

Blimp: project management for doers - flexterra
http://elweb.co/stuff/blimp-project-management-for-doers/

======
MattRogish
My problem with project management tools is that they often become a brain
dump of every possible little thing folks can think of - and over time, those
things either happen to get done as a side effect of another story or become
obsolete when market, product, or user needs change.

I like "high level" goals that can be prioritized ("User signup flow" is the
most important thing we're working on this week, after that, it's probably
"..."); the details for the high level stories can be done just-in-time.

My perfect PM feature for this is some sort of LRU expiry of stories. If
someone hasn't opened a story (no views) or modified it within the last few
months, move it to an archive. After a certain period of time in the archive,
delete it.

Organizations and dev teams have a memory - if something is important, it'll
be in the collective cache of the team. If something is relatively
unimportant, it's waste (in the lean sense) to write it down until you have to
(shortly before you need to prioritize and use it).

Bugs are the same thing. A bug is usually either worth fixing immediately (aka
"next") or "never". Many bug trackers get clogged with stuff like "on IE7, the
user dialog is 5 px to the right". It's either worth fixing right now or
"never". Delete it, and if another user complains and it's recent enough that
we remember the other story, then it bumps up the priority. But if it happens
long after we all forgot it happened, it's still not important enough to fix.

This would go a long way to keeping the most important things at the top and
avoiding the hell of "Did we have a story for that or something like 6 months
ago?" associated searching. Both Pivotal and Trello have this sort of rosy
picture of the world that folks will only be entering in "this is the most
important thing we must do it this week" sort of stuff, which is unfortunately
not how most project teams work. A more holistic PM tool would take into
account user behavior and have a solution for this. Heck, something like
HackerNews' front page algorithm would be pretty interesting applied to PM.

~~~
flexterra
We are on the same page here. One feature that we implement is the "non-sticky
DOING state". Sorry for the name, we can't come up with anything for that one.

The feature works like this. When you mark a tasks as DOING that state will
only last for 24hrs. After that the "worker" will be notified that the "Blimp
robot" removed the DOING state. The idea is to approach the problem you are
talking about. Many times projects become filled with stuff that nobody works
on. I know this is a very simplistic approach but it's a start. We have a few
cards up our sleeves.

~~~
MattRogish
Win x 1000! I will definitely give Blimp a try!

------
debacle
I'm tired of web-based project management tools. Give me something on the
desktop, that has a UI I can understand and isn't integrated with my browser,
or go away. Anyone with a few hours and a CRUD generator can make a web-based
project management tool.

~~~
SonicSoul
care to explain why you dislike web based apps so much? latency is too
annoying? we use Jira with GreenHopper and it's great. sluggishness is my only
complaint.

it's definitely not easy to develop something like this right.

~~~
debacle
1\. They tie my app to my browser, meaning if my browser crashes (I'm a
developer, it happens), my app crashes.

2\. If I want to tie myself to a particular version, I can't, meaning that if
I don't like a $hot_new_feature, I'm SOL.

3\. The browser is still very limited, and project management is very content
intensive.

One single company willing to do actual applications programming could sell a
ton of software.

------
TonyNib
Very clean design - you've put a lot of thought into this and it shows.

I most appreciate the ToDo->Doing->Done implementation. However it does assume
that all to-do comprise an equal proportion of the job. It doesn't allow for a
list with 10 items, where number 2 is actually 50% of the work. But that's
probably not something easily quantifiable to begin with.

One typo I noticed on the files tab (when empty): "Upload files to share with
you team."

Also I couldn't get the photo upload to work on my settings page. The spinner
would appear then go back to the default image, and saving didn't help.

~~~
flexterra
Thanks for the report, the issue with the photo upload seems to be the cache,
being too agressive. We are fixing it right now.

------
corry
Kudos for the nice design. I think this minimalist, flat, spaced-out, subtle-
palette approach is great for for tools that people spend their whole day in.

