WhoDoes Offers a New Spin on Project Management

Mention online project management these days and most people will think of BaseCamp – but there are other alternatives. A new entrant in the browser-based project management field is WhoDoes, which covers some of the same project management and document sharing ground, but does so in a distinctly different manner.

WhoDoes breaks things down into a multi-level hierarchy. You start with projects, which have multiple milestones. Each milestone can have tasks, and each task can have to-do items. The project manager is responsible for creating this breakdown, and assigning milestones and tasks and to-dos to team members, though these assignments can be delegated as well.

After the setup, you’ll spend most of your time in WhoDoes on the Workspace tab. This shows you your current active task and to-dos, as well as a calendar overview of what’s coming due soon. When you’re working on a task, you can use the WhoDoes interface to track your time and compare it to budgeted time. A separate Repository tab provides basic document management, and a Journal tab shows a running list of every action performed by you entire team.

In its current incarnation, WhoDoes is free, though it does have some limits – in particular, you’re limited to two active projects. There aren’t any details of paid plans on the Web site yet, but presumably you’ll be able to purchase more storage if WhoDoes appeals to you.

Although it combines several common functions – task management, document management, and time-tracking – on the whole WhoDoes stays focused on one simple question: what do I need to do today? While project setup is somewhat confusing in this initial release, you may find that outweighed by the simplicity and ease of use in keeping you on track to reach your goals.