6 ms·

Blimp: project management for doers

77 points by flexterra 14y ago

bmelton 14y ago
The project looks great, but at least for myself, I either need to see a feature tour or a 7 day free trial or something. This is probably 'good enough' (and certainly is beautiful) for people not currently using anything for project management, but probably most of the HN audience already has something that's working somewhat for what they're trying to do now, and you're trying to supplant that. There's almost no amount of screenshots that are going to get me to give up on the devil I know, so at the very least a product tour that shows interactivity is needed. Better than that would be a free trial, where I can get in there and try out some scenarios and compare them to the pain points I already have with my existing tools. Like I said though, it really does look great. Fantastic even. But without being able to click on anything, I don't know that it isn't just pretty.
- flexterra 14y ago
  The app is free to sign up and use for as long as you want. You can invite as many collaborators as you need. The only limitation is the number of projects that you can manage simultaneously, one for the free plan.
  - bmelton 14y ago
    Ack. I don't know how I overlooked that, I just saw the $12 for unlimited projects and went from there I guess. Thanks!
    - raheemm 14y ago
      I overlooked it as well.
- vijaykiran 14y ago
  Start with our free plan, which allows you to manage one project with as many team members as you need. From - http://www.getblimp.com/ http://www.getblimp.com/
  - rgonzalez 14y ago
    If you offer a free alternative you should highlight that, not hide it in plain sight. Perhaps you should go with `Signup for Free` rather than simply mentioning it on a small font which reduces relevancy. That would be a good AB test for your conversion rate.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
mrgreenfur 14y ago
Looks wonderful, will give it a go.
MattRogish 14y ago
My problem with project management tools is that they often become a brain dump of every possible little thing folks can think of - and over time, those things either happen to get done as a side effect of another story or become obsolete when market, product, or user needs change. I like "high level" goals that can be prioritized ("User signup flow" is the most important thing we're working on this week, after that, it's probably "..."); the details for the high level stories can be done just-in-time. My perfect PM feature for this is some sort of LRU expiry of stories. If someone hasn't opened a story (no views) or modified it within the last few months, move it to an archive. After a certain period of time in the archive, delete it. Organizations and dev teams have a memory - if something is important, it'll be in the collective cache of the team. If something is relatively unimportant, it's waste (in the lean sense) to write it down until you have to (shortly before you need to prioritize and use it). Bugs are the same thing. A bug is usually either worth fixing immediately (aka "next") or "never". Many bug trackers get clogged with stuff like "on IE7, the user dialog is 5 px to the right". It's either worth fixing right now or "never". Delete it, and if another user complains and it's recent enough that we remember the other story, then it bumps up the priority. But if it happens long after we all forgot it happened, it's still not important enough to fix. This would go a long way to keeping the most important things at the top and avoiding the hell of "Did we have a story for that or something like 6 months ago?" associated searching. Both Pivotal and Trello have this sort of rosy picture of the world that folks will only be entering in "this is the most important thing we must do it this week" sort of stuff, which is unfortunately not how most project teams work. A more holistic PM tool would take into account user behavior and have a solution for this. Heck, something like HackerNews' front page algorithm would be pretty interesting applied to PM.
- flexterra 14y ago
  We are on the same page here. One feature that we implement is the "non-sticky DOING state". Sorry for the name, we can't come up with anything for that one. The feature works like this. When you mark a tasks as DOING that state will only last for 24hrs. After that the "worker" will be notified that the "Blimp robot" removed the DOING state. The idea is to approach the problem you are talking about. Many times projects become filled with stuff that nobody works on. I know this is a very simplistic approach but it's a start. We have a few cards up our sleeves.
TonyNib 14y ago
Very clean design - you've put a lot of thought into this and it shows. I most appreciate the ToDo->Doing->Done implementation. However it does assume that all to-do comprise an equal proportion of the job. It doesn't allow for a list with 10 items, where number 2 is actually 50% of the work. But that's probably not something easily quantifiable to begin with. One typo I noticed on the files tab (when empty): "Upload files to share with you team." Also I couldn't get the photo upload to work on my settings page. The spinner would appear then go back to the default image, and saving didn't help.
- flexterra 14y ago
  Thanks for the report, the issue with the photo upload seems to be the cache, being too agressive. We are fixing it right now.
mctx 14y ago
"You and I know, that when we started our businesses, we where hoping" - did an h sneak into your were?
- flexterra 14y ago
  ups!
jgnatch 14y ago
