Some questions concerning features of TaskJuggler
Guy Tig
(or decimal fractions of hours) ?
2. Can a task be forced to commence at a precise time on a specified
date overriding other lower priority tasks (basically, making it
behave as if it was an appointment)?
Thanks in advance.
Grégoire Barbier
> 1. Can the time assigned to a task be specified in hours and minutes
> (or decimal fractions of hours) ?
>
almost any time in TJ can be specified in units from minute (min) to
years (y), for instance
task t "T" {
effort 10min
}
however, if you use effort or duration that are not a multiple of 1
hour, you should probably specify the timingresolution in the project
section, since it's of 1h by default
maybe you'll be interested too in specifying loadunit taskreports
I'm quite surprise since I personaly rather use TJ for scheduling things
over months, not to micro-manage resources minutes after minutes, but I
hope this helps.
> 2. Can a task be forced to commence at a precise time on a specified
> date overriding other lower priority tasks (basically, making it
> behave as if it was an appointment)?
>
maybe the booking property of a resource is what you're looking for, but
I'm not sure to understand exactly what you want.
--
Gregoire Barbier :: g (at) g76r (dot) eu :: +33 6 21 35 73 49
Guy Tig
The following is a more detailed and, I hope, a clearer example:
Let us assume that today is August 7. I am working on various tasks of Project X. I am the only resource. I must meet the Project X Boss in his office on August 28 between 1:15 pm and 3:37 pm for a project funding increase "meeting" (an extremely important and urgent task otherwise the project may be stopped or cancelled).
In this situation, I would like to set other project tasks at lower priority levels (say, the low of 1 to the almost highest, 8) and set the "meeting" at the highest priority level (say, 9), which must start at 1:15 pm on August 28 lasting for an effort?/duration? (not sure of the applicable correct TaskJuggler terminology) of 2 hours and 22 minutes.
Thus the "meeting" becomes an appointment overriding all other project tasks in the ongoing Project X.
Can I do this in TaskJuggler?
Thanks in advance,
Guy
Grégoire Barbier
> 2.1. (Note: I am trying to determine whether TaskJuggler can perform a
> specific function which I want a task/project management application
> to perform. The specific function is the ability of a task management
> application to be able to manage tasks and appointments in a seemless
> manner.)
>
> The following is a more detailed and, I hope, a clearer example:
>
> Let us assume that today is August 7. I am working on various tasks of
> Project X. I am the only resource. I must meet the Project X Boss in
> his office on August 28 between 1:15 pm and 3:37 pm for a project
> funding increase "meeting" (an extremely important and urgent task
> otherwise the project may be stopped or cancelled).
>
> In this situation, I would like to set other project tasks at lower
> priority levels (say, the low of 1 to the almost highest, 8) and set
> the "meeting" at the highest priority level (say, 9), which must start
> at 1:15 pm on August 28 lasting for an effort?/duration? (not sure of
> the applicable correct TaskJuggler terminology) of 2 hours and 22
> minutes.
>
> Thus the "meeting" becomes an appointment overriding all other project
> tasks in the ongoing Project X.
>
> Can I do this in TaskJuggler?
>
Yes you can.
You only need to know that Taskjuggler calls an "appointment" a "booking".
When a resource is booked for a given task on a given time interval, TJ
no longer change its schedule.
AFAIK this feature has been designed for project follow up, but it can
handle appointments in the future.
However, I personnally think that it's a bad idea to do micromanagement,
with any project management tool, or even without any tool at all.
I think that a meeting is not a task. I think that "reporting" is a
task, even "attending to periodic meetings with the boss" can be a one.
But "meeting #43" is not a task, it's something done as a part of a task.
I feel like if you were about to manage your calendar with a project
management tool.
It's a pity that you don't know if the meeting will ends rather à 3:37
pm and 13 seconds or 3:37 pm and 47 seconds, you would have been able to
add a 30 seconds task "call my wife in a hurry". ;-)
Chris Schlaeger
task with priority 1000 will have the same effect assuming you don't
have other conflicting priority 1000 tasks in that period. The task
can be time locked with 'period'. TJ does not support a resolution
smaller than 5 minutes, 1 hour is the default.
