As a PM I constantly struggle to shuffle information about used-up and remaining time budgets between customer and development team.
After receiving a job from the customer, and after detailing it with the customer, I ask the team for a more or less rough estimate of how long this will take.
I there an existing online (preferrably self-hosted) solution, which allows me to enter a new task, assign a time budget to this task, then have each team member book his or her time spent on the budget and allowing a customer "view only" access? Basically, a water level meter view for the remaining time on a task so I (and everyone else involved) can get an early warning system for tasks that are going over-time.
Edit 1:
I meant it to look kind of like this for the client / me, the PM:
Edit 2:
Sometimes, making a clean visualization for oneself is half the task done.
This is the idea I just got making the above drawing, using the Google Charts javascript:
Now, if only I'd know enough javascript to make this more user friendly, eg. have a place for the team to enter a value, add it, then re-generate the chart. Sigh.
