How do you do your project planning and designing?

[foozball3000]

Other than Mugg&Bean napkins and chicken scratch on a white board, how do you do your project planning and designing?

 

[FarligOpptreden]

Some rudimentary ERDs and a spreadsheet, usually...

 

[dequadin]

I've found taking photos of the white board with a cell phone camera actually works quite well

 

[sn3rd]

Formal proposals, specifications, progress reports, technical documentation, etc.

It's all project dependent, though. Plus, projects can easily be bigger than 1 person, i.e. much of the grunt work can usually be delegated out to others (or you're one of the grunts getting work delegated TO you ).

If you're on Linux, planner makes for easy Gantt charts. Else there are a number of other free (even cross-platform) tools that make life easier.

 

[sn3rd]

I've found taking photos of the white board with a cell phone camera actually works quite well

Done that too many times to mention, actually... Need to get one of those electronic whiteboards

 

[foozball3000]

Formal proposals, specifications, progress reports, technical documentation, etc.

It's all project dependent, though. Plus, projects can easily be bigger than 1 person, i.e. much of the grunt work can usually be delegated out to others (or you're one of the grunts getting work delegated TO you ).

If you're on Linux, planner makes for easy Gantt charts. Else there are a number of other free (even cross-platform) tools that make life easier.

Any tools worth mentioning? I'm busy writing my own version but I doubt if there will be a working version of mine before 2012.

Done that too many times to mention, actually... Need to get one of those electronic whiteboards

YouTube has a cheap DIY version available that you modify a Wii controller for. (Look under Wii controler hacks)

 

[dequadin]

YouTube has a cheap DIY version available that you modify a Wii controller for. (Look under Wii controler hacks)

Google Johnny Chung Lee, he's the brains behind that project. He also worked for Microsoft on the Kinect project (useless fact).

 

[FarligOpptreden]

I've found taking photos of the white board with a cell phone camera actually works quite well

Hahaha! My one colleague does that quite often. Usually it's my drawings that he photographs and drops immediately in his DropBox account...

 

[foozball3000]

Google Johnny Chung Lee, he's the brains behind that project. He also worked for Microsoft on the Kinect project (useless fact).

Yes! That. I just saw the TED talk ages ago... was pretty cool. The 3D PC screen Wii hack was quite impressive too

 

[dequadin]

Hahaha! My one colleague does that quite often. Usually it's my drawings that he photographs and drops immediately in his DropBox account...

It's a l33t technique!

Yes! That. I just saw the TED talk ages ago... was pretty cool. The 3D PC screen Wii hack was quite impressive too

Here's his project page, he's made most stuff available for download: Johnny Chung Lee > Projects > Wii

Any tools worth mentioning? I'm busy writing my own version but I doubt if there will be a working version of mine before 2012.

If you don't mind expensive commercial software check out Visual Prardigm for UML. FogBuz is also really good for bug tracking/milestone tracking etc

 

[spiderz]

Open Workbench - similar to MS project...only free

 

[foozball3000]

Thanks, but it's still lacking in the areas that I need. I'm gonna search through the Apple Apps to see if they've got a little handy tool.

Apple's site is a useless maze...

 

[ChristopherB]

I want to set something up, that is like a whiteboard, but only with glass....but then, somehow have one of those purple fluorescent lights shining up into the glass and one from the top shining down, then I want to use a "color: white;" board marker to write on the glass and plan my projects....

Now the purple fluorescent light should light up the white ink on the glass, making it look all futuristic

That's How I would plan out my projects, If I want to impress someone when they visit my office or something.....

 

[dequadin]

I want to set something up, that is like a whiteboard, but only with glass....but then, somehow have one of those purple fluorescent lights shining up <snip>

We have some (opaque) glass white boards at the office, but without the fluorescent lights. They're quite cool.

 

[FarligOpptreden]

Just writing on any light table is really cool. My wife, being in the printing industry, has a couple at her work. They really are very awesome.

 

[foozball3000]

I want to set something up, that is like a whiteboard, but only with glass....but then, somehow have one of those purple fluorescent lights shining up into the glass and one from the top shining down, then I want to use a "color: white;" board marker to write on the glass and plan my projects....

Now the purple fluorescent light should light up the white ink on the glass, making it look all futuristic

That's How I would plan out my projects, If I want to impress someone when they visit my office or something.....

We have some (opaque) glass white boards at the office, but without the fluorescent lights. They're quite cool.

Just writing on any light table is really cool. My wife, being in the printing industry, has a couple at her work. They really are very awesome.

/steals ideas for my H.I.V.E project...

 

[ChristopherB]

Bwahahahaaaa...

What's your H.I.V.E project?

 

[foozball3000]

Bwahahahaaaa...

What's your H.I.V.E project?

Electronic HIV. lol
It's a whiteboard planning and designing software thing. I'm still working on the theory and all that.
(It's illustrated in a kind of bee hive structure thing... hence H.I.V.E)

 

[Keeper]

fb3k, you have waaaay too many projects....lol

focus on one at a time bro!

 

[FarligOpptreden]

My guess is he's focusing on the 3D Bible project for the moment...