|
|
|
|
|
|
One Task List is an operating principle developed by Entry Software Corporation in 1999. The concept was introduced to the business community in 2003, as TeamHeadquarters was expanded from a project management solution to include help desk functionality.
Combining project management and help desk software made perfect sense to the knowledge workers: for many, their days are split between proactive project work and reactive support work. Having both types of work managed in a single system creates efficiencies and makes it easier to prioritize. However, the TeamHeadquarters help desk function is rapidly adopted for many other functions, such as defect tracking, risk management/tracking, issue management, administration, and... project management.
Project managers often turn to the help desk software, rather than the classic project management function. To understand further, look at the nature of these very different types of software:
Help desk software is used to manage smaller, disparate bits of work. "Tickets" can be created in moments, routed to others, and deferred to a future date/time. There is little or no relationship between tickets, so they can be created, reassigned, deferred, or closed with little concern for their impact on a larger plan. Tickets are good for managing work.
Project management software is used for planning larger collections of inter-related work. There is a presumption of order, scheduling, and more complex rationalization of the resources needed to deliver the work. The most common output is a plan, and it's less common that the software is used for directing, tracking, and reporting the actual minutiae of activities performed by the workers. Project management software is good for planning work.
In practice, many projects are not complex enough to warrant the investment in traditional 'project planning'. When the project is smaller, the resources are known, and the work is understood, some projects managers have more success in assigning the work via tickets. It is likely that the work will be more closely managed this way.
Here is what we found:
The basic function of "help desk" software is to describe, track, and satisfy an individual, discrete business requirement. It is, fundamentally, a bring-forward system because tickets can be future-dated for follow-up. The 'ticket' might be satisfied in one step or many steps. It might be satisfied by one person or many. However, this type of function is under-deployed, because it's needed and used for more than just technical support:
Second and third line support. Many organizations use a commercial help desk package for first line support, but do not license the solution for second and third line support personnel who are infrequent users. As a result, the most costly, limited, and specialized resources are interrupted for support but given little more than email and a phone to manage the work. It becomes difficult to manage, optimize, and measure the true cost of support.
Internal support. Most organizations have no formal way of managing, prioritizing, and tracking the costs of 'internal support', from fixing printers to installing software on the manager's notebook to diagnosing network problems.
Informal work that is not budgeted, allocated, or centrally tracked.
Feature planning, especially in software companies and IT departments.
Risk Tracking, which is often done with spreadsheets.
Administration, such as an ad-hoc request for an absenteeism report.
Fundamentally, project management software assumes that:
Work is planned and estimated before it is executed.
There is a granular work breakdown to tasks that are no larger than, say, 4 hours.
The allocation of a worker's time is distributed evenly across work days, so that everyone is working at full capacity but not scheduled above their capacity.
All task estimates are reasonably close to what it will take to complete the work as described.
All workers rely universally on project plans to determine what to do... all day, every day.
The project manager will continually monitor the work and maintain the plan so that all of the above statements are true... all day, every day.
These conditions require a project manager whose first priority at all times is project management. In practice, many project managers have other duties as technicians, programmers, analysts, managers, testers, etc. It is common that project teams are not working from the plan, or don't even have a current copy of the plan. The software is not always used where it was intended to be used.
|
With One Task List, we're no longer concerned with the labels "project management" and "help desk"; we think more about the actual business need and the user's need to plan, manage, track, and report on their work. |
>>> Next: What is One Task List?
