TABB - History
In 2009 Nicholas Hughes a 25 year project management veteran was looking for a project management system to run his software development company (RapidPage), he tried every on-line system (Basecamp, Torch and numerous others) and nothing worked. He tried off-line systems such as Microsoft Project Manager, Super Project, and others and nothing worked. He even tried using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Outlook BCM but was too complicated and very inefficient and impossible to keep track of tasks, people and deadlines.
Each system had huge pitfalls and required just as much time to manage the system leaving no time to manage the project and the people. Each system needed to know everything (tasks, dates scope of work) before the project could be loaded into the system and email did not track anything and it was extremely easy to loose an email which caused a huge management issue.
Managing a project by stacking tasks one on top of the other and trying to figure out which comes first and how it affects the subsequent task is too stressful and is only any good if there are unlimited resources available. So to develop a project management system that would focus on the “job” rather than the “task” would be required. Also, it would be critical to eliminate “email” and use a IM (instant messenger) based communication that would track the conversation to the “job”. And it would also be required to attach files to a “Job”. Also, a Job must be assigned to an individual or a group via email and the system must be web based and smart phone notifications would also be required. Lastly the system must permit the individual user to track their own “task” so that they could track all their activities. The added benefits would be a time tracker to the Job and Scheduler.
Well this started Nicholas Hughes on a 3 year development journey and out of that journey came TABB, a web based (with smart phone notifications and access) time management and project schedule system. Some of its features are:
• Have unlimited jobs (i.e.: Project Manager, Sales, Design, Programming, Quality Control, Webmaster...)
• Have unlimited staff per job
• Have unlimited tasks (which we call TABBS) within each job
• Have threaded conversations by the (task) TABB
• Email notification when a new comment is added to a task (TABB)
• File upload / download to any task (TABB)
• File Upload and sharing that is not TABB related
• File sharing between any staff member
• Task (TABB) scheduling (set a task (TABB)) to automatically be sent on a specific date)
• Set priority for a task (TABB)
• Track labors hours at the staff level to each task (TABB)
• Open Conversations & File Sharing with any staff members that is not task (TABB) related.
• Personal task management (with tons of search, tagging and retrieval options) so the user may manage their own projects / personal tasks
The key results that he wanted from his newly developed Project-Task Management system was for it to manage both tasks, events, people without making them slaves to the system and without using a “date & resource” based system which is almost impossible to manage.