The history section totally looks like Basecamp progress section! Nice tool though!
- flexterra 14y ago
  Yes it does look a lot like Basecamp's. We had start with something. We are trying hard to make project history useful. Right now is just kind of a log in most PM apps (Blimp included). We feel it has potential to do more but haven't found how to make it happen. We'll keep at it.
eduardordm 14y ago
Just gave it a try. It has the same use case as github issues, at least for programming projects. That said, I think you should focus on non-programmers.
- flexterra 14y ago
  Initially, our target is digital agencies, design shops and small development teams. Blimp won't replace Pivotal Tracker for a team of experienced developers using scrum or other formal agile methodology. But we are OK with that. We are trying to fix problems for folks that need help with their PM methodology. The idea is "trick" them into using a somewhat formal process.
metatation 14y ago
"we have plans for companies of all sizes starting at $12 a month"...couldn't find a link to more information on pricing.
- flexterra 14y ago
  It slipped our minds. Here are the plans: - Free: $0 / 1 project / unlimited users / 10MB of file storage - Beta testers: $12 month / unlimited projects / unlimited users / 100MB of file storage / access to new features including Dropbox support (coming later this week) which will not count against you file storage allowance. We have other plans available but they are not relevant right now since the beta testers plan is the best deal. You can see all plans after you sign up at https://app.getblimp.com/company/billing/ https://app.getblimp.com/company/billing/
corry 14y ago
Kudos for the nice design. I think this minimalist, flat, spaced-out, subtle-palette approach is great for for tools that people spend their whole day in.
- jpdevereaux 14y ago
  Indeed, it feels a lot less "boxed in" than tools like Asana.
debacle 14y ago
I'm tired of web-based project management tools. Give me something on the desktop, that has a UI I can understand and isn't integrated with my browser, or go away. Anyone with a few hours and a CRUD generator can make a web-based project management tool.
- flexterra 14y ago
  We hear you. I would also like some kind of native client like Evernote or at least better integration in the OS level.
- SonicSoul 14y ago
  care to explain why you dislike web based apps so much? latency is too annoying? we use Jira with GreenHopper and it's great. sluggishness is my only complaint. it's definitely not easy to develop something like this right.
  - debacle 14y ago
    1. They tie my app to my browser, meaning if my browser crashes (I'm a developer, it happens), my app crashes. 2. If I want to tie myself to a particular version, I can't, meaning that if I don't like a $hot_new_feature, I'm SOL. 3. The browser is still very limited, and project management is very content intensive. One single company willing to do actual applications programming could sell a ton of software.
- bdunn 14y ago
  Disclaimer: I run a web-based project management tool (Planscope) I think a successful PM tool needs to be able to do two things well: track things that need to get done and organize communication. I love desktop software for the former, I still use Things.app — even though Flow is better for me — because it's a simple desktop app. However, I think web apps are best for communication. I'm not dependent on any installed software, and I don't need to walk my clients through installing software. Also, a take a bit of issue with "anyone with a few hours and a CRUD generator can make..." :-) While it's true that "projects has_many tasks" is the typical setup, intuitive workflows and easy-to-use interfaces take a lot of time and work.
ollysb 14y ago
Global file uploads seems a bit off, could work in fixed length projects but for ongoing projects it makes more sense to associate uploads with goals. Thinking about it dropbox integration would be ideal i.e. when a goal is created a dropbox folder is added automatically at: dropbox/blimp/project_name/goal
- ollysb 14y ago
  Ha, just found the "discuss" option. Was really wondering how you add more detail to a task, the whole product makes a lot more sense now.
robterrell 14y ago
I love the way this looks. This might be outside your area of interest or might be too laser-focused on developer's needs, but I'd suggest integrating some kind of post-commit hook support, so a developer can check code in via svn or git and change the state of a to-do item. That's one thing we used extensively when tracking projects in Unfuddle tickets that I really miss.
kisstheblade 14y ago
Really curious whats the point of this software? If I understood it correctly it consists of a hierarchy of items like: Projects -> Goals -> Tasks. That's it? How am I supposed to actually manage a complex project with different requirements coming from different users, bug reports, feature requests, deadlines, timetables, different components of a system, versions and releases and anything remotely related to actually managing projects? This is like the original ToDo list app in my opinnion...
justinlilly 14y ago
Another great tool in this vein of "process, but not too much" is https://sprint.ly/ https://sprint.ly/
mikle 14y ago
So that's why I didn't get anything done today. My project management tool is not for doers! All kidding aside, it looks pretty and well designed, but I don't see any value in yet another project management tool.
mattdeboard 14y ago
The "X" on the keyboard shortcut modal doesn't work. You have to press escape.

