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Our office is currently installing an Asterisk based Phone system called TrixBox. Asterisk is a Phone Branching System which allows for corporate phone directories, voice mail systems and other great telecommunication features. Even better is that both of these software systems are also open source.

As I was reviewing the features offered by Asterisk, I did some research into how Asterisk can potentially integrate with Drupal. I learned about this Asterisk-Drupal integration module: http://drupal.org/project/asterisk.

When Appnovation started a few years ago, we did not use any project management tools. We only had a shared folder for managing all the documents associated with each project. Over the past few years, much has changed and we started using a few tools:

1) BaseCamp (www.basecamphq.com)
We use BaseCamp for most our project management. This includes the storage of client contact information, projects tasks, project milestones and project files. We find it to be a really effective tool for storing information. Unfortunately the tool does not have any ticket or bug tracking system.

2) TickSpot (www.tickspot.com)
We use TickSpot for all of our time tracking purposes. The budget feature allows to easily manage the time spent on each project and really figure the projects that we are going over budget on. Before using TickSpot, we were using the time tracking feature on BaseCamp which is not really effective.

3) TRAC

I would like to hear how others are approaching Drupal project management. As a project manager I always look out for best practices so I can work them into my own process. I have not come across a single document online that discusses the specifics of managing
multiple Drupal projects through to completion.

There are a number of factors faced in every project, but two factors that seem specific to Drupal-type projects are distributions of work, and identifying milestones.

Basic project management ideas that also apply to Drupal project management:

•Resources
People, equipment, material;
•Time
Task durations, dependencies, critical path;
•Money
Costs, contingencies, profit, risk;
•Scope
Project size, goals, requirements;

I would like to hone my system for progress evaluation related to Drupal project management.

Thanks for any suggestions on this process.

Known and Unknown

What are ‘known’ risks?
‘Known’ risks are somewhat predictable & proactively managed. ‘Known’ indicates those risk that can be identified, analyzed & planned in advance.

What are ‘unknown’ risks?
Unknown risks are those unable to anticipate and describe. Unknown risks cannot be managed proactively. These risks that result from the uniqueness of the work and they are difficult or impossible to anticipate.

For any project, before starting risk management planning process, ‘Unknown’ risks would be high. But through proper Risk Management Planning process, almost all risks can be explored which keeps ‘unknown’ risks to a minimal number?

In ideal situation, 0% ‘Unknown’ risk possible!(?)