This introduction article will help users determine which project plan type is most appropriate for managing a project in Work Management. The user must have the Add Plans permission on their Project application security role.
Overview
This article identifies the differences in functionality between waterfall and card wall project plans in TeamDynamix. Waterfall plans can be managed with the web plan manager in Work Management or the Windows-based Plan Manager application, while card wall plans are managed using the card wall user interface in Work Management. Waterfall plans are designed to manage complex plans, such as those with interdependent tasks and shared task responsibility. Card wall plans are designed to manage simple plans with independent tasks that are executed by collaborative teams.
Once created, it is not possible to convert plans from card wall to waterfall or vice versa. Carefully consider which plan features would be most appropriate for your project before creating a project plan.
Where to Find This
Project managers may create project plans of either type in Work Management. Navigate to Plans following this path for both waterfall and card wall plans:
- In Work Management > View Applications > your Project application > Projects > your Project Name > Plans
Alternatively, for waterfall plans, the Windows Plan Manager application may be used. This application may be downloaded and installed from:
- In Work Management > View Applications > Downloads > Windows Plan Manager
Differences Between Waterfall and Card Wall Plans
Card Wall Plan Features
Card Walls provide a more visual, collaborative way to manage work through lists of cards. The lists can be customized to suit a team’s needs, such as supporting a development team’s process for how work flows through various statuses. A custom list set up may be created in a Project Template for reuse. In addition, Cards will show up as tasks in reports and desktop modules that currently display task information.
The following features are specific to Card Wall plans:
- Start / End Dates
- Real Time Updates
- Drag and Drop Status Updates
- Drag and Drop Percent Complete Updates
- Subtask checklists
- Color coding of tasks
- Work in Progress Limits
- Task Archive
- Inactive (hidden) Lists
Waterfall Plan Features
Waterfall plans provide more support for a complex task structure. Since waterfall plans can be more involved to manage, they use a locking feature to prevent edits. Project managers can create task dependencies and schedule when tasks occur. Milestone functionality allows identifying key delivery points in the project for reporting to summarize progress or show upcoming deliverables.
The following features are specific to Waterfall plans:
- Check-in / check-out editing
- Required start and end dates for tasks
- Milestones
- Shifting
- Predecessors/Dependencies
- External Dependencies to other waterfall plans in the same or different projects
- Parent/Child tasks
- Plan Export/Import
- Add Time for Other User (available from Work Management Task Edit)
- Cut/Copy/Paste Tasks
- Foreground Color
- Baselining tasks/milestones (available via Windows Plan Manager)
- Offline editing of plans (available via Windows Plan Manager)
An Approach for Using Both Card Wall and Waterfall Plans
Hybrid models for project management have become mainstream, and project managers may want to explore how they can use both types of plans to effectively manage a project, leveraging their respective benefits. A project manager can use a waterfall plan to create milestones for the main project deliverables. These milestones will have dates that may be used in reporting to summarize the project or look at upcoming deliverables across the portfolio. The work to create and deliver those milestones could be done by teams via card walls. Teams have gravitated more toward collaborating on work via card walls, and the project manager can enable their resources to build out and manage their work. The project manager can monitor the progress and reflect updates in the milestone plan accordingly. While there are no direct associations between card walls and milestone plans, this allows the project manager to interpret progress and reflect the status they believe is most accurate.
Project Plan Editing Permissions
To be able to edit a project plan, the user will need all of the following:
- Have access to Work Management and the specific Project application
- Be a member of the project to which the plan belongs.
- The Project application security role must include the following permissions:
There are some scenarios where the user will see a read-only version of a plan. This happens when one of the following scenarios is true:
- The user does not have access to the Projects application. They might only have the Analysis application to report on tasks or be a client user accessing project plan information via the Client Portal.
- The user does not belong to the project associated with the plan. Users not on the project cannot edit plans in other projects.
- The project is inactive. The project is not workable, and thus, plans cannot be edited.
- The project is closed or canceled. The project is not workable, and thus, plans cannot be edited.
- It should also be noted that if a project is copied, the copy is marked as "inactive" by default. This means that copied projects cannot have their plans edited until they have been reactivated.
Project Plan Viewing Access
In most cases, the system grants users access only to projects they are members of.
The View All Project Application Instances in Analysis permission (global security role, Enterprise only) allows a user to access data from all Project applications in Analysis without being assigned to them.
Without this permission, users are limited in Analysis to projects within Project applications they are assigned to, and further limited to projects linked to their assigned Accounts/Departments unless they also have View All Accts/Depts.
Administrators who have access to the Analysis application can view closed or deactivated projects, as well as projects they are not members of.
To access plans from the Analysis application:
- In Work Management, navigate to View Applications, and select the Analysis application.
- In the left navigation, under Project Searches, click Active Projects Search.
- Locate the desired project.
- To see Closed or Inactive projects, click the filter icon in the toolbar.
- Select Inactive Projects, Closed Projects, or Both.
- Click the Apply button.
- Click the project name.
Examples
Card Wall Uses
- Software development life cycle
- Agile project management
- List brainstorming/collaboration
- Simple project management
Waterfall Uses
- Infrastructure project management
- Complex management with intricate relationships between tasks