Chris
inbasket
[Error Correction: from Guy Tig date: Aug 7, 2009 08:32 (North America Pacific Time);
in para. 2.1; "seemless" should read "seamless".]
2.2
*
2.3
*
Again, it depends on how micromanagement is defined.
To me, if I delegate a task to another person, and, then, stand behind the person's back giving instructions or watching, how the task is being done ------- that is micromanagement.
It is bad for the morale of the other person and is, invariably, a waste of my time
To me, if I am the person doing the task on my own, then the term "micro-management" should not apply as long as my level of detail in the project management process is appropriate to the task.
It is the level of detail which may the issue you are hinting at.
A count-down in a project may be an example where I may attempt to justify micro-management because of the high stakes.
As an example, my company may be assigned "Project New Year", in September, 2009, for counting down the new year 2010, (10-9-8- ... etc.) in the Times Square in New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square_Ball
The project comprises, buying the material, making the ball, raising it to the top of a pole on the One Times Square building, dropping it precisely at midnight of the new year and cleaning all the garbage from the Square after the people have finished celebrating.
If I do not "micromanage" the ONE task of lowering the ball precisely to coincide with the midnight of the New Year, accurately to the last second, my success in the rest of the "Project New Year" would not matter and my company may never get the job again. (Note: My present understanding is that, in TaskJuggler, this task of lowering the ball would be a "booking" lasting about 15 seconds starting precisely at 23:59:45 pm on December 31, 2009, overriding priorities of all other tasks. Auto-correction. More precisely, the "booking" would be 5 minutes, as Chris has pointed out in his post, since 5 minutes is the smallest amount of time that can be defined. So, the ball could be dropped within 5 minutes of midnight, before or after? So, the New Year New York crowd could get unruly at the lack of micro-management to make it happen precisely at midnight? :-)
2.4
*
The paper-based daily-schedule-planners made a distinction between tasks (e.g. to-do-list) and 'bookings" (e.g. appointments).
When this process was computerised, the same concept were adopted by programmers without questioning the rationale or the appropriateness.
"bookings" had a precise start time and end time. Tasks were put on a to-do list, usually had a priority and had/didn't have a start-time and had/didn't have an end-time. Thus , in case of limited resources (say, one person), one could have or make enough "bookings" in one's life that most of the tasks could remain undone without advance warning from the computer program.
These computer programs were designed to detect conflicts between "bookings" but not the conflicts created by a combination of too many non-conflicting "bookings" and too many tasks.
I have been looking for a time-management or a calendar-type application which would deal with the conflicts between "bookings" and too many tasks, for years and decided to try a project management type program for this purpose, in frustration.
Obviously, a complex project management application such as Microsoft Project would be unwieldy as it takes too much effort to enter even a simple task.
Judging from its home-page, TaskJuggler appeared user friendly but may or may not be the answer for my problem. That is why all the questions.
Since the present time-management and "calendar" applications agree with you and also think that "meeting #43" is not a task, they never attempt to warn me that if I attended "meeting #43", I will never be able to complete an important Task X on my to-do-list.
2.5
*
2.6
*
As soon as the (highest priority) meeting ends at 3:34 pm, I'll enter the completion on my Personal Digital Assitant device. The application will check my to-do-list and the amount of available time, inform me that I have enough time to make a call to my lovely wife to let her know how much I love her. This would produce beneficial results later that evening and I will be a more productive project manager the next day.:-)
That is improved project management!
For this to happen seamlessly, the computer application will have to stop making an artificial distinction between meetings or bookings or appointments or tasks, in order to allocate resources and detect overall conflicts, no matter where they arise.
After all, to me, my life is a project and both "meeting #43" and "meeting my wife in the bedroom" are important to me. Why should my project management software (or life-management software, in this case) scold me whether I call these activities "bookings" or tasks or appointments.
The only reason seems to be that the first programmer, circa 1985, thought that there was a distinction because he/she saw it in the paper-based day-planner.
2.7
Here is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a blogger on Dec 28, 2007:
Note: GTD ( or Getting-Things-Done) is a book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
To them, Time Management consists of Appointments-Management & Task-Management.
