Project Management & Subcontractor Time Tracking
September 26th, 2008 by John Reeve
In the beginning there was just a few of us at Pelago, and a bunch of subcontractors. We were very much aware of the project management challenges related to running a distributed team. Specifically, how do we get our subcontractors to properly track their time, so we can turn around and accurately bill our clients?
When we launched Intervals we informed our subcontractors that we wouldn’t be paying them unless they tracked their time in Intervals. This made a huge impact on managing projects, because we could now see, in real-time, how much time and budget had been used. And we were able to avoid surprising the client with bills because a subcontractor invoiced us too late.
Another advantage to having subcontractors track their time in the same place is that the team is all using the same web-based application. Team productivity is easily handled from the online mothership with task management, document sharing, project notes, and reports. Once a project is centralized in this way, it makes it much easier to manage.
Keeping subcontractors accountable may not be a big problem for you, but it was for us. Project management is a very fluid arena and it is changing very rapidly… for the better we think. Intervals represents our solution to the common project management problems faced by a small team. There are a lot of different methodologies — different ways for getting things done — for you to choose from. If you find your time tracking struggles at all similar to ours, you may find Intervals to be a good fit for your project management needs.
Tags: project management, subcontractors, time tracking
September 26th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Project Management & Subcontractor Time…
How do we get our subcontractors to properly track their time, so we can turn around and accurately bill our clients?…
September 26th, 2008 at 9:32 am
September 29th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Interesting. For project management i currently use Deskaway and because i use it i can really sense how you guys have tweaked your system to make it industry specific - great job. I think this tool is great for the developed countries and as the third world becomes more organised - this tool can really aid a lot of small businesses (as can DeskAway i think). Btw - when was intervals built?
September 29th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Intervals was officially launched in July of 2006, but is constantly undergoing updates and feature additions.