ubiquitous project management solution used by many web agencies, enabling them to manage projects as well as collaborate with clients. Why is it popular? The key features of this tool that contributed to that popularity are: Clean design – Basecamp is designed by web designers for web designers. Simple functionality – Basecamp does not try to do everything. The tool just does what it promised to do but it does it well. Right place, right time – Basecamp achieved critical momentum and lots of good feedback from users and critics. With Basecamp, you can easily share your ideas with others.

It has a discussion area where you can ask questions or share your opinion with others. With this discussion area, you can keep all the information together, which allows you to streamline the communication within Basecamp.

Basecamp also allows you to get Daily Recap emails, keeping you updated about the status and progress of your projects and tasks. If you need another task to be added within the tool, you can easily do it right from your email and send the task to Basecamp.

Then, it will appear in the system for your team to see. In addition, you can inform everyone about progress updates on any project or task you are doing. The tool also allows you to contribute to various discussions using your email and inform others of the topic so they can quickly respond, even if they are not logged in. Art Of War 2 Bluetooth Cracker more. While Basecamp indeed has a lot of amazing features, there have been some criticisms of it as well. For instance, its task management still has a lot to be improved.

There is no way to make a task dependent upon another in Basecamp, something which could be a problem when you are trying to schedule upcoming work. When adding a task, you are likewise unable to indicate its estimated duration or delegate the task to various users. Because of these flaws, Basecamp may not be the ideal project management solution especially if your projects have strict deadlines to meet. Basecamp also has no time management tools and Gantt timeline charts. It also does not provide you with any reporting tools, making data analysis and arriving at informed decisions more difficult. Finally, it does not support milestones, so there is no method to monitor these major events from within your system. To be fair though, Basecamp’s design is easy to use and understand, so many companies may be happy with what they get with that sofware.

If you’d like to learn more about this tool feel free to read our detailed review of Basecamp. Our team has evaluated Basecamp with a solid score of 9. However, there are at least several equally good or even better project management solutions that may work better for your company. Wrike. Pricing: free for teams of up to 5 users; premium pricing starts at $1. If there is a project management solution on this list that astounds both users and review sites, it is Wrike. One of the best project management solutions available in the market, Wrike garnered the highest score of 9. Finance. Online. com.

The tool has likewise been the winner of our Supreme Software Award as well as our Best Project Management Software Award for 2. If you’d like to get more information about why this software is so amazing you can read our detailed review of Wrike. Currently, Wrike is definitely the leading project management solution in our Saa. S & B2. B directory. If that’s not enough to convince you, you can always test a free version of Wrike on your own. All you have to do is start Wrike free trial. Wrike is a project management solution that can give your business real- time project insights.

It was created with the objective of making your business operations faster and more transparent. Wrike can serve as your business project hub, enabling users to discuss tasks and ideas quickly, track schedules, and securely store files. With Wrike, users can organize projects and tasks within a single workspace. They can also easily access any uploaded files.

You can delegate tasks, collaborate in discussions or track schedules using interactive Gantt charts. It also has built- in analytics tools that can give you a fast visual update on the progress of your projects.

Wrike is ideal for teams and companies of all sizes, from single entrepreneurs and small companies to Fortune 5. Tech companies, marketing departments, social media companies, and any other firm that requires project management solutions can benefit from using this solution. Google, Adobe, HTC, Electronic Arts, and Pay.

Pal are among Wrike’s major clients. If you want to learn more about how this sofware works you can find a lot of useful information in our detailed review of Wrike. Asana. Pricing: starts at $2. An overview of Asana interface. Asana is another of the significant Basecamp competitors. It’s a project and task management solution that will enable your team to communicate and collaborate more efficiently. You can use Asana to create projects and tasks as well as add employees to your projects/tasks, collaborate on projects, or include employees’ profiles in your comments, ensuring everyone is in on the same page.

Asana takes away the need to use email in discussing your projects. With their app you will be able to follow and search all public tasks. Asana also allows merging tasks with just a single click, seting up workflow, handling tasks according to set priorities, getting updates and completion notifications, setting due dates, adding followers to a task, and many more. Apart from its basic task management features, Asana offers numerous integrations with popular third- party software and services.

Asana is a good choice for companies and teams of various sizes and shapes that need crucial teamwork. It is primarily used in healthcare industries, designing teams, technology firms, and marketing teams. Dropbox, Disqus, Foursquare, and Virginia Tech are among the major clients of Asana. Our experts evaluated Asana with a very good score of 9. If you would like to find out more about this app you may want to read our detailed review of Asana. JIRAPricing: starts at $1. A brief look at Jira interface.

Next competitor that fights with Basecamp for a chunk of the project management software market is JIRA. This tool was designed to help you capture, assign, and set priorities to your work. It enables you to manage the project development process making sure all things will be covered, from start to launch.