Tools for managing multiple projects/tasks

[BrianB4233]

Hi all,

I apologize in advance if this isn't the correct forum or place to ask this question but I've found sparse info elsewhere. Anyway, I'm a programmer that is on multiple projects with separate tasks for each, and often, it gets muddy for me. So I'm querying this community to ask what resources/software others use to keep track of these things, e.g., Excel, something SAS includes that I'm not aware of or haven't utilized, Microsoft Project. 

As a note, I do have Microsoft Project but the learning curve seems to be a bit steep and it seems to be aimed more towards a project team rather than an individual.

Thanks, Brian.

[SASJedi]

What are you attempting to manage? For code, I use GitHub (or a SAS internal version of GitLab) to keep project code. As for managing my time, I generally use my Outlook calendar to manage all of that. If you are responsible for project planning, estimating, and management, MS Project is the best tool I've found for that. The learning curve is worth it, especially if you manage a team for each project. It can help you ensure no-one gets over-committed, etc. 

[SASKiwi]

What tools does the organisation you work for use? Most will use project management and change management tools of some kind and its better to use the ones already in use than to choose something completely different. As already mentioned, git is great for change management. Git integrates well with MS DevOps which is great for project management as well. Ask around your organisation - what is already being used?

[Quentin]

Are you trying to manage stuff for a team, or 'just' your own work?

We've gone agile at work, so each project has backlog of stories, and stories get pulled into sprints and assigned to you etc.  But I don't actually use that to track my own work.

I keep a simple to-do list in Outlook, and also have a OneNote notebook for each project that has meeting notes, more detailed todos, reference materials,etc etc.

Personally, I don't feel like I can really work on multiple projects well at the same time.  The switching costs are too high. So typically, even if I have 3-4 projects ongoing, for a given week I will try to focus on one.  And the others might just get bug fixes is support or planning meetings.  Because with all the meetings and other stuff, a week can get short fast.  And for real work development work, I need a 3 hour chunk of time, and I don't get a lot of those in a week, sadly.

I'm not managing projects, so I've never learned MS project and never made gant charts etc.  Even before we were doing agile, I always l pretty much always worked in places where analytic work was an iterative process, rather than trying to plan out and track a 6-month deliverable.

[Sajid01]

Hello @BrianB4233 
if you have MS Projects, it is worth the time in learning it.
You can excel too but it epends on what you need and what is the practice in your organizations.

[AllanBowe]

Like @SASJedi we run ALL our SAS projects from VS Code.

Personally I also use VS Code for managing my tasks, specifically a tool called "Journal".  There are two extensions needed to make best use of it:  https://sasjs.io/vscode/#journal

[EduardoAlaza331]

Do you work by yourself or are you part of a team? In the case of having multiple projects it’s complicated to keep track of all of them by yourself.

[SASKiwi]

The OP never replied to any responses so I doubt there is any point adding to this post.

[EduardoAlaza331]

I worked as a freelancer for a small company that provided assistance for refugees. Because it was a new project, the managers couldn’t keep all the tasks organized. We worked with mostly freelancers and volunteers, so it was difficult to schedule the work hours of each individual. Also, we lost track of which person completed which task. Finally, we went to exposit.com, who helped us with developing a custom software to keep the business organized and running.