77 points by flexterra 14y ago

The project looks great, but at least for myself, I either need to see a feature tour or a 7 day free trial or something. This is probably 'good enough' (and certainly is beautiful) for people not currently using anything for project management, but probably most of the HN audience already has something that's working somewhat for what they're trying to do now, and you're trying to supplant that. There's almost no amount of screenshots that are going to get me to give up on the devil I know, so at the very least a product tour that shows interactivity is needed. Better than that would be a free trial, where I can get in there and try out some scenarios and compare them to the pain points I already have with my existing tools. Like I said though, it really does look great. Fantastic even. But without being able to click on anything, I don't know that it isn't just pretty.

flexterra 14y ago
The app is free to sign up and use for as long as you want. You can invite as many collaborators as you need. The only limitation is the number of projects that you can manage simultaneously, one for the free plan.
- bmelton 14y ago
  Ack. I don't know how I overlooked that, I just saw the $12 for unlimited projects and went from there I guess. Thanks!
  - raheemm 14y ago
    I overlooked it as well.
vijaykiran 14y ago
Start with our free plan, which allows you to manage one project with as many team members as you need. From - http://www.getblimp.com/ http://www.getblimp.com/
- rgonzalez 14y ago
  If you offer a free alternative you should highlight that, not hide it in plain sight. Perhaps you should go with `Signup for Free` rather than simply mentioning it on a small font which reduces relevancy. That would be a good AB test for your conversion rate.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

mrgreenfur 14y ago

Looks wonderful, will give it a go.

MattRogish 14y ago

My problem with project management tools is that they often become a brain dump of every possible little thing folks can think of - and over time, those things either happen to get done as a side effect of another story or become obsolete when market, product, or user needs change. I like "high level" goals that can be prioritized ("User signup flow" is the most important thing we're working on this week, after that, it's probably "..."); the details for the high level stories can be done just-in-time. My perfect PM feature for this is some sort of LRU expiry of stories. If someone hasn't opened a story (no views) or modified it within the last few months, move it to an archive. After a certain period of time in the archive, delete it. Organizations and dev teams have a memory - if something is important, it'll be in the collective cache of the team. If something is relatively unimportant, it's waste (in the lean sense) to write it down until you have to (shortly before you need to prioritize and use it). Bugs are the same thing. A bug is usually either worth fixing immediately (aka "next") or "never". Many bug trackers get clogged with stuff like "on IE7, the user dialog is 5 px to the right". It's either worth fixing right now or "never". Delete it, and if another user complains and it's recent enough that we remember the other story, then it bumps up the priority. But if it happens long after we all forgot it happened, it's still not important enough to fix. This would go a long way to keeping the most important things at the top and avoiding the hell of "Did we have a story for that or something like 6 months ago?" associated searching. Both Pivotal and Trello have this sort of rosy picture of the world that folks will only be entering in "this is the most important thing we must do it this week" sort of stuff, which is unfortunately not how most project teams work. A more holistic PM tool would take into account user behavior and have a solution for this. Heck, something like HackerNews' front page algorithm would be pretty interesting applied to PM.

flexterra 14y ago
We are on the same page here. One feature that we implement is the "non-sticky DOING state". Sorry for the name, we can't come up with anything for that one. The feature works like this. When you mark a tasks as DOING that state will only last for 24hrs. After that the "worker" will be notified that the "Blimp robot" removed the DOING state. The idea is to approach the problem you are talking about. Many times projects become filled with stuff that nobody works on. I know this is a very simplistic approach but it's a start. We have a few cards up our sleeves.

TonyNib 14y ago

Very clean design - you've put a lot of thought into this and it shows. I most appreciate the ToDo->Doing->Done implementation. However it does assume that all to-do comprise an equal proportion of the job. It doesn't allow for a list with 10 items, where number 2 is actually 50% of the work. But that's probably not something easily quantifiable to begin with. One typo I noticed on the files tab (when empty): "Upload files to share with you team." Also I couldn't get the photo upload to work on my settings page. The spinner would appear then go back to the default image, and saving didn't help.

flexterra 14y ago
Thanks for the report, the issue with the photo upload seems to be the cache, being too agressive. We are fixing it right now.

mctx 14y ago

"You and I know, that when we started our businesses, we where hoping" - did an h sneak into your were?

flexterra 14y ago
ups!

jgnatch 14y ago

The history section totally looks like Basecamp progress section! Nice tool though!

