Some people just don’t get it. They are so caught up in their own blind ideology they won’t consider alternative views.
I’ve been looking for a reasonably-priced web-based project management system for quite some time, and yesterday I thought I found it: BaseCamp from 37Signals. Problem is, after an email exchange with the founder Jason Fried, they don’t now and won’t ever (he claims) support a visual view of a project in the form of a GANTT chart.
Why won’t BaseCamp ever support GANTT charts? Maybe it’s BaseCamp’s competitive positioning, or maybe it’s because of ideology; based on BaseCamp’s Manifesto, Jason just doesn’t believe in them. From my email conversation with Jason, is seems to be the latter. Plus, isn’t a manifesto ideological by definition?
Why do I need GANTT charts? Because I’m a visual learner and I need a GANTT chart to be able to see the big picture related to a large number of parallel projects that all share resources. I need this so I can keep from missing deadlines when I’m bombarded with almost literally 100 choices for how to spend my time each day. I even proposed I could try to put BaseCamp and DBI Technologies together for DBI to provide optional GANTT charting of BaseCamp projects via DBI’s Solutions::Schedule product, but Jason wasn’t even interested in entertaining the idea, even if someone else was doing the work.
It’s a damn shame to find a product like BaseCamp that does 90% of what I need but, because of IMO blind ideology, its owner Jason Fried won’t even consider adding a feature for which arguably 65% of people would benefit. Jason’s last comment to me was: “Look at it this way… Go use another tool, get the Gantt charts, but miss the other 90%. Which tradeoff is worth more to you?“ The sad thing is, if it were not for blind ideology, it wouldn’t have to be either/or. :-(
19 comments ↓
We all have ideologies. Yours includes an absolute necessity for Gantt charts. Ours doesn’t. We just have different opinions of what is required for good project management.
Jason:
(Please read to the end because I included a proposal)
I’ve been desperately trying to find a way to manage the production of our of How-To-Select Guides without missing deadlines. I’ve felt overwhelmed by the process, but communications among the team hasn’t been an issue because most of what we do is work in parallel, i.e. ad sales doesn’t need much interaction with editorial, we just need to all meet the same deadlines. It wasn’t until I put everything in MS-Project and was able to print out a GANTT chart that I was able to finally "see" it all and reduce my anxiety. I may not be particularly bright, but I have learned different people process information differently, and most are visual. I need something visual to comphrend the timeline. If that is ideology then so be it.
BTW, I agree with you that Microsoft has bloatware and MS-Project, even with Project Server, doesn’t meet our needs for a geographically-dispersed collaborative team which is why I’ve been looking for alternatives.
What would I have expected instead and not called it ideology? If you had replied with the following I wouldn’t have viewed it as an ideology: "We don’t really think it is important, but we respect that you need that capability. We are planning a web service API and will consider input from you and/or a third party about what our API needs to provide you so that you will be able to use BaseCamp and still have your other needs met."
Not only were you not willing to listen to my needs and see if there was some way to meet them, you told me what I said I needed didn’t make sense (both implicitly and later explicitly.) You made sure it wasn’t even possible by saying you’d never support it and by closing the door on discussions to have a third party offer the feature.
I definitely understand your reasons for wanting to keep things simple and not trying to do too much. But take a look at SalesForce.com; they give the ability to add on 3rd party features via their API and that allows them to keep what they have to maintain simple plus it gives their customers the ability to meet unique needs without being told "Sorry: not only no, but never."
I’ll make a bet with you. Send a survey to your customers asking if they would like a GANTT chart view, but let me review and suggest changes to the survey before it goes out. We can even send out using our survey tool. If only 1/3 or less of your customers would like a GANTT chart view, I’ll write a public retraction on my blog saying I was in the wrong, and I’ll update the currently blog entry with a link to the new post. If more than 1/3 of your customer would like a GANTT chart view, then you’ll work with DBI Technologies Schedule control to provide a GANTT view of a project and I’ll become a customer. Deal?
P.S. BTW, the main reason I need the view is to be able to see what is due today, tomorrow, this week, this month, and every time after. You could even provide a timeline view. But without such a view of my prorities, I just keep missing deadlines.
