How to do everything and forget nothing: ToDo for companies, workgroups and at home

Some years ago, Soviet people still came to work by 9:00, performed a certain function or a single task set during the planning. At 18:00 they were crowded already at the average size and value of the plant, waiting for the final day call. No, I do not want to say that everyone worked only on such factories, huge plants and something similar to them through the research institute access control system. There simply was a mass of enterprises, KPI (KPI applied to a real living person) whose employees were not taken into account. And if there is no flair for anyone, then you don’t need to do this, is a common human rule that grows out of laziness that is common to all of us.

Now everything is different. In individual companies, almost every minute is considered that a person spends on resolving work issues, and which “smokes” or “drinks out” (meaning tea-drinking, which is useless for a working process, or personal, talking with colleagues over a cup of coffee, of course).
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Of course, there are no people following the time of each employee. But literally every possible Goal-systems of automation come on the heels. These are mostly remote web applications (can be placed both on the WWW open spaces and on a local network), in which various tasks are assigned in a certain way. And there the implementation and (very rarely) the quality of these tasks are monitored. It happens, and even money for the actual work done are charged, but ... everything in order.

Corporate Goal-assistants (let's call them “goal-managers”) are both good and evil. Firstly, here all (to whom it is necessary and to whom it is permitted by the data above rights) are all navid. It's good. The subordinate reports on the tasks performed, the supervisor looks at the results and throws more work. Ideally, no personal meetings and meaningless waiting at the door of the authorities, all data processing is done online, and making changes requires some minutes per day.

But then this hated second comes up - the situation described above is utopian and is suitable for companies where they have an idea of ​​the interchangeability of processes for the sake of common gain. Such companies are frankly small. In Russia, firms dominate in which all possible methods of setting and controlling targets are applied at once. A new system is being introduced and it would be nice to abandon the old one. But no. There are planners who steal precious watches. And there are offline reports. Despite the fact that the new automated system and graphics itself builds, and almost cross stitch them.

A goal manager is not a task scheduler. This is a complex that stands head and shoulders above Basecamp, Jira, Redmine or Mantis, which will be discussed below. It differs from task managers and project managers in that accounting is partly transferred to it.

And the main trick, the main difference Goal-manager - money. The creators of such systems firmly believe in the ability to give each "according to his ability." Moreover, it is for everyone, since we are not talking here only about specialists, who directly sell and whose earnings each month are counted from the quantity of services and goods sold. "Sell" all.

The activities of procurement specialists, employees of the marketing department, heads of departments, and even secretaries are digitized (which, by the way, are also not just sitting at the reception all day). And all these people are also starting to receive a fixed salary and a floating bonus. And the bonus consists of the ratio of closed tasks to tasks at the end of the reporting period open.

In this case, the maximum premium, as a rule, no. Though work around the clock and overfulfill the plan. There is only a minimum, but it is not desirable to receive it, because over time the employer raises the question about the need for an employee who aspires to anything. But let's talk better about the maximum.

It so happened that the prize - it is rather the lot of sales professionals. Uboltal, sold, received a bonus. When you sell, for the most part everything depends on you. But consider the situation with the above-mentioned marketing department: gene. the director did not provide the data for writing a press release (respectively, there is no press release), another re-indexing happened in Yandex, after which the site on the "keywords" issue fell on the third page, the contractor ruined a huge circulation of booklets, and the restaurant paid for the new year closed as prescribed by the SES. Everything collapses, responsibility is not shifted to other people's shoulders. Open tasks minus the premium, and as a result we observe discontent on both sides and to nobody the necessary turnover of personnel. The fall in the efficiency of the company as a whole? Definitely yes. Plus an extra burden on HR and other services, depending on the situation.

More simple online project management tools differ from Goal-systems by their all-available availability. To monitor and comment on tasks in task-managers, as a rule, there is no need to sit in the workplace or at the computer in principle. Many systems like Jira or Basecamp have mobile versions or even special applications for mobile devices.

