Apr 15
why basecamp?
Topic: code, general|
Basecamp is an amazing tool for project collaboration. Its core strength is its simplicity. Its built around the key building blocks of every project - Milestones, Todos and Messages. Thats it! Amazingly simple yet no one has done this before.
Here is why you should use basecamp for your projects.
Traditional project planning includes 20th-century techniques such as -
- creating a MSProject plan (which only ONE person sees, the person that created it)
- having extended status meetings to discuss the completion percentages of each task that week…”is it 60% or 65% ?”
- then send an email to the SAME people that were in the meeting about the status
- if a different project is dependent on a specific task in your project, that project’s lead has to talk to you in PERSON or EMAIL to know when that dependent task will be completed (dont ever think that lead will open up your MSProject plan…if you think so, you are naive)
- if there is a problem completing the task on time – the engineer informs the lead, the lead changes the MSProject plan and ASSUMES all other project leads dependent on that task will constantly OPEN MSProject plan to stay connected (oh yes, of course you send emails…ah, more emails, a joy to search)
- just imagine you are a collaborating with multiple projects…they each have their own SEPARATE MSProjects. Are you serious about OPENING EACH AND EVERY MSProject and somehow mentally extrapolate the dependency dates of your specific tasks (oh, yes – of course you will call a meeting for clarification, then followup with many emails and call another “decision” meeting etc)
Enough, Break out!
Go Basecamp-ing
- Basecamp provides a unified view of all projects.
- No need to keep track of email threads about projects. All messages are in one place. Project based. Searchable.
- No more silly project plans and weird guestimates. Just set milestones and to-do lists for the milestones.
- Messages can be tagged to a milestone.
- And Basecamp is great for Scrum!
To top it all, its built by some very opiniated folks.
July 21st, 2006 at 23:47
[...] Jeff Bezos might finally bring AMZN to profitability. How? He just invested in 37Signals, the company that makes the amazing project collaboration app Basecamp. I have written about the awesomeness of Basecamp. I used it religiously everyday. For Scrum iteration planning, iteration tracking, as a burn-down “chart” etc etc. My team clearly sees the advantage. It gels the project together. (I also use their Backpack [...]
July 30th, 2006 at 17:51
[...] As you would expect from a geek, I decided to code my status reports. As I have mentioned earlier, I use Basecamp for project collaboration. The Basecamp API was released a few weeks ago. And Quirkey has a PHP wrapper for the API. Sweet. All I had to do is decide on what stuff to include in the report and the design of the report itself. [...]