Project management tool for just 2 people?

Question

Hi,

We are a two people team of software developers and have just started working on a new project. We have a myriad of very small non-critical tasks and some bigger tasks which are usually time-critical to manage. I am looking for a tool that would allow us to

1. Add, keep track of and prioritize tasks
2. Manage dependencies between tasks
3. Keep track of task due dates & completion estimations
4. Give an good overlook of overdue tasks
5. Keep track of regular tasks (such as a recurring SEO day every Friday)
6. Generate daily schedules from all this
7. Do all of this without too much effort. I know there is no free lunch, but still we need to minimize overhead as much as possible, especially given the fact that we are only two people.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, but please bear on mind that I am looking for something to cover all of the points above.

Disclaimer: I know a similar question has been been asked [here][1] before, but the priorities he asked for in that thread are much broader.

Edit: Free is good, but it is not the primary criterium. I would rather spend a few dollars per month if that gives me something that covers all of my priorities.

Also, we have free access to MS Project, but I have not downloaded it yet. Is it too bloated for managing just two people?

Edit 2: FogBugz looks like a good bug tracking database, but it does not seem to cover points 2,5 and 6 above, so it does not seem to fit our requirements.

Answer 1

I would suggest RedMine

Answer 2

I'm not sure if it fits all your needs, but you can take a look at http://openproj.org/

Answer 3

Fogbugz is free for startups of under two people and uses evidence-based scheduling.

Answer 4

Use FogBugz! It's free for use by up to two people (the hosted version). It combines task tracking, bug reporting and project management.

Answer 5

Maybe tracks? http://www.getontracks.org/

Regards Friedrich

Answer 6

I use Pivotal Tracker. A web based tracking tool which is free.

1. Add, keep track of and prioritize tasks -> YES
2. Manage dependencies between tasks -> NO
3. Keep track of task due dates & completion estimations -> YES
4. Give an good overlook of overdue tasks -> YES
5. Keep track of regular tasks (such as a recurring SEO day every Friday) -> NO
6. Generate daily schedules from all this -> YES
7. Do all of this without too much effort. I know there is no free lunch, but still we need to minimize overhead as much as possible, especially given the fact that we are only two people. -> It took me about 15 minutes to get started.

I have nothing to do with Pivotal except use it regularly.

It is a free tool, but the authors have said that they make no promises of not charging for it in the future.

Answer 7

To really cover all your points, I believe you'll need something custom. Another thing I anticipate is that your needs might change in a near future and you might want something that scales. That's why I'll got for a custom excel sheet (or an equivalent). It will take you an afternoon to setup and you can update it along the way. If you already know excel, this is definitly the way. Many big companies uses this but I believe it also fit the very small teams.

Answer 8

Have a look at Basecamp - it's not free, but cheap, and I always find it's good to have a tool that does a bit more than your basic needs so that you don't have to drop it as soon as things get more complicated.

The same company also has a nice free tool called Backpack if you just want to do simple task tracking and to-do lists.

Answer 9

I use Assembla.com, but I think it has the same limitations as FogBugz.

Answer 10

We are a two (and sometimes three) person startup. We've tried a couple of packages including Basecamp and Bugzilla (both obviously very different), but have found that for our needs a Google Spreadsheet does the job more than adequately.

• Super quick entry & update of bugs/tasks
• Shared between users with concurrent access
• Versioning
• Immediate view of everything that needs actioning (we just sort according to priority and colour the rows according to status).

It doesn't even begin to cover all of your requirements, but do you really need all that for just 2 people?

Answer 11

I'm still a big fan of SmartSheet http://www.smartsheet.com/ and its free depending on the # of sheets used...

• Add, keep track of and prioritize tasks -> YES
• Manage dependencies between tasks -> Yes (via functions)
• Keep track of task due dates & completion estimations -> YES via reports
• Give an good overlook of overdue tasks -> YES
• Keep track of regular tasks (such as a recurring SEO day every Friday) -> Yes/No, depends on your setup
• Generate daily schedules from all this -> YES
• Do all of this without too much effort. YES - biggest benefit

Answer 12

I recommend you to use Assembla. You can get with just one click and you can later add a lot of extra tools in case you need them:

• Wiki Pages
• Bug Tracking with Ticket Tool
• Simple UI to upload Files
• Messages
• Email alerts

And a lot more advanced tools like Git, Mercurial, etc

Answer 13

I would suggest Intervals. It is a web-based project management tool that charges by the project, not the number of people. It should suit your needs rather well.

Answer 14

If you are willing to host an ASP.NET application and a SQL Server database, BugTracker.NET is quite good. Open source and supports custom columns and ad hoc queries:

http://ifdefined.com/bugtrackernet.html

Answer 15

I would really recommend you look at Hansoft, they offer a free 2-user license. We've used a lot of products including FogBugz, JIRA, TRAC and we're currently on a 8-user trial of Hansoft. I've been using the evaluation license for planning (it supports ghost-resources that don't count towards the 2-user license) for a year now.

It supports Scrum and more traditional waterfall based planning as well as bug tracking.

Regarding your points all seem to be covered except possibly 5 - This isn't something I've seen in any task tracker to be honest. 6 - There is a 'my work' tab which shows all your current tasks which I presume can be filtered for a day only.

Answer 16

MS Project is too bulky for a small team. I believe Wrike.com might meet your needs. It has a bunch of smart features, but it's really easy to use. Gantt chart is very handy for an overview of the projects

Answer 17

I suggest todoyu. It just came out as 1.0 and will stay free. There's an online demo available at https://demo.todoyu.com/

Answer 18

We tried several options, but in the end we went with a mixture of FogBugz and MS OneNote. It offers far less features than I asked for, but it could not be less bulky and it's sufficient for our needs.

Using Fogbugs alone is too slow for small tasks IMO, especially for a very small team like hours. That's why we also have OneNote for assigning very small tasks / bufixes and fogbugs for the more important and / or complicated stuff.

Thank you for all your answers! I am marking this as an answer to indicate that I am not looking for any more suggestions.

Answer 19

Have a look at VisionProject. It is not free, but very well-priced and will help you out with everything you listed. We bought it this spring and are really happy about it.

Answer 20

For just two people, Basecamp/Backpack might be a good start to managing day to day stuff. As for dependencies, you might need to look at something like Assembla.