Mike, we are listening to you. I traded nearly 10 emails with you today discussing this. We just see things differently, that’s all. We will not be building Gantt charts into Basecamp.
Thanks again for the reply Jason. You have every right not to include it, but it doesn’t stop me from being frustrated that you won’t. You are definitely a new breed of business person; one that may well be the future according to many of your blog posts, but one that I have difficult understanding. Numerous of your BaseCamp customers are pleading for GANTT charting (http://www.basecamphq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=49 and http://www.basecamphq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=652) yet you don’t give any reasons for not including it, just that you don’t want to. My mantra has always been to delight my customers. Forgive me, but I just don’t understand the "No, sorry; never gonna happen" mentality. FWIW.
I would have to agree with Mike here. If you can’t satisfy your customers, someone with a web based simple project management solution that contains a GANTT chart will.
I also feel that there should be some visual features added. Also Laotse once said: "Tell me and I will forget it, Show me and I will remember it, Let me do it and I will understand it!" That’s all.. just a possibility to remember better and to keep focus on very important deadlines.
See http://www.WhyBasecampSux.org
We’re switching to http://www.goplan.org/ as soon as it arrives :-)
Andrew: Cool!
Andrew: What caused you to choose GoPlan?
Though Jason is notoriously polarized and polarizing, his position makes more sense in this situation. Basecamp is a 37signals product built by 37signals with 37signals’ values. The core problem is that your "one necessary feature" is different for everyone and it’s in direct conflict with a stated company goal.
It doesn’t matter if 33% or 60% or 99% of Basecamp users want Gantt charts if 37signals doesn’t want to take the product in that direction. Surely many Toyota drivers would vote for a flying car feature if given the chance; similarly many Starbucks customers would enjoy fruit smoothies; as would many Old Navy customers enjoy buying cheap computers at those stores, but none of these customer wants are within the stated scope of the respective companies’ goals.
37signals provides the customer with its idea of an adequate project management tool and a complete API to go along with it. This way, the core product solves 90% of users’ needs most of the time and developers can try filling in the last 10% (always a different 10%, mind you) with applications built on top of the API.
If this were Microsoft instead of 37signals and Bill Gates were refusing to add a feature to a product that enjoyed user lock-in and market dominance without an open API, the answer would be entirely different.
My suggestion is to take Basecamp at face value and build upon it if it makes sense or choose another product if not. Plenty of us get by fantastically with just the core of Basecamp.
Brad: Thanks for the comment.
"It doesn’t matter if 33% or 60% or 99% of Basecamp users want Gantt charts if 37signals doesn’t want to take the product in that direction. Surely many Toyota drivers would vote for a flying car feature if given the chance; similarly many Starbucks customers would enjoy fruit smoothies; as would many Old Navy customers enjoy buying cheap computers at those stores, but none of these customer wants are within the stated scope of the respective companies’ goals. "
You are comparing apples and oranges. People buying Toyotas know the cars don’t fly before they buy them. Starbucks customers can go to Smoothie King and for that smoothie but still get their coffee at Starbucks. Old Navy customers can still wear their clothes while using computers from CompUSA.
OTOH, Basecamp markets their product as meeting all project management needs when in reality it only meets a small subset of project management needs (i.e. the needs of a web development shop building client’s websites) because of their ideology. So when customers sign up, they don’t know any better and then they become locked in which can cause projects to fail (I speak from experience) and possibly even companies to fail. Something I feel strongly about, which I’m sure is controversial, is I believe companies have a moral obligation to their customers, and I think 37 Signals is failing in that regard. For products where the attributes are obvious (cars) or where there is no switching cost (beverages and clothing) this is not an issue. But look at people’s response to Microsoft and their lock-in. If people could switch w/o pain few would hate Microsoft.
The problem with Basecamp and 37 Signals’ ideology is that they present themselves as customer-friendly, gain customer’s confidence, and then betray a large segment of those customers by not addressing their legitimate needs. It’s my belief that companies have the right to choose their direction, but they are acting immorally if they negatively affect a significant portion of their customer base when it is in their power to do otherwise.
