Questions tagged [time-management]
Questions about time management in the context of Project Management. See also http://productivity.stackexchange.com/ for general time management questions.
133
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Should I track time for an hourly project during time taking operations?
I am a freelance programmer and use time-tracker software to bill my hours. Sometimes when I am running some time-taking operation such as building a Docker image, running a CI pipeline and waiting ...
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2
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113
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Time estimation of a product before developing the UI
I work at a newly found software house as an operations manager. I am currently assigned with developing a project lifecycle framework from getting the client requirements to sign off. Constraint is ...
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3
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957
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What's wrong with a status pull?
This morning my manager was trying to reschedule the weekly synch; I pointed out that it was a status pull and might not be worth the effort to reschedule. Manager replied that it was convenient.
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148
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Do we really want tools for our work? [closed]
I am running a small team and I am performing perfectly in my work.
But a few days ago one of my friends told me that we should try a tool or software package that will help increase productivity and ...
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1
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219
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Don't we need dummy activities in this kind of network diagram?
I haven't seen people using dummy activities in this type of diagram. Is it true that they don't need dummy activities? What is the logic?
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2
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What is the concept behind adding dummy activity in network diagrams?
Really confused in this. When to use dummy activity exactly? Can someone elaborate with examples. I have been solving a lot of problems related to this and the more I solve new problems, the more ...
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Recording workers PCs and insight into their activity and effectiveness? How [closed]
How do you monitor your workers and how do you make sure they are not just staring at the screen, and eating chips?
What kind of software or method do you use?
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2
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122
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Todo Note taking and Eisenhower Decision Matrix - Quadrant 2: Not Urgent but Important Tasks
Bases on the theory of the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, one is supposed to dedicate time preferably to the Quadrant 2 (Q2): Not Urgent but Important Tasks. (reference: The Art of Manliness)
Is to-do ...
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329
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Tasks need to be on same day for event
So it's my first time using ms project, so forgive me for messing up terminology. Basically the problem is as follows: I have created 3 main tasks with a few subtasks each. I have then asigned ...
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1
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106
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How do you track employee working hours? [closed]
I've inherited the responsibility of managing a team in my role. I need to track the hours that each employee spends on each project. We're a small startup that lacks an existing process for this task....
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3
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140
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Effect of front-loading tasks on project schedule
Customer wanted to re-prioritize activities and move them up the schedule. This will result in some tasks being carried out in parallel. To avoid over-allocating my resources, we have recommended to ...
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232
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Why are fiscal quarters a thing?
There exists a widespread separation of one year into 12 roughly equal slices. What is the benefit of introducing a very similar one b = floor(a/4)? How is we'll do it 2021Q1 better than we'll be done ...
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4
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382
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Specialist "adopted" onto a scrum team for a project - not fully utilized but being asked to check with SM/team to be "excused" for other job duties
I used an alt account as I'm active on other .SE sites, and I considered whether this would be more applicable to The Workplace but I'm asking here because ultimately I thought it's more a 'project ...
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7
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Is Planning Poker Bad for Software Development Teams?
We have a project manager that is adamant about planning poker. I have found that this adds stress to everyone on the team, and the times are always wrong. We have different skill levels on the team ...
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What to do if a Key stakeholder asks for a new request while my team is trying to meet other important deadlines?
A key stakeholder asked for a new request. It wasn't planned and will take some time to finish. This is peak time for my team and we have other deadlines to meet.
How shall I respond to this key ...
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345
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Managing a junior project manager who is bored
I have a junior project manager working for me. Unfortunately a lot of the work we have been doing lately is slow and comes in small spurts. I know the Junior PM is getting bored because they haven't ...
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322
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Fibonacci scale project estimates: how is it not vulnerable to misunderstanding by management?
The Fibonacci sequence is to assist developers with project estimates. The concern is that we consistently see management use the points derived from Fibonacci sequence estimates to determine project ...
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How to manage delays from external clients
There are many variables to measure when dealing with clients, but to me these are the most important variables that I dealt with:
Clients that are internal or external: If internal, it should depend ...
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2
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108
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Design and architecture considerations for management tool [closed]
I am learning about management and coming from software development I was wondering how I would design a tool to help users manage their software development projects.
When it comes to the data ...
0
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1
answer
409
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What factors can affect the priority of a task? [closed]
Starting from the Eisenhower table, I classify my tasks like this:
It's easy to handle urgent important and unurgent unimportant tasks. The problem is, hardly a task is urgent to me, but most of the ...
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What is the difference between ABCD analysis and Eisenhower method?
According to Wikipedia, the ABCD analysis is:
Activities are ranked by these general criteria:
A – Tasks that are perceived as being urgent and important,
B – Tasks that are important but ...
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121
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How to set dependencies in TeamWork app to cascade delays in one task into dates of other tasks?
Let's say I have multiple tasks that are supposed to be taken care of one after another. Each has its own date of completion.
task 1 - will be completed on 15 march (1 day)
task 2 - will be completed ...
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6
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2
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561
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Product Owner in different time zone from scrum team
I am a product owner for a remote scrum team. I am on the east coast of the US. The scrum team is in India. This is a 10.5 hour time difference. I have been participating in their daily scrum at 6:...
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Tracking hours for Managers/Scrum Master
Developers at my company log hours in JIRA. Managers/Scrum Masters do not log hours that religiously. They would only log for Scrum ceremonies. As a manager, I can see the reason for not adding my ...
