Project Management w/ Basecamp for Web Developers

Now that Pleth has 3 locations (Batesville, Conway, and Jonesboro) being able to manage multiple projects at the same time has grown way past the enormous whiteboard at our Batesville office, and being somewhat OCD, I have always looked at a whiteboard in my office as more of a hindrance than a help anyway.  In the past our internal project management has always been up to whoever was heading up a project.  Each one of us have our own unique way of management. I am a strong Outlook user and have used Tasks to manage projects that I had going on in the past but my partners have always relied on their whiteboard pretty heavily.  We have also used a pretty robust intranet solution from Vialect (which I also highly recommend) to store our client proposals, track hourly time, etc.  

A few times in the past I have collaborated or freelanced with other companies on various projects and on a few occasions I have had the opportunity to use Basecamp before, so it was totally unfamiliar to me when we first started using it this past week.  Our reasoning for using it was we have found ourselves collaborated with a few outside agencies and providers that we partner with from time to time on projects and it was more or less their recommendation.  Being a minimum of 2 hours away from the rest of my team I am open to anything that will help us collaborate better on projects.  I am also a big fan on archiving past work, I literally have every file I have ever coded or created for a client since I got into this business about 10 years ago.  Basecamp has some excellent archival methods built in, which is pretty cool, but here are some of the things that I am really getting hooked on…

• Universal – Odds are that when we involve freelancers in the future on projects they will already be familiar with Basecamp because it is extremely popular within our industry.  Even though it is a really straightforward solution, it’s nice to know that we don’t have to spend that extra hour of time getting someone up to speed on our system.
• Customizable!  I have no idea why this is as important for me, but it is.  As I mentioned earlier, I am a bit OCD when it comes to tools and things I work with and for me, just being able to work inside a clean, well laid out environment.  I know that this probably doesn’t matter to a whole lot of people as long as the solution works right?  But trust me it does affect my level of participation.
• Dashboard – 37 Signals has done a great job w/ the layout of the dashboard on Basecamp, and honestly I don’t remember it being this user friendly the few times I logged my work in the past but it might also have something to do with the fact that I understand project management a little bit better now.  There also some obvious things you notice about the Dashboard too, for instance, late items appear in red at the top of the list as well anything that is due within the next 2 weeks.  It’s also pretty cool to see what all we have assigned to each member of our team, not that we are consumed by performance or efficiency, our concerns center more around quality than anything else.
• To-do Lists – Being a power Outlook user I am extremely familiar with Tasks.  I have tracked every client project that I have ever worked on using Tasks.  The To-do Lists in Basecamp pretty much serve the same purpose, but with a little more flexibility in that where I would normally track each project as a task of their own, I can now break down the elements of a project into stages (ex. Pre-Flight, Development, Testing, Launch, Bugfixes).  Furthermore, each of these elements can be assigned to a different member of our team, therefore eliminating the need to pass tasks back and forth to each other.  There is also some sort of endorphin high, or adrenaline rush when you check off a task from your list, or at least there is for me.  Another pretty neat feature of the to-do lists that I like is the fact that you can add items that are only visible to “need to know” members of your team, this will come in handy I am sure when we are outsourcing elements of projects.
• File Sharing – In our industry we often find ourselves working with a wide variety of files (ex. Artwork, PDF’s, Documents, and Compressed Files).  Being able to retrieve these files 6 months to a year after a project is launched is nice, because believe me, this does happen from time to time.  I had to retrieve a vector logo file I created for a client about 4 years ago this past week and being able to locate it in about 20 minutes from my previously mentioned archival system was nice.  Having this flexibility companywide is going to be nice.
• Message Boards – I know that email is still the killer application but sometimes shooting interoffice emails back and forth is not the most effective way to communicate.  With the message boards inside of Basecamp all messages are displayed in reverse chronological order and the best part, files can be attached to messages in the message board, so this actually makes this part of the application even more collaborative.  You can even categorize the messages inside the message board area.
• Milestones – When I speak to a client on the front end they always want to know 2 things upfront, costs and timeframe.  Sometimes the costs aren’t near as important to them as the timeframe, especially if they are trying to rush along a product release or capitalizing on a promotion.  I like to give my clients 3 tentative milestones when we get our initial payment for the project.  The first milestone will be the start date, since we often times manage multiple projects, sometimes it’s not feasible for us to start on a new project the day we get our clients deposit, so we have to give them some sort of tentative start date.  The next milestone is the test date, and of course a lot of this has to do with when I have all of the required assets from the client to get started, when clients drag their feet providing me with logos, content, etc., this can move the testing date back later than originally projected.  Another milestone is the launch date, and this is sometimes hard to call and really dependant on the first two milestones and how quickly they come together.  With Basecamp I can project these milestones and stay on track and prioritize my time a lot better than ever before.  Also, Basecamp allows you to subscribe to your Milestones in iCalendar format, and they are even color-coded inside of Basecamp, which also really helps me visually to see the big picture.
• Time Tracking –  For us, our billable time is our bottom line, it is for this reason that time tracking is so critical.  With Basecamp we can log our time on project elements and see a full log of our time entered on a project, therefore giving us another valuable look at the big picture.  Tracking time against to-do list items might be one of the biggest advantages to this software for a company like ours.
• Project Overview – Speaking of getting the big picture on a project, the overview section for each projects shows you everything, including milestones (late items are listed in red), and things that are due in the next 2 weeks are listed in the mini-calendar area.  There is also an RSS Feed for each project which is also an added plus.  With the project overview you can also see who is assigned what and it’s a great motivator, especially if the ball is in your court and there are others waiting on something you have to provide.
• Comments on Messages – I really like the way to communicate to specific members of our team on components that require their involvement.  For instance, if I get as far as I can in the development process and I need Matt or Greg to do something server side before I can continue, I can add them to that particular element and send them a message letting them know that the ball is in their court.  They can also provide comments back in the event they should have questions, etc. 
• Expandable – There are a lot of add-ons and extras out there that are available as add-ons for Basecamp.  These extras and add-ons can do everything from subversion to accounting.  Since we are adjusted to our internal accounting solution we probably won’t jump into any of these anytime soon, it’s still pretty nice to know that these products are already on the market and mature in their feature sets and stability should we ever decide to transition. 

Granted, I know that overall standardization for project management in our industry is non-existent, that’s probably due to the fact that we are all more or less pioneers since the Internet hasn’t been around all that long, but when a lot of organizations the size of our company and freelancers alike all start embracing tools like Basecamp, we can lay the foundation toward standardization and efficiency.

I speak from the perspective of a partner in a web development firm, but I can honestly see where Basecamp could also be a very useful tool for other industries out there, even further than Graphic Designers and Content Writers, but also wedding and event planners, teachers, consultants, etc.  If you are like me and always on the lookout for ways to improve your business, take a look at Basecamp and see what it can do for your business.  Here are a few companies that utilize Basecamp already in their operations: