Readit NewsThe ideal project management tool for me would integrate with the tools I use to do the work being tracked, and ML to automatically log everything in the project management tool. Kata lets you send updates from your other application using special comments, but I would prefer not to even have to do that.
We're also planning to continue adding more integrations over time so more of your work can be logged automatically- we talk about this a bit more in some other comments here. It does take time and effort to get (and keep) those functioning though and half the time we make an integration it gets less usage than you might expect. Still, we're always interested in learning about more tools that our users would find value in integrating.
This is something PMs are supposed to do?
Early on we reached out to various PMs on Linkedin and set up some calls that way but that was more for feedback and direction-setting than anything else. I think most of our growth with larger teams has started from the founder or C-level as opposed to PMs but that might be a sign we need to improve more here.
Also admittedly this isn't a product-reason, but at least for now as a relatively small startup we're able to offer a lot more custom support and strategizing with any team that switches over. I can't promise we won't eventually run into the same bottlenecks as the large companies eventually, but for now I'm confident our service is better and some of our users have expressed that as one of the primary motivators for keeping with Dart.
Ultimately, if you're happy with your current system and don't see your team becoming more efficient on Dart then it's probably not worth the switch. However it doesn't take long for any extra hours saved each week to start adding up.
(See eg: https://screenful.com )
Ed: Does it support importing historical data, and/or external data sources like GitHub, Jira, Trello etc - for current projects and to set a baseline grounded in data? Like historical velocity?
Ed2: I guess so? From the welcome email:
> Once you're logged in, you can import your tasks from most other apps and let us know if you need support with that
There's definitely a lot more we can do here though and we have some plans to dive in more. I haven't looked into screenful before, thanks for sharing!
Ed: just saw your edit, yes you can import from other tools at https://app.itsdart.com/?settings=import
We have a bit of a stronger emphasis on personal and team task management with less of a sandbox-feel and more of an opinionated-PM feel, and our AI features are in line with that with stuff like task property filling and roadmap suggestions. We also have similar capabilities in AI doc editing (although Notion and other tools are definitely more fleshed out there if your use case is primarily writing).
That being said it's a very quickly evolving landscape and I wouldn't be surprised if things change in the near future. Would love to hear anyone else's perspective as well who've either tried both or used our integration.
* one other feature I have always wanted at my previous company is about transparency of how many tasks a person is doing, that way I don't have to bother him multiple times on whether a certain task is picked or not
* similarly for monthly planning or weekly planning, the stakeholders involved in planning is often the team itself and humans are not that great in remembering what all promises they made over the last week. i wish there was some way for all stakeholders even outside teams to be notified of planning events and add items to the planning event agenda
- Having more information on team workloads with suggested opportunities for rebalancing is something we're already thinking about. I suppose this is a related idea to have general visibility on amount or total volume (with sizes included) of tasks a person is doing in team/public spaces.
- We'll think harder about this other idea on involving outside stakeholders more. More opportunities for sharing lists and docs with external stakeholders is already something we're tinkering with so I can definitely see this fitting in as well.