Why would anyone build another project management app?

John Reeve | February 26th, 2009 |

Looking for project management software to help run your small business? Take your pick. There are too many of them to count. So why would anyone build another online project management app? There are a lot of good reasons, and not all of them are unique to Intervals.

When we first started building Intervals, there weren’t any other options

We began building Intervals in 2005, and officially launched it in July of 2006. Our motive at the time was that we couldn’t find anything out there that fit our needs. And to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot out there to begin with. First, we tried using Excel to track our time and tasks. But I’ll spare you the gory details of why that was a colossal mistake. There were a few open source apps available, several of which we tried, but none that fit our need for tracking time and managing tasks in the same place. We did try bolting that feature on to one of the open source options, but if you’ve ever looked under the hood of a circa 2003 open source web-based app than you know it’s like pimping out a Chevy with Mini Cooper parts. Then you had Basecamp, but there was no way it could handle the workload of a highly specialized web development agency like ours. That left us with only one other option, we had to roll our own.

Everyone is used to doing things slightly differently

There is no magic handbook on how to properly manage projects. The big boys with the Gantt charts and critical path plans might tell you different, but we tried that, too, and it doesn’t work for a small web design & development agency like ours, nor any small business for that matter. We’ve all grown accustomed to managing projects in a fashion that works best for us. The benefit of having so many options to choose from is that you can try them all out before deciding which one fits your methodologies the best. Whether or not you have an established way of getting projects completed, you want to adapt as little as possible.

We have 9+ years of project management experience as a web design & development agency

That’s saying something. We’ve made a lot of mistakes on a lot of projects, but we’ve also got a lot of them right. And with a certified project manager on our staff, we’ve learned quite a bit about project management in the small business environment. We’ve tested the traditional methods and the newer methods and found a sweet combination of both that has made our business and our clients successful. Intervals isn’t just another web-based project management app, it’s our contribution to the small business world — an application that represents the best-practices in time tracking, task management, and project management.

Our experience is your gain

We threw out all our bad mistakes and incorporated the lessons of success into Intervals. You can use our software knowing that its features are sweetly distilled equivalents of those lessons and will spare you having to repeat our past. Intervals is not just another project management app that a few freelancers threw together over a weekend, it’s a tool with a full team of developers behind it, all of whom have been in the trenches together for the last nine years.

We have a story to tell

From the very beginning we’ve wanted Intervals to be different. It’s not just another online project management application because the team behind it is like none other you will ever meet. We are a group of guys who have seen the best and the worst of running a small business. We want to share the experiences of our web design & development agency with our customers in a way that will better their business. When you signup for Intervals, you also get an open line to our team. Send us emails with your questions about how to use the software or how to run your business. We probably have several relevant stories for whatever situation you are in and we’d love to help out in any way we can. Whether it’s showing you how to group tasks into milestones to improve your scheduling or talking about the best ways to bill your clients, drop us a line and ask.

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Intervals Blog

A collection of useful tips, tales and opinions based on decades of collective experience designing and developing web sites and web-based applications.

What is Intervals?

Intervals is online time, task and project management software built by and for web designers, developers and creatives.
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John Reeve
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John Reeve

John is a co-founder, web designer and developer at Pelago. His blog posts are inspired by everyday encounters with designers, developers, creatives and small businesses in general. John is an avid reader and road cyclist.
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Jennifer Payne
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Jennifer Payne

Jennifer is the Director of Quality and Efficiency at Pelago. Her blog posts are based largely on her experience working with teams to improve harmony and productivity. Jennifer is a cat person.
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Michael Payne
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Michael Payne

Michael is a co-founder and product architect at Pelago. His contributions stem from experiences managing the development process behind web sites and web-based applications such as Intervals. Michael drives a 1990 Volkswagen Carat with a rebuilt 2.4 liter engine from GoWesty.
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