And yet, due to the absence of payroll accounting, these systems are in a certain sense easier to learn and closer to users than management. There is no oppression and an eternal race for the so-called "norm." Tasks are not “closed”, but are carried out qualitatively. In this case, the performer even has time to think about something new. And born ideas in most cases become fresh tasks.

Tools such as Basecamp can not only perform tasks, but also discuss them "on an equal footing." At the same time, commenting on the task (which acquires the status of the Forum) is also involved, as well as personal communication, which is still documented in one form or another. In the form of text or even available to any of the participants of the discussion attached files to the project.

Such systems are focused on working groups in which each member of the working group has a voice. There is no such hard obedience "said - did." Rather, the more productive, in my opinion, chain “said - discussed - done”.

Task managers with a remote server part are always the best way to interact in groups whose members are geographically distant from each other and have no opportunity to meet in person every day or at least once a week.

And a mandatory minus. It so happened that the majority of such systems have a fairly wide functional, which, if desired, can be expanded to infinity. But at the same time, for example, Mantis, it does not at all please the absolutely inhuman interface. The latter circumstance forces us to use only those opportunities that are clear to us. The rest remain somewhere "overboard". Although it is real to work with their application becomes much easier.

Difficulties in the perception that developers seem logical - this is where the main reason for the low popularity of certain systems of this kind lies. And this is why some task managers still remain free, while their creators do not expect weather from the sea at all. Developers invent and implement new functions, more and more complicating and heaping interaction between users, although really it would be necessary to think only about such an elementary thing as a convenient "face".

And finally, about mobile organizers from the category of “buy a loaf” . There are a lot of applications. Dozens, if not hundreds of titles. And their functionality is mostly similar. Therefore, I will start with the fundamental cross-platform differences in design and usability.

Two popular smart platforms in Russia and the everlasting whos cooler dispute - iOS or Android OS. Historically, the App Store is more attractive for developers than the Android Market. And the absolute majority of those capable of programming for both platforms alone will prefer the first one. There will be a lot of factors, among which the unity of the requirements for the visualization of the material being developed and standard sets of GUI (Graphical User Interface) elements are put forward.

I will explain. There is an iPod touch and an iPhone with a screen resolution of 320x480 px or 640x960 px and there is an iPad, the screen of which has a resolution of 1024x768 px. There are not all these “variations on the theme”, there are no premium, medium and economical market segments (within which even the aspect ratio of the screen for devices often differs), the difference in the operating system versions does not matter much. Platform unity is what Android doesn't have and what iOS has. Therefore, let us leave the attempts of developers under the Market and consider how things are with popular ToDo-applications that can be purchased and downloaded in the App Store.

Price lists for ToDo programs vary from “nothing” to incredible $ 20 for such seemingly simple applications (for example, Things for iPad). The scatter is not surprising and it can be observed anywhere - in the grocery market, for example, you can find cherries at prices ranging from 90 to 300 rubles. But if it’s all about the message that taste buds get, here it’s about design and usability, which I mentioned above. And, of course, in the set of functions implemented for the benefit of users, the excessive accumulation of which also negatively affects the ease of use of the program. A vicious circle, successful work in the framework of which earn their creators tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

ToDo-managers are on the border between notes like “buy a loaf” and task-managers that we use to meet corporate needs.

Advanced ToDo-applications are equally well suited for both work and home. For example, you can enter a distinction between tasks by purpose - to create a kind of bookmarks in which to enter personal and corporate tasks. In individual managers inside the tabs, you can also create projects, and in projects you can create tasks. A convenient system of nested folders works in ToDo-programs with a bang, while maintaining easy access to all items.

Synchronization is available, and the methods of (read "directions") task synchronization are just mass. For example, you can simply save a backup copy of the task database on a remote server, you can “fumble” (from English share / share) with other users, bringing the mobile application closer to task managers. But the mobile application for the most part remains mobile, where everything revolves not around some remote “Cloud”, but around the device on which tasks are created and on which tick marks are placed in front of these tasks over time.