Project Management Tool; webbased / collaborative / task dependencies

Question

I'm looking for a project management tool with the following characteristics;
1) web based
2) collaborative. One person (the project manager) must be able to create tasks and assign them to co-workers. The co-workers must be able to edit them en resolve them, but they should not be able to close or reassign them. So if the project manager has given a task to someone, he can be sure that that task will stay with that person and will be reported back when it is finished.
3) ability to make a task dependent on something else. We find it unpleasant to have to do lists in which there are tasks that cannot be worked on for whatever reason. We want to be able indicate that a task is 'on hold', but that should only be possible when we indicate the on hold reason. This can be 'feedback from external person', 'feedback from other user', 'dependent on other task', 'postpone for x days' etcetera. These categories work differently; 'dependent on other task' will make the task active again when that other task is finished, 'postpone' should make the task active again when that time is elapsed, for 'feedback from external person' it should be possible to create a list of external persons and see the open feedback.

Is this kind of functionality available in any product you know of?

Answer 1

You are very specific, I have been researching many project management tools recently and your 3rd point is something I haven't seen anywhere, this suggests you'd need a custom solution. Lightweight SAAS tool for you could be Basecamp http://www.basecamphq.com/

EDIT: In BaseCamp you would group tasks (in ToDo lists) into Milestones and normally a milestone is not completed unless you sort out all the tasks and ToDo lists, so it will probably give you the dependency structure you need for tasks anyway.

Answer 2

Out-of-the-box Sharepoint. You can create a project template from which you can create multiple instances of a project workspace where a project manager can assign tasks and users can status them. These can then be aggregated up to provide real time status of a project.

Answer 3

• http://phprojekt.com
• http://dotproject.net

Answer 4

Basecamp is a good solution for simplicity's sake, but for more the task-dependent structure you require, I'd look at redmine.

Redmine is an opensource Rails based solution that you can self-host. It's really powerful, and should give you the 'waiting on' options that you require.

Answer 5

Take a look at smartsheet.com, with the new functions you should be able to accomplish much of what you want in a spreadsheet like interface

Answer 6

Check out Intervals. It is a web-based collaborative/group project management tool that includes task tracking and time tracking. The tasks can be grouped into milestones for the dependency requirement.

Answer 7

It looks like HiveMinder (http://hiveminder.com) is what you're after -- I've just started using it, but it looks like it meets all of your criteria. The dependency management, especially, is a big step forward over the tools that offer milestones and goals, etc.

Answer 8

Yes, there is a project management solution specifically for software projects that has those features, including dependency on other tasks:

DevShop

Answer 9

Guys

we are comming out with a prjoect mangement system which is based on RO ( requisite Organization ) principals and framework and will use agile for the prjoect magnement. It is going to be most powerful tool. RO is a very efficient way to run your company, agile makes it faster, RO has specific ways to task people, with 50 years of research and implementation it has become a science , US militiary has been using it for the past 20 years.

regards, amit

Answer 10

A useful hosted PM tool is Liquid Planner. It offers a hosted service with a nice Ajax interface that allows for easy task entry and assignment. One feature that is nice is the use of best-case to worst-case estimates on the effort which then allows for a visual representation of when the tasks become critical. Effectively applying the flag when the task falls into the critical zone.

Also you can assign collaborators to the project with varying levels of usage.

Answer 11

I think this should be possible to do with VisionProject. The only thing I am thinking about is how to do the 3rd option, but since the system is so configurable, it would surprise me if it wasn't possible.

Answer 12

Hello, as a new freelance, I'm looking for the best tool (online) for managing my projects, tasks, todo lists etc.

I wrote a post here: http://julienbayle.net/2010/09/11/project-managements-toolproject-management-features-needed

I tested: - Deskaway - Basecamp and other highrise, backpack 37Signal's ecosystem tools - ClockingIT - ActivCollab and a lot of others.

I CANNOT make my choice. Maybe, you could help me a bit.

I have many different type of projects and I'd need to build templates : - music festival application - workshops/lectures application - interface software design - interface hardware design - courses/training project (I mean, making of courses)

I'd need todo lists linked AND unlinked (independant of) projects.

I tested them for these purposes but sometimes, 37Signal's ecosystem tools seem to fit well, sometimes they seem a bit redundant (there are tasks in highrise, in basecamp etc), or un-sufficient.

You can help me for sure :)

all the best,