Often Appointment Management is shown as an entry on a Day-Timer type calendar and Task-Management.is shown as a list of tasks to be done based on priorities, completion dates & dependencies or, maybe, even as a Gantt chart.
This artificial division leads to a frustrating scenario where the left mind ( using a left-hand-right-hand analogy ) managing Appointments does not know what the right mind managing the Tasks is doing.
Thus, in a hypothetical case, a large number of Appointments may leave a person very little time for the Tasks but the Task management software may not take this fact into account.when managing the tasks
There is a simple solution to this problem: Creating a single stream of time-commitments, be they Appointments or Tasks..
Appointments should be treated as nothing but TASKS with a PRECISE START TIME and ( usually ) PRECISE DURATION to complete the task ( so as to give us a reasonably precise end time).
With this change in thinking, suddenly there is only one list of things to do: Some items on this list require precise start time (= APPOINTMENTS) while others merely need to be done ( =TASKS).
This approach could be looked at as INTEGRATED TIME MANAGEMENT which would be ideal for GTD (Getting Things Done).
"To-Do List" software does not have (at least on its input screen) the ability to give a precise start time for a task. If it did then the precise start times could be used to manage APPOINTMENTS by using a priority higher than that assigned to TASKS.
If To-Do List software had the ability to accept a precise start time for a task, it would also have made a wonderful INTEGRATED TIME MANAGEMENT software and a better tool for GTD where all tasks & appointments could be entered as a single stream of obligations to be met, competing with each other for their place on a person's SINGLE (rather than TWO) calendar(s), based on the required start times, priorities, required end times, available resources, dependencies, etc."
3.
Based on the preceding, would you recommend TaskJuggler for the purpose stated above?
4.
Can the data files be moved from a Linux system to a Windows system ( or vice versa)?
5.
Because of the long post, please excuse typos if any. Thanks in advance
inbasket
According to the Wikipedia, "The TaskJuggler Project was started in 2001 by Chris Schläger."
Thank you, Chris.
7.
Guy Tig
The above posts made by "inbasket" should read as made by"Guy Tig"
Grégoire Barbier
> 2.3
> *
> "I personnally think that it's a bad idea to do micromanagement, with
> any project management tool,, or even without any tool at all."
>
> Again, it depends on how micromanagement is defined.
>
> To me, if I delegate a task to another person, and, then, stand behind
> the person's back giving instructions or watching, how the task is
> being done ------- that is micromanagement.
>
> It is bad for the morale of the other person and is, invariably, a
> waste of my time
>
> To me, if I am the person doing the task on my own, then the term
> "micro-management" should not apply as long as my level of detail in
> the project management process is appropriate to the task.
I agree.
But I think that the appropriate detail level for defining tasks and
scheduling resource is the day, not the minute.
In fact in many cases it's rather the week than the day, and what is
planned for a defined day is often done another day of the week,
depending on what meetings and other appointments have moved meanwhile,
or have been canceled, or added.
It's what my experience showed me, but maybe it does not apply to the
kind of projects that you lead and my opinion is not interestant to your
case.
Anyway we're no longer talking about TJ here, but of project management
in general...
>
> It is the level of detail which may the issue you are hinting at.
>
> A count-down in a project may be an example where I may attempt to
> justify micro-management because of the high stakes.
>
> As an example, my company may be assigned "Project New Year", in
> September, 2009, for counting down the new year 2010, (10-9-8- ...
> etc.) in the Times Square in New York.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Square_Ball
> The project comprises, buying the material, making the ball, raising
> it to the top of a pole on the One Times Square building, dropping it
> precisely at midnight of the new year and cleaning all the garbage
> from the Square after the people have finished celebrating.
>
> If I do not "micromanage" the ONE task of lowering the ball precisely
> to coincide with the midnight of the New Year, accurately to the last
> second, my success in the rest of the "Project New Year" would not
> matter and my company may never get the job again. (Note: My present
> understanding is that, in TaskJuggler, this task of lowering the ball
> would be a "booking" lasting about 15 seconds starting precisely at
> 23:59:45 pm on December 31, 2009, overriding priorities of all other
> tasks. Auto-correction. More precisely, the "booking" would be 5
> minutes, as Chris has pointed out in his post, since 5 minutes is the
> smallest amount of time that can be defined. So, the ball could be
> dropped within 5 minutes of midnight, before or after? So, the New
> Year New York crowd could get unruly at the lack of micro-management
> to make it happen precisely at midnight? :-)
>
If I were to manage such a project, I think I would only have tasks for
the preparation, and a milestone for the D day. No booking, no micro
task. In another tool (maybe just a large table in a text processing
software) I would have the D day planning detailed to the minute (or
even the second). When developing a software I don't need to have a task
"put the cdrom in the hands of the customer", even if it's the only
thing that really matter for him.
