How I manage my projects
2013 was the first time I used a “Task tracker”. Till then my team lead used Mantis(bug tracker).
Clients sent me bugs/feature requests via email. Sometimes they sent a document with screenshots attached, which was awesome.
This is why I learnt how to manage my work myself.
In my previous company, we started to use Trello boards.
1 board = 1 project.
Rules, styles, kanban — we never had them.
I just stored data that was useful for me.
Then we used Redmine. We started with HostedReadmine(because it was free and online) — but they lacked a screenshot uploader.
So we installed a local version. It worked only in the office — and was not cool.
In few months it was crashed and paralyzed our work for a few weeks(i had a lot of open tabs in my browser — so I created screenshots and replicated it from scratch)
And we started to use JIRA.
I love JIRA. I saw how elegant experienced project managers can use it, and it’s a corporate standard to use its software development.
It’s cool — when project manager existed in the team and he had “straight hands”.
But without spending time on preparation work — using tools like JIRA is obsolete. It’s like shooting bird with M16.
You can use a stone instead.
I also used Confluence — she is great for inside company documentation. You can talk with client inside — discuss progress, finance, etc.
Initially JIRA did not have an awesome git and google docs integration. It wasn’t even cheap.
And all features, like Hipchat integration(alternative to Skype/Slack) — demanded additional costs.
When our money went off — I started hunting for free alternatives.
I made an export from JIRA — but how to use it? What could I do if I did not use Atlassian products?
Nothing ;) It just consumed space on my HDD.
I chose Asana because I did not want to continue with Trello. Asana was simple, I understood its functioning.
But in some time I quit. I don’t know why…
Right now I use Slack and Github every day, and open Asana each time too in a separate tab… I don’t want to open a lot of other tabs. I am addicted to chrome tabs…
I want to create a Slack bot that will help me manage my GitHub repositories.
you can read it [here]…
If you will open my projects on GitHub — you’ll see that mess.
I realized that these tasks were just OK. Now is the time to change.
So I’m working on creating systematic project plans.
When I decided to build a team with interns — I updated readme file, created few future releases of simple tasks, etc.
In order to simplify things. You can read details [here]
If you have a team — spend time and teach your team members how to use GitHub, how to use flags, labels, cross-links, etc.
I bind tasks together = I create one main task and assign other sub-tasks to the main task.
We also have milestones and releases. You can also use GitHub Project for the same.
Like IDE, I use Atom because it has good plugins and was created by Github Team. When I’m lazy to commit via CLI — I use GitHub Desktop.
But for years I have used Sublime Text as a code editor.
I’m using Astro, in order to minimize the time required to open my mails. Right now my mailbox looks like heaven — beautiful & simple.
I store different documents at Google Docs + Dropbox, but I move a lot of documents to GitHub since it’s conveniently.
I am no more paranoid about my documents as I am not seen as competition…..yet.
Maybe someone in future will create a tool, that will allow storage of passwords in GitHub. It’ll require key generation and some salt to make it appealing.
Interact. Initiate and Involve yourself with us. Clap to motivate!
