Process With No Name
Invisible project management for developers, and visible project status for managers.
Project Type: Software Project Management
Interface: Console Application / Web Application
Status: Alpha
Introduction
Agile is the best process we have for coordinating development projects. But the industry went a little snake oil on process management. The software produced to help teams develop faster seemed to suck more effort out of the entire team than it saved. But we stuck with it for the sake of a title and reputation in the industry. Pwnn takes a developer-centric approach to managing projects. I made it as convenient and useful as I possibly could while still tracking the data necessary to keep a project on schedule.
How it works
Tasks are tracking in the actual code base using specialized code comments.
//@todo: Create forgot password workflow on user login page
When developers implement that task, they remove it from the codebase. When they commit their work, pwnn will create a perfect summary of the code they changed.
Why it works
Most developers won't bother disrupting their coding to open a new ticket, fill out twenty form fields, assign it to themselves just to close it as fixed. Hell, a lot of developers can't bother to write a decent commit message. Pwnn solves both headaches in one step.
//@bugfix: billing form didn't validate the expiration date
But further still, agile as a process only works if you are estimating every task and collecting actuals every time. In 15 years I have never seen a single company do this part of the agile equation. So pwnn does it for you, time is tracked between commits. And estimates are defined with hashtags in the code comment itself. It will also track interruptions like meetings and breaks.
What about non-developers?
Pwnn will integrate with any plain text file on the network. PM's and Managers can create and track tasks for other users by adding them to a user file. And tasks in the codebase can be owned by the user via their initials or handle:
@mep: add png support #3h
QA and other technical staff are more than capable of running a cli to track their work.
Need more project management?
Pwnn supports a feature tag to group tasks like so:
@feature: User Comments
@todo: Enumerate and estimate tasks for this feature
For comments located in the codebase a reverse tag will help keep loose ends together
//@todo: Upgrade socket library for Android support #User Comments
Pwnn will also produce burn down charts and predict developement timelines based on the number of tasks and average scope creep rates. At no point should a manager need to ask the question "What are you working on today?"
Release Date
I wrote this utility for myself to keep track of consulting hours. It also has an invoicing feature that is mostly hard-coded for me. When I get a chance to improve that and provide a better non-tech user experience I will release this software for community use.