Maybe I would fail as a project manager in organizing public events
because I would not use the right project organization, but your example
did not convicted me that a project manager should include micro-tasks
(other than milestone) in his Gantt.
> 2.4
> *
> "I think that a meeting is not a task. I think that "reporting" is a
> task, even "attending to periodic meetings with the boss" can be a
> one. But "meeting #43" is not a task, it's something done as a part of
> a task."
>
> Such an opinion has a long history in time management or "calendars".
> And I respect it.
>
> The paper-based daily-schedule-planners made a distinction between
> tasks (e.g. to-do-list) and 'bookings" (e.g. appointments).
>
> When this process was computerised, the same concept were adopted by
> programmers without questioning the rationale or the appropriateness.
My answer to your questions, from the beginning, is not a programmer
answer (in fact I'm a *very* minor contributor to TJ), it's a user answer.
Therefore maybe some users agree to the distinction between tasks,
appointments and todos...
> "bookings" had a precise start time and end time. Tasks were put on a
> to-do list, usually had a priority and had/didn't have a start-time
> and had/didn't have an end-time. Thus , in case of limited resources
> (say, one person), one could have or make enough "bookings" in one's
> life that most of the tasks could remain undone without advance
> warning from the computer program.
>
> These computer programs were designed to detect conflicts between
> "bookings" but not the conflicts created by a combination of too many
> non-conflicting "bookings" and too many tasks.
>
> I have been looking for a time-management or a calendar-type
> application which would deal with the conflicts between "bookings" and
> too many tasks, for years and decided to try a project management type
> program for this purpose, in frustration.
Once again it's my personnal opinion and it may be wrong, but as a
project manager I rather try to "protect" other resource "against"
unplanified appointments, and concerning my own time, I don't need a
tool to know when there are too many new "urgent" micro tasks, I only
need to have a fast look on my (often paper) todo list for that.
Very interesting, I've never heard about before.
BTW I'm pleased to read in the article that "Some followers of GTD
advocate a 'back-to-basics' approach to personal management, and a
rejection of over-engineered, high-tech solutions in favor of simple,
less-expensive tools such as [paper]" and that "David Allen himself says
he relies on a "vanilla" Palm PDA and records "events of the day" on
paper to be processed later", since I do exactly the same thing than Mr
Allen (with a Palm too, but it may be a coincidence).
I strongly disagree with the preceding, therefore I've never try to find
a way to use TJ to work that way until now.
However, I think that TJ is a good tool to experiment mixing small tasks
with large tasks, because defining a task is very quick (especially for
those who prefer to write pseudo-code rather than to click all over a
window), and may even be automated since the content of the project file
can be generated from another input such as a calendar, a pda todo list,
and so on.
After my previous mail, Chris answered that I was misleading in
suggesting you to use bookings, therefore you may try the same thing
with high priority tasks, such as this one:
task m43 "meeting #43" {
start 2009-8-9-14:40
end 2009-8-9-15:45
allocate me # the resource must be define before
priority 900 # ranking from 1 to 1000, default is 500
}
However you must be careful not to have too much high priority tasks at
the same time. If you have 10 hours of priority 900 work in the same
day, TJ won't warn you that it only allocates 8 hours of such "high"
priority work. To my opinion it's even a general good project management
practice to have very little tasks ranked as "high" priority, since
otherwise this becomes in fact the normal priority and will be managed
as such.
To use such precise timing information, you must add "timingresolution
5min" in the "project" section. This will have an important impact on
CPU usage (however only visible on large projects).
I suggest you add "loadunit minutes" in the "taskreport" sections if you
want to have minute-precise evaluation of the load.