flexterra 14y ago
Yes it does look a lot like Basecamp's. We had start with something. We are trying hard to make project history useful. Right now is just kind of a log in most PM apps (Blimp included). We feel it has potential to do more but haven't found how to make it happen. We'll keep at it.

eduardordm 14y ago

Just gave it a try. It has the same use case as github issues, at least for programming projects. That said, I think you should focus on non-programmers.

flexterra 14y ago
Initially, our target is digital agencies, design shops and small development teams. Blimp won't replace Pivotal Tracker for a team of experienced developers using scrum or other formal agile methodology. But we are OK with that. We are trying to fix problems for folks that need help with their PM methodology. The idea is "trick" them into using a somewhat formal process.

metatation 14y ago

"we have plans for companies of all sizes starting at $12 a month"...couldn't find a link to more information on pricing.

flexterra 14y ago
It slipped our minds. Here are the plans: - Free: $0 / 1 project / unlimited users / 10MB of file storage - Beta testers: $12 month / unlimited projects / unlimited users / 100MB of file storage / access to new features including Dropbox support (coming later this week) which will not count against you file storage allowance. We have other plans available but they are not relevant right now since the beta testers plan is the best deal. You can see all plans after you sign up at https://app.getblimp.com/company/billing/ https://app.getblimp.com/company/billing/

corry 14y ago

Kudos for the nice design. I think this minimalist, flat, spaced-out, subtle-palette approach is great for for tools that people spend their whole day in.

jpdevereaux 14y ago
Indeed, it feels a lot less "boxed in" than tools like Asana.

debacle 14y ago

I'm tired of web-based project management tools. Give me something on the desktop, that has a UI I can understand and isn't integrated with my browser, or go away. Anyone with a few hours and a CRUD generator can make a web-based project management tool.

flexterra 14y ago
We hear you. I would also like some kind of native client like Evernote or at least better integration in the OS level.
SonicSoul 14y ago
care to explain why you dislike web based apps so much? latency is too annoying? we use Jira with GreenHopper and it's great. sluggishness is my only complaint. it's definitely not easy to develop something like this right.
- debacle 14y ago
  1. They tie my app to my browser, meaning if my browser crashes (I'm a developer, it happens), my app crashes. 2. If I want to tie myself to a particular version, I can't, meaning that if I don't like a $hot_new_feature, I'm SOL. 3. The browser is still very limited, and project management is very content intensive. One single company willing to do actual applications programming could sell a ton of software.
bdunn 14y ago
Disclaimer: I run a web-based project management tool (Planscope) I think a successful PM tool needs to be able to do two things well: track things that need to get done and organize communication. I love desktop software for the former, I still use Things.app — even though Flow is better for me — because it's a simple desktop app. However, I think web apps are best for communication. I'm not dependent on any installed software, and I don't need to walk my clients through installing software. Also, a take a bit of issue with "anyone with a few hours and a CRUD generator can make..." :-) While it's true that "projects has_many tasks" is the typical setup, intuitive workflows and easy-to-use interfaces take a lot of time and work.

ollysb 14y ago

Global file uploads seems a bit off, could work in fixed length projects but for ongoing projects it makes more sense to associate uploads with goals. Thinking about it dropbox integration would be ideal i.e. when a goal is created a dropbox folder is added automatically at: dropbox/blimp/project_name/goal

ollysb 14y ago
Ha, just found the "discuss" option. Was really wondering how you add more detail to a task, the whole product makes a lot more sense now.

robterrell 14y ago

I love the way this looks. This might be outside your area of interest or might be too laser-focused on developer's needs, but I'd suggest integrating some kind of post-commit hook support, so a developer can check code in via svn or git and change the state of a to-do item. That's one thing we used extensively when tracking projects in Unfuddle tickets that I really miss.

kisstheblade 14y ago

Really curious whats the point of this software? If I understood it correctly it consists of a hierarchy of items like: Projects -> Goals -> Tasks. That's it? How am I supposed to actually manage a complex project with different requirements coming from different users, bug reports, feature requests, deadlines, timetables, different components of a system, versions and releases and anything remotely related to actually managing projects? This is like the original ToDo list app in my opinnion...

justinlilly 14y ago

Another great tool in this vein of "process, but not too much" is https://sprint.ly/ https://sprint.ly/

mikle 14y ago

So that's why I didn't get anything done today. My project management tool is not for doers! All kidding aside, it looks pretty and well designed, but I don't see any value in yet another project management tool.

mattdeboard 14y ago

The "X" on the keyboard shortcut modal doesn't work. You have to press escape.