Project Manager Help
Table of Contents
Motivation
Keeping track of our aspirations and accomplishments helps us:
- Understand the context of our own and each other's work.
- Eliminate redundant or counterproductive tasks.
- Plan our strategic milestones and next steps.
- Demonstrate what we've been able to accomplish to funders, press, and other supporters.
How To Use The Project Manager
To use xplanner, log in with your username and password. All team members have individual accounts. Interested parties are welcome to use the guest account with username and password: guest
The front page contains a table of projects. Find a project you are doing work for and click on the current iteration.
An iteration is a 3 month period with specific milestone goals we expect to accomplish. We named our iterations alphabetically after kinds of birds. By clicking on the bird name of the current iteration, you will be taken directly to the stories that we are working on within that project. If instead you click on the project name, you would see a list of that project's iterations.
A story is a group of related tasks that advances a project towards completing its iteration milestones. A story has quantifiable success criteria. Click on the name of a story you are interested in to see its description and tasks.
Stories contain Tasks. Tasks can be created, ordered, and then completed. Tasks can either be collaboratively planned before work commences or created on the fly. During the iteration, workers are encouraged to update the stories they've worked on. An update once a week is ideal. Once every two weeks meets expectations.
Use the Edit Time link in the bottom menu of the story menu to estimate the time that you spent working on a task. Include the time that your collaborators spend on the task since only one person can be assigned to a task. Don't forget to include any time that you spend thinking, communicating, and learning in your estimate. Click on Complete Task after completing a task.
Feel free to modify or add new tasks and story descriptions. You can also attach files or paste links to a google group wiki or other webpages. Make the system work for you. If keeping notes on the project manager helps you stay focused, rock on! If not, rock on! Remember to keep the times and task completion up to date, for the reasons listed above.
Workers may be as loose or as rigid with time estimates as they are comfortable. The main reason we track hours for grant applications. Clay has been estimating for all of us since the project began. Just let him know to keep estimating for you if you don't want to track your hours. Our primary concerns are completing tasks and making progress towards our milestones and mission. Working together and having fun are vital. The rest is process to help us be more efficient.
- customer: person who wrote Story
- tracker: person who facilitates development of story
- acceptor/developer: worker signed up for a particular task
FAQ
Add questions here (FAQ: how do I edit the wiki?) or through the project manager.
Short and sweet summary
- Use the system to find open tasks. Mark yourself as the task's "Acceptor"
- Work
- Click "Complete Task" when done
Keep project manager updated at least once every two weeks. Sunday jam sessions are a good time for this.
How to see all your tasks at once
From the projects page, which is the page you first see when you log in, click on *Me* in the bottom menu of the page. From other pages, click on *Me* in the top right menu. On some browsers and operating systems, you can type "ctrl-M" or "alt-M" instead of clicking the link. All tasks that you are involved in should be listed.
How to enter time quickly
Use the answer to the previous question to see all your current tasks. Click on the Clock icon of the task you want to enter time on.
How to use keyboard shortcuts instead of clicking on links
From the projects page, which is the page you first see when you log in, click on *Me* in the bottom menu of the page. Then click on *Edit* from the bottom menu. You should now see boxes for entering a new password. Click the *Update* button when you are done.
What happens if I take longer to complete a story than the original estimation?
No big deal. Just fill in the actual time and the system will give us feedback to help us estimate better later on. That's why we want the planning meetings, where we figure out the stories for each iteration, to be as inclusive as possible, since the more input we have the better we'll do at planning. Estimating hours is a way to see how much we can accomplish that iteration. We try not to bite off more stories than we can chew. If new tasks are discovered, no worries. We're all doing the best we can and we appreciate everyone's efforts.
How to change your password or email
Click on "Me" from the bottom menu of top-right menu of the page. Then click on "Edit". Modify your email or password and click "Update".
How to quickly find what you're looking for on webpages
Suppose you're looking for the [Help] link on the project management site. One way is to use your eyes to scan the page for links, and then read whether those links indicate a help page destination. If links do not stand out from text this scan may take a long time. Or maybe the instructions in this FAQ give the wrong location for a link and confuse the heck out of you (don't forget to correct the FAQ if you encounter this!).
To find text easily, use your browsers "search" or "find" functionality.
In both Firefox and Internet Explorer either click on "Edit"->"Find" or type ctrl-f to instantly bring up the search bar. Start typing for what you're looking for. Matching text on the webpage should be highlighted while you type. On Firefox, check "Highlight all" from the search bar to highlight all matching text as you type. Check whether "Match case" is turned on.