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4
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672
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How to avoid the planning fallacy?
The planning fallacy appears especially frequently when estimating tasks in software development. However agile estimation methods like planning poker etc. don't seem to be designed to avoid this ...
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4
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239
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What is the term for actual delivery time will be varied by 4 times from estimation?
I remember I once read in Wikipedia about a law stating that the actual delivering time will always be 4 times less to 4 times more from the estimated time, even when you aware that law and know every ...
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232
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What techniques do you use to establish scope in agile
More than communications skills, lean techniques to discard useless features with no value, more than ask "what do you want?" or "is there anything else?" to the customer.
Reading the book Agile ...
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1
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125
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How to represent an iterative sprint within your schedule list
In an agile approach we can use tools like kanban to plan, measure and monitor sprints. But when we need to use schedule systems like MS Project or any other online collaboration tool that works like ...
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5
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456
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Is it possible to give accurate estimates and planning without tracking time for tasks?
I work within a small team of developers. We don't track our time so we have no data to work off when we give estimates. Basically, I'm wondering if it's possible to have a successful plan and give ...
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Time-budget tracking monitoring for PM and client
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 ...
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JIRA - Story Points & Time Tracking
I've read various questions and answers and I'm really struggling to setup up a Project/Sprint/Story/SubTask to get what we think we need.
In terms of long term planning I've sold my team on the idea ...
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178
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Cost management without time tracking in Scrum
In my company I'm responsible for several software development teams. Lately our managers asked me to establish a time tracking system for our developers to have better overview over the actual costs ...
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1
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55
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A recursive quote/rule about underestimating tasks
There was an interesting quote I read a long time ago that went something like this (It was more like a rule, let's call it the X rule):
The X rule: everyone will underestimate the task assigned to ...
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1
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225
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How to manage large-scale research projects in a research center and measure performance?
I work at a research center that is now going through changes in its administration. The new board of directors calls for a more aggressive and more practical approach to project management and ...
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4
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162
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How can a small web team maximize efficient use of time and prevent redoing work
I'm a member of a small team that does custom websites for pretty much anything. We have the work split into 3 categories, back end and database, JavaScript functionality, and front end design.
...
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3
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491
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How to manage many small projects?
Background
I have recently been promoted to a new job in hardware development, which has two different aspects:
The first one is to lead a small fast prototyping team (3 people including me at the ...
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My team hates planning poker (and the length of planning in general), is there a more engaging and/or quicker way to plan a sprint?
My team hates how long we spend in planning. We're currently spending about 3 hours for a 2 week sprint. I tell them that is actually less than a by the book sprint planning, but regardless they want ...
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How can I improve the team efficiency [closed]
I am 20 years old and together with my friend have been working on side projects since 4 years ago. This summer we finished high school and thought of taking things more seriously.
We took a worker ...
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1
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314
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MS Project time management scheduling
I am trying to figure out if it is possible to make a project auto-predict time usage for my team but only allow each project to use a certain % of time a day.
Ex. I have Project 1-4 and employee 1-3....
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4
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1
answer
908
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How can one Scrum Master do two retrospectives during SAFe PI Planning?
As a Scrum Master for two teams within SAFe, I have the standard scheduling down pat. I can attend all regular meetings and the teams are running relatively smoothly. However, we are working in a ...
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189
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How can I always see the last 30 days in Timesheets?
We use Tempo timesheets to efficiently log work and see logged work.
I like the "last 30 days" view, as I can use it to easily log work on tasks I worked on before. The problem is, this only sets a ...
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4
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Agile team full of part time developers
I often see projects at my company that are full of part-time developers, meaning they work some % on different projects.
Additionally, management seems to be on the Agile hype train. I feel that ...
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6
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291
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How can a small dev team track time successfully? [closed]
I work for a small tech start-up and we are trying to figure out an efficient way for track the developer's time and budget which doesn't take a lot for the dev team to fill in. An efficient way to ...
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Resist doing all the work by myself
My team consists of three people. We are visiting the same school and are working on the diploma project, which should be finished in about one and a half year.
It may seem a bit silly, but I can ...
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585
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How can I stop my remaining estimate to be adjusted?
In JIRA, we have a task for standups and meetings, obviously this task does not need an estimate, but it is useful to have time tracking on it.
However, when I log time on this issue, the remaining ...
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vote
1
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56
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PMP documentation without closing date
I am a banking professional and would like to have a PMP qualification.
My experience is related to projects, but most of them are continuous projects: each project has a start date but not a closing ...
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1
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114
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My Project Milestones Do not Represent My Current Tasks. What should I do to track my project?
I am involved in a project for my summer internship. Prior to the start of the internship, I have set several milestones to help me track the progress made toward reaching the goals of the project.
...
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3
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122
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Agile in Construction
I am a Post Graduate student in Infrastructure Engineering and Management. I want to do a project regarding Agile Project Management.
My questions are:
Is the Agile approach successful in ...
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1
answer
110
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Optimizing the phase model of CMS-project [closed]
We are working since couple of years with an CMS.
Until now our working model was divided in the following phases:
Preparation
Online Meetings
Soft Kick off-online
Scoping ...
3
votes
4
answers
156
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Is it possible to prescribe PM time spent on key activities during a working day?
I will be transitioning from a developer role to a lead/project manager role soon, at a new job. I am not clear how Project Managers spend their day. I have asked this question to my friends and they ...
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