I’ve been scratching my head lately trying to think of a better solution to part of what I do at work. I need some ideas because my idea-engine seems to be currently in for repairs. Here’s what I’m dealing with:

  • There are 30 or so projects.

  • Each project has a few simple properties (name, number, etc).

  • Various notes will be assigned to each project (project notes, tasks, important dates etc).

  • There are about 10 people. These people will be assigned to various projects (only 1 or 2 per project) but obviously each will be assigned to more than one project.

  • Project tasks do NOT need to be assigned or linked to a specific person. The person(s) assigned to a given project are really just another ‘property’ of the project.

  • I want to be able to add and remove projects as time goes by. The total number of projects at any given time will vary.

  • I want to be able to look at any given project and update (or add to) its notes.

  • I want to be able to re-assign people to different or new projects.

  • I need to be able to quickly see what projects a given person is assigned to at any time.

  • I need to be able to see an overview of all the projects (not all their data.. just really all their names and project numbers)

  • This doesn’t need to be collaborative or viewable by anyone else.

  • A visual view of this would be wonderful (but likely this is a bit pie-in-the-sky).

  • Would like to be able to futz with it at home or work. So web-based, cross-platform tools would be nice. If it’s text files in a dropbox for instance, that would be peachy too.

Does anyone have any ideas on what tools I could use to achieve this? I’m not after a big all-in-one solution (though I will not outright reject the notion). I’m more about simple tools used together and put to good use.

The other day I was thinking about rolling up my sleeves and getting back into Python to put something together, but I really don’t want to go down that rabbit hole if I don’t need to. If it ends up being a spreadsheet adorned with paperclips and elastics, then so be it.

Any and all ideas welcome.