~~~
jpdevereaux
Indeed, it feels a lot less "boxed in" than tools like Asana.

------
robterrell
I love the way this looks. This might be outside your area of interest or
might be too laser-focused on developer's needs, but I'd suggest integrating
some kind of post-commit hook support, so a developer can check code in via
svn or git and change the state of a to-do item. That's one thing we used
extensively when tracking projects in Unfuddle tickets that I really miss.

------
metatation
"we have plans for companies of all sizes starting at $12 a month"...couldn't
find a link to more information on pricing.

~~~
flexterra
It slipped our minds. Here are the plans:

\- Free: $0 / 1 project / unlimited users / 10MB of file storage \- Beta
testers: $12 month / unlimited projects / unlimited users / 100MB of file
storage / access to new features including Dropbox support (coming later this
week) which will not count against you file storage allowance.

We have other plans available but they are not relevant right now since the
_beta testers plan_ is the best deal. You can see all plans after you sign up
at <https://app.getblimp.com/company/billing/>

------
ollysb
Global file uploads seems a bit off, could work in fixed length projects but
for ongoing projects it makes more sense to associate uploads with goals.
Thinking about it dropbox integration would be ideal i.e. when a goal is
created a dropbox folder is added automatically at:
dropbox/blimp/project_name/goal

~~~
ollysb
Ha, just found the "discuss" option. Was really wondering how you add more
detail to a task, the whole product makes a lot more sense now.

------
bmelton
The project _looks_ great, but at least for myself, I either need to see a
feature tour or a 7 day free trial or something.

This is probably 'good enough' (and certainly is beautiful) for people not
currently using anything for project management, but probably most of the HN
audience already has something that's working somewhat for what they're trying
to do now, and you're trying to supplant that.

There's almost no amount of screenshots that are going to get me to give up on
the devil I know, so at the very least a product tour that shows interactivity
is needed. Better than that would be a free trial, where I can get in there
and try out some scenarios and compare them to the pain points I already have
with my existing tools.

Like I said though, it really does look great. Fantastic even. But without
being able to click on anything, I don't know that it isn't just pretty.

~~~
flexterra
The app is _free to sign up and use_ for as long as you want.

You can invite as many collaborators as you need. The only limitation is the
number of projects that you can manage simultaneously, one for the free plan.

~~~
bmelton
Ack. I don't know how I overlooked that, I just saw the $12 for unlimited
projects and went from there I guess.

Thanks!

~~~
raheemm
I overlooked it as well.

------
jgnatch
The history section totally looks like Basecamp progress section!

Nice tool though!

~~~
flexterra
Yes it does look a lot like Basecamp's. We had start with something. We are
trying hard to make project history useful. Right now is just kind of a log in
most PM apps (Blimp included). We feel it has potential to do more but haven't
found how to make it happen. We'll keep at it.

------
mikle
So that's why I didn't get anything done today. My project management tool is
not for doers!

All kidding aside, it looks pretty and well designed, but I don't see any
value in yet another project management tool.

------
eduardordm
Just gave it a try. It has the same use case as github issues, at least for
programming projects. That said, I think you should focus on non-programmers.

~~~
flexterra
Initially, our target is digital agencies, design shops and small development
teams. Blimp won't replace Pivotal Tracker for a team of experienced
developers using scrum or other formal agile methodology. But we are OK with
that.

We are trying to fix problems for folks that need help with their PM
methodology. The idea is "trick" them into using a somewhat formal process.

------
justinlilly
Another great tool in this vein of "process, but not too much" is
<https://sprint.ly/>

------
mctx
"You and I know, that when we started our businesses, we where hoping" - did
an h sneak into your were?

~~~
flexterra
ups!

------
mrgreenfur
Looks wonderful, will give it a go.

------
mattdeboard
The "X" on the keyboard shortcut modal doesn't work. You have to press escape.