"37signals provides the customer with its idea of an adequate project management tool and a complete API to go along with it. This way, the core product solves 90% of users’ needs most of the time and developers can try filling in the last 10% (always a different 10%, mind you) with applications built on top of the API."
For at least six months after I wrote this post there was no API, and for at least another six months the API could not add a project. Instead of addressing Basecamp customer’s needs with an API in a timely fashion, they launched other products. Oh, and by the way, it’s not acceptable to require customers to implement core functionality needed by a majority of customers.
"If this were Microsoft instead of 37signals and Bill Gates were refusing to add a feature to a product that enjoyed user lock-in and market dominance without an open API, the answer would be entirely different."
Why is it acceptable for a company to have an attitude that they aren’t going to address "existing" customer needs? Being smaller shouldn’t give a company a pass for leaving their customer’s high and dry.
"My suggestion is to take Basecamp at face value and build upon it if it makes sense or choose another product if not. Plenty of us get by fantastically with just the core of Basecamp."
I am; their face is that of a company that views its own whims as being more important than customer needs. I post this so that, hopefully, others who might choose Basecamp and then be negatively affected by their attitude are given an opposing viewpoint before they get locked in, not after.
Please take a look at http://www.letsprove.com another alternative to basecamp for project management software
Or try <a href="http://www.chmuraecon.com/OnStage/">OnStage</a>… decent pm/project portal software.
Can anyone help please and pretty please. I have been comparing all the various different softwares for the last week for my company (15 users). Basically the ideal software for us would basecamp + Gantt - but due to Basecamp’s reluctance to get a Gantt chart in there…I need an alternative. It simple, I m looking for an application that is:
- user friendly (and looks nice)
- gantt chart (ideally interactive) with task dependancy
- ideally somewhere where i can store project templates (as we have a lot of recurring processes)
- an application where on the front page/dashboard i can put our company latest news
- web-based application
- with a forum/discussion board that I can use as a knowledge management tool
- (document sharing ideally).
Now if I could get this I would be super-duper happy!! If I could get the above with a PERT feature I would be extatic!! But I m not dreaming.
After reviewing over a hundred software here is where I am at:
- Hyperoffice is not bad but a shame i find to split personal/group features and no interactive Gantt chart
- Project 360 is not bad but am not sure they have got Gantt chart
- Tasland has all the features but is not userfriendly and very slick
- SimplyPM is probably the best but it would require some changes on our server that I am not keen on
- Letsprove VO - am finding out if they have Gantt and if I can customise front page to have news section - if they do this could be the best
- Worksmart seems also good but am not sure if I can have a latest news on the front page…
Can anyone help to recommend what would work…this woudl really really be appreciated because I am really at lost here!!!
THANKS A MILLION!!
<i>I am; their face is that of a company that views its own whims as being more important than customer needs. I post this so that, hopefully, others who might choose Basecamp and then be negatively affected by their attitude are given an opposing viewpoint before they get locked in, not after.</i>
Does Basecamp really lock users in. It looks like they allow an export in XML:
<i>You can export your messages, comments, to-do lists, milestones, and time tracking data in XML format. We also offer an API that allows you to access your data from other tools that you use or create.</i>
Am I missing something here?
Basecamp does give you an XML export. I believe there are also 3rd party tools that use the basecamp API to do the export. It is just a pain transferring that into any other system. When I’d finally had enough with basecamp and 37s, that is one of the I went with OnStage Project Portal - http://www.OnStagePortal.com. I emailed their customer service and they were able to import the basecamp XML for me.
Jason seems to be missing one simple point: user choice. The more choices the product gives to users, the bigger the chance the product will have to gain acceptance. Not providing gantt charts, or at least task dependencies and project time estimations based on those dependencies, hurts their product. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t provide it. Even if they themselves don’t like them, doesn’t mean there aren’t others that do. And the mindset that he has: “Use us for 90%, or go someplace else and only get 10%” smacks of arrogance seen only in the likes of Microsoft.
Too bad. I did like Basecamp’s initial features, but the lack of gantt charts, time estimation, critical path, etc, makes Basecamp nothing more than a glorified to-do list, which is NOT project management. I’ll look elsewhere….
@Andrew: Great comment. Of course, I clearly agree… :)
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