Tracking project status

Wouter van Nes

Hi!

I'm a starting type designer and I'm figuring out a productivity system to track the status of different projects (mostly doing this in Notion). So I was asking myself what status system other designers use while designing typefaces. So how do you keep track of the status of a project while you're designing, kerning, proofing, …?

Cheers 🤙

JoyceKetterer

I think it's really hard to track status because making a font is a big thing and individual tasks vary so wildly in complexity and time commitment.  But also because there are so many unknown unknowns in font making.

Before we start a project we scope it using a spreadsheet that attempts to identify the areas where the unknowns are likely to crop up.  I invented this together with @Eben Sorkin.  First, you want to be as granular as possible with the tasks.  Then, for each task we have four columns: Worst case, Best case, Likely, Actual.  

The idea is that if a task is really simple the first three should be close together, whereas a task with many unknowns will have a wild range.  Likely should lean either towards worst or best based on the designers' instinct about the probability of everything going wrong (sometimes likely is the same as worst case but it's only the same as best case if worst case is also - for the simple tasks).  The Actual column allows us to get better at predicting over time.  

This spreadsheet could be used to track completion because you can see what's done (because it has a number in the actual column).  You could then take a guess at the amount of time it will take to complete the whole thing by either just totalling the worst case (to be cautious) or totalling the likely and adding a little padding.

A few thoughts:
1.  Though each individual likely forecast is a good guess the aggregate of the likely forecasts is almost definitely wrong.
2.  You can't use a formula to calculate the different columns, you have to take each one on a case by case basis and use your experience to make educated guesses.  That's actually the point of this system.
3.  Don't forget to scope art direction, if you have people working under you.  We made that mistake and it was as a disaster
4.  Of course, this spreadsheet needs to then be applied to a calendar.  Always add padding for holidays and illness.  

If anyone wants to know more about this Eben and I could possibly do a webinar.  

Dave Crossland

Eben and I also worked (with others) on a overall process diagram @ http://designwithfontforge.com/en-US/Planning_Your_Project.html which might help

Ben Kiel

@Dave Crossland fyi looks like that diagram doesn’t show because it’s hosted on a non public Google Drive location

Wouter van Nes

Thanks a lot @JoyceKetterer and @Dave Crossland for your insights! 

Dave Crossland

The diagram on that page is now fixed, thanks Ben for mentioning