Simple Resource Planner

[Scabutz]

I manager a number of dev teams in multiple locations. At a team level we do all the planning in JIRA using Scrum or Kanban boards. I need at a higher level to be able to plan out projects across all these teams, either at a team level or individual. One team in particular is our BAU/Ad-hoc team who have a constant stream of smaller pieces of work rather than long projects.

I want some software that I can layout the tasks at a high level against each dev. So people down the left hand side, dates across the top, and simple bar lines horizontal. The closest thing I have found is float.com. Thats pretty good, but its based on dates rather than effort. What I want to be able to do is say this task is x man days effort, so if I assign more devs, the end date reduces.

Anybody have any recommendations? If its free even better, not that my company is cheap but the bureaucracy to get through to buy some is like wading through molasses

[sparkyhx]

Float is used where I work - fairly cheap, but is very 'resource' focused rater than Project Focused.

MS Project is expensive but the best

Personally I've used Excel in the past, but i'm pretty good at excel

[pmanson]

I use Teamwork at work but have used Monday.com in the past

[tangerine_sedge]

I assume these are Agile teams, if so then planning their future workload like this is doomed to failure as it's fundamentally not agile...

I suggest that you look into SAFe, especially the role of the RTE.

In the meantime, I suggest you use Excel or similar and plan in big handfuls, i.e. by team and by month/3 month window.

If you really want to plan activity by person then use Excel, and spend every waking hour updating and changing the plan as the slippery buggers keep on changing their minds and slipping deliverables... good luck!

[Scabutz]

tangerine_sedge said:

I assume these are Agile teams, if so then planning their future workload like this is doomed to failure as it's fundamentally not agile...

Dont even get me started. We have tried over and over to stop business behaving like this but they wont, we had a head of engineering before me who was massive agile evangelist. It cost him his job. I wish they would give up and just do waterfall and give us time to plan

[Scabutz]

Float does 90% of what I want. I have created an Excel sheet to do it but it became a bit of a mess

[sparkyhx]

Scabutz said:

Float does 90% of what I want. I have created an Excel sheet to do it but it became a bit of a mess

I'm new to float, but not found anyone who says it can present both a resource view and a project view like MS Project can.

Not seen resource planning in Teamwork - also used where I work.

[tangerine_sedge]

Scabutz said:

tangerine_sedge said:

I assume these are Agile teams, if so then planning their future workload like this is doomed to failure as it's fundamentally not agile...

Dont even get me started. We have tried over and over to stop business behaving like this but they wont, we had a head of engineering before me who was massive agile evangelist. It cost him his job. I wish they would give up and just do waterfall and give us time to plan

Don't get me wrong I'm an agile convert after years of waterfall development.

Therefore I'd argue that agile is better, but it needs senior management and a business in alignment or else people end up getting annoyed.

The agilists get annoyed as the businesses focus on milestones over working functionality and the business gets annoyed at the inability of the agilists to commit to delivery deadlines...

It sounds like the company needs to decide what its doing and stick to it.

[Scabutz]

tangerine_sedge said:

Scabutz said:

tangerine_sedge said:

I assume these are Agile teams, if so then planning their future workload like this is doomed to failure as it's fundamentally not agile...

Dont even get me started. We have tried over and over to stop business behaving like this but they wont, we had a head of engineering before me who was massive agile evangelist. It cost him his job. I wish they would give up and just do waterfall and give us time to plan

Don't get me wrong I'm an agile convert after years of waterfall development.

Therefore I'd argue that agile is better, but it needs senior management and a business in alignment or else people end up getting annoyed.

The agilists get annoyed as the businesses focus on milestones over working functionality and the business gets annoyed at the inability of the agilists to commit to delivery deadlines...

It sounds like the company needs to decide what its doing and stick to it.

Yep. Me, the devs, product, everyone wishes we could adopt a full agile approach. Business just dont get it and we continue in this hybrid model. Wagile as someone called it. ste is my preferred nomenclature.

[dmsims]

Scabutz said:

Yep. Me, the devs, product, everyone wishes we could adopt a full agile approach. Business just dont get it and we continue in this hybrid model. Wagile as someone called it. ste is my preferred nomenclature.

That made me laugh

[eein]

Scabutz said:

tangerine_sedge said:

Scabutz said:

tangerine_sedge said:

I assume these are Agile teams, if so then planning their future workload like this is doomed to failure as it's fundamentally not agile...

Dont even get me started. We have tried over and over to stop business behaving like this but they wont, we had a head of engineering before me who was massive agile evangelist. It cost him his job. I wish they would give up and just do waterfall and give us time to plan

Don't get me wrong I'm an agile convert after years of waterfall development.

Therefore I'd argue that agile is better, but it needs senior management and a business in alignment or else people end up getting annoyed.

The agilists get annoyed as the businesses focus on milestones over working functionality and the business gets annoyed at the inability of the agilists to commit to delivery deadlines...

It sounds like the company needs to decide what its doing and stick to it.

Yep. Me, the devs, product, everyone wishes we could adopt a full agile approach. Business just dont get it and we continue in this hybrid model. Wagile as someone called it. ste is my preferred nomenclature.

The "Agile vs Business" is a bit of a religious war that rages in many companies. I live it, but have to sit awkwardly across both sides and try and get them to work together. Like most religious wars neither side is right or wrong and the answer is a bit of somewhere in the middle plus tolerance and understanding of the other side. Anyone where I work that is too extremist on either side does not survive.

On the OP question, I am massively against 'tools' in my business area, although I allow some to creep in now and again. Tools are too often seen as the way to do thing properly - in reality you need to know how to do things properly yourself and then a tool just makes the admin easier. However unless used regularly by most of your teams a tool often becomes a barrier to adoption of a process. So I, and much of my team, stick with Excel for many things (probably too many...). At least then we can prove the process we are trying to achieve and then decide if excel is the long term answer of if we do indeed need a tool - in which case our 'prototyping' in excel will have informed us sufficiently to select a tool.