Re: [Planner Dev] (no subject)

[Jani Tiainen <redetin luukku com>]

Polar Finnish kirjoitti:
> > Jani Tiainen redetin at luukku.com
> > Wed Jan 26 08:03:40 CET 2005
> >
> > Polar Finnish kirjoitti:
> >
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > I'm new to planner so mabye this functionallity alread exists 
> > > somewhere, so please bare with me.
> >
> >
> > Feel free to implement any, some or even all of those. Planner is Open 
> > Source after all...
> >
> > > The thing I was missing, although a rudiment is implemented in the 
> > > calendar,  is how to treat resource constraints. I will clearify with 
> > > some examples.
> > >
> > > How do I plan a person who is available 30% january-june then 0% july 
> > > 75% august-december.
> > > - The only way I found out was to edit every day in the calendar. Not 
> > > very effective ;-)
> >
> >
> > True. Calendar handling in Planner is pretty primivite but maybe 
> > someday... Maybe.
> >
> > > How do I plan an aircraft, 100 % available in may, but with the 
> > > constraint that I only have a certain amount of money for fuel.
> > > - The only way I found out was a post-it note and a brain (not always 
> > > available though).
> >
> >
> > Well, how do you know that you have enough money for fuel? Not without 
> > attaching something to accounting software or doing by hand so what's 
> > the difference?
>
> I was thinking the plane as a resource, it is assigned to a task, i.e. 
> monitor potential
> oil leakage in the baltic sea. The task has constraints, availibility 
> and budget. So the
> amount of money is an input, just as the availibility.
> The task also has a subtask for each flight pass, consuming a part of 
> the budget.

Oh... Well, in anycase you have to have input from somewhere and then 
rules to decide what to do. This is still a bit out of scope for project 
management as you can see, Planner is pretty much dedicated to human 
resources.

> > I don't think that funding is part of project management software, at 
> > least for people that Planner is targeted for.
> >
> > And AFAIK not even (in)famous "MSProject" doesn't handle financial 
> > constraints - it can calc how much whole project will cost but nothing 
> > more.
> So, mabye this will make Planner the MSProject killer ;-)

Not until you get (native) Windows version. And that's what I'm trying 
to do. A bit difficult tough...

> > > So my sugestions are the following.
> > > 1) Make the calendar easyer to use on per week and per month basis. 
> > > Day to day basis is to fine
> > >     grained. Also add the possibility to use percentage instead of 
> > > working hours.
> > > 2) Add the possibility to add finacial constraints on resources/tasks 
> > > and projects.
> > > 3) It would be really nice to be able to import/export the calendars 
> > > in i.e. vCalendar format.
> >
> >
> > That would be nice too.
> >
> > > Why do I want these changes?
> > > 1) In bigger organisations usually you're not interested in whom is 
> > > doing what on an hour basis, it's more common to think in percentage 
> > > availibility on week or month basis.
> >
> >
> > Some will be interested - it's just about level of grainess that is 
> > needed.
> >
> > > 2) Sometimes you have several fundings, and some are wery dedicated 
> > > to certain resources/tasks and projects.
> >
> >
> > IMHO project management as such and financial stuff should be kept far 
> > away from each other unless you can access directly financial data.
> I can see a point here, you don't want the Planner project to be too big 
> and hairy
> I guess.
> But the financial data often only exists on pieces of paper from the 
> above bosses
> or in the projekt manager's head, so in a way you have direct access to 
> financial data.
> As I see it one part of a project manager's duties are to stick to the 
> budget, so why
> don't help him/her with that in the planner tool?

Well Planner can be big but not hairy. And in theory it is supposed to 
be expandable via plugins.

I personally don't have anything against any expansions if someone does 
them, I've other, pretty ambititious Plan(ner) - windoze version..

And what comes to design, as Planner is mainly intended to be tool for 
software development projects (see end of text for more), there you 
usually have to worry about time - not money... At least in context of 
constraining project management.

> > One solutios is to use milestone as such, "airplane is 100% ready but 
> > do we have enough money to fuel it up?" if yes project is finished if 
> > no you have to get more money from somewhere. This is most common 
> > style that I've seen used.
> >
> > And in general it shows up very bad thing to just start to do 
> > something and wish that money wont run out - no wonder that many great 
> > projects is killed due financial troubles. :)
> I agree.
>
> > > 3) It would be nice to be able to syncronize with other calendarsystems.
> >
> >
> > Definitely.
> >
> > Not to mean be rude but what you makes think that anybody wants to do 
> > these changes? =)
> I know I'm a bit naive and mabye I've misunderstood something but I thougth
> that Planner, although open source, is driven by Imendio and I expect the
> company to have some kind of interest to make this software attractive
> so thay can sell their consulting services to the users.

Well, err.. Hmm... How this goes..? Err, Planner is OSS, run by Imendio 
and specially by Richard Hult. Originally Planner was named as MRProject 
and was driven by CodeFactory Ab.

And for a note: I'm not affiliated with Imendio in any way.

And since Imendio (if I understood correctly) mainly sells software 
developement consulting it's very obvious that Planner concentrates on 
those features altough you can use it for other projects too.

> Anyhow I just wanted to vent some of my ideas and see what the responce 
> from
> the developers was because I think Planner is really good. And if I 
> could get the
> above functionality, especially the calendar issues, I would certainly 
> use it as my
> personal planner tool. Mabye I will dig in to the source.

Lately it has been a bit quiet... For a reason or another. But check 
sources out and dig in.

And what comes to developers we're arrogant, ignorant and pretty much 
lazy as well.. =)

--

Jani Tiainen