At Unmanage, we want to capture the minimum amount of info necessary to work on a project. Most systems go the opposite route, wanting to track every stage, every step, every task – then assign each of them a person, a date, a dependency, etc so that it becomes this glorious interwoven masterpiece. But you know what I see when I look at that? A lot of wasted time.
All of those items are going to change as you work. Steps get assigned, then re-assigned – they change focus, or don’t apply and have to be worked around. Dates move constantly. One little thing shifts, and it shifts everything in that project, and then bumps into the next project, shifting it as well. And someone is being paid to constantly go in and update all this stuff that never mattered in the first place.
Trying to remember all your hours, documenting and tracking a half dozen things you already did, being asked to estimate completion dates you know won’t be correct because you aren’t that far yet, is wasted time. It’s like trying to run with an anchor strapped to you. It’s mentally and emotionally exhausting.
When you have fewer people involved in any given project, and they don’t have to track every little thing, they are more free to actually work on the project itself.
Trust your team. Give them simple, flexible tools to help them work and they will get the job done.
