Waterfall & Critical Path workflows in Workamajig [in-depth guide]
Guide contents: Waterfall & Critical path workflow setup | Critical Path workflow process | Agile workflow setup & processes
Workamajig supports multiple workflow options depending on an agency's typical processes. These primarily break out into 2 major categories: Waterfall/Critical Path & Agile/Kanban. This post covers Waterfall & Critical Path. Learn more about Agile/Kanban workflows here.
The default method is a critical path or waterfall-style management utilizing templates that capture the task and predecessor details of your common project types. The tasks on these templates are designed to occur in order over a specified date range, with hourly allocations that can be used to determine the overall workload of a staff member or resource. Live projects are primarily resourced on the staff schedule.
Waterfall & Critical Path Workflow Setup
The setup for a critical path workflow starts at the template level where common project types are captured in a step-by-step process. These templates will map the milestone tasks needed to complete a project, and those tasks will be given detail on their duration, predecessor, and roles or services needed to complete them. Best practice in Workamajig dictates that these templates also capture the typical number of hours needed to complete a task as well. This allows the system to feed information into the resourcing tools available.
Setup items to consider before building templates in a Critical Path workflow
Services
Services are a system setup item used to track and categorize employee labor for use in task assignments, time entry, tracking and reporting, and client invoicing. At a template level, a task notes the milestones that need to be completed for a project, and services are used to designate the role or roles needed to complete those tasks. All instances of Workamajig are pre-loaded with default services that can be adjusted to your team's needs.
Project types
Project types allow you to group projects into different categories for reporting purposes. Project types can and should be set at the template level. A template with a project typeset will automatically copy that project type to any live jobs copied from that template. This ensures there are no gaps in reporting from projects without a type, or with an incorrect typeset.
Project status codes
Project status codes determine the point a project is at in the production process. These status codes not only provide information on the current state of a project but also determine if a project is considered active. Assigned users will not see the details of a task or project that is not in an active status and resourcing screens ignore inactive projects by default. Additionally, project status codes control whether users can charge time or expenses to a project.
Critical Path workflow process
Project management - templates & project scheduling
A formal workflow starts at the template level where tasks are set in the order that they occur with a specified duration for each task. Workamajig uses the dates and duration's set at a template level to build a planned start and completion date for each task on a project as well as the project overall, using the project start date as the date of the first task (or any task without a predecessor). Plan dates in a formal workflow are fluid; if a task starts earlier or finishes later than the plan, dates for any unfinished task on your project will be updated to reflect the changes.
For example, a task initially set with plan dates of January 1st – January 3rd, if started a day late would shift the dates to January 2nd – January 4th. The rest of the project would also shift based on the predecessors set for each task. The end goal of this fluidity is to keep the project schedule current and provide up-to-date detail on the hours resourced for any task on your project schedule.
It is possible to prevent certain dates on your schedule from moving if necessary. This can be accomplished by toggling a tasks constraint, however, it is recommended that as much as possible you leave the constraints set to their default. This prevents the need to manually manipulate your projects whenever the original target dates are not met.
Plan start dates are locked for a task as soon as any time is charged, or any percentage is marked complete.
Plan complete dates are locked as soon as all assigned users for a task have marked it as 100% complete.
Plan dates should always match the actual dates for a task. Actual dates are updated automatically by Workamajig according to the above parameters.
A project manager initiates a project using a pre-built template and adjusts this template to the needs of the live project. After reviewing the setup items located within a project, the last step of project intake is to place a project into production, or any active status.
Creative/production - task management using the card view
In a formal workflow, creatives/production team members will primarily work out of the card view of the Creatives – Today page. This view is the default for all users in Workamajig:
Tasks are grouped in order based on the due date. Within the date groupings, tasks are grouped based on their priority. The task card contains the details of a task and also contains links to useful project information and the ability to add time or mark a task as complete. By default, creative will only see tasks that have completed predecessors. Details added to a task card for a creative will feed automatically into the project.
An administrator can change the defaults for grouping/sorting by clicking the ...More options and System settings. Most often this is done to change options like 'Completed predecessors only' which prevents the Creatives – Today page from showing tasks that are not yet ready to work or 'Date range' which limits the task cards displayed to a specific timeframe. The default timeframe only shows tasks due on or before a week from today.
Project and resource management - staff schedule
The staff schedule provides detail on the current workload of all of your staff. Following the way for project intake in Workamajig by creating projects from pre-existing templates will automatically yield results on the staff schedule for any active project. The staff schedule pulls the detail of all assignments on active projects by default completed jobs and jobs in an opportunity status are not considered) over weekly and daily breakouts.
Hourly detail is broken out evenly over the duration of a task and updated when actual hours are entered. So for example, a task allocated 10 hours with a 5-day duration will allocate 2 hours per day on the task, using the plan start/complete dates to determine specifically where those hours should be allocated. Each evening the remaining allocated hours for a task are divided up evenly over the remaining duration.
Agile Workflow Setup and Processes in Workamajig
An informal or agile workflow in Workamajig utilizes the tile view of the Creatives - Today page and the Assignment Management resourcing tool. These are Kanban-style pages that are meant to mirror each other. Tasks are placed into and moved through statuses on a weekly basis, with the mirrored detail both showing the assignee the detail of their current workload and tasks by their priority and allowing a project or resource manager to see up-to-date detail of the progress of these assignments.
The setup for an informal workflow begins at the template level. In an informal workflow, tasks are often rolled into top-level detail and do not necessarily need to be completed in order. Tasks can still have predecessors control the order and timeline, but are often set to run the length of a project or segment.
Setup items to consider before building templates in an Informal Workflow:
Services
Services are a system setup item used to track and categorize employee labor for use in task assignments, time entry, tracking and reporting, and client invoicing. At a template level, a task notes the milestones that need to be completed for a project, and services are used to designate the role or roles needed to complete those tasks. All instances of Workamajig are pre-loaded with default services that should be adjusted.
Project Types
Project types allow you to group projects into different categories for reporting purposes. Project types can and should be set at the template level. A template with a project typeset will automatically copy that project type to any live jobs copied from that template. This ensures there are no gaps in reporting from projects without a type, or with an incorrect typeset.
Project Status Codes
Project status codes determine the point a project is at in the production process. These status codes not only provide information on the current state of a project but also determine if a project is considered active. Assigned users will not see the details of a task or project that is not in an active status and resourcing screens ignore inactive projects by default. Additionally, project status codes control whether users can charge time or expenses to a project.
