I would like to ask my fellow core Edgeryders if we should not get rid of projects.edgeryders.eu. So far it seems no one uses it except me, and, to paraphrase Michel Barnier, “I cannot coordinate with myself”.
It seems quite complicated, with lots of moving parts. Maybe we can revert to a simpler tool.
The simplest of all would be to just use a Discourse board for negotiations, equivalent to the journals. Each topic (thread) is a project. We could use an ontology of tags (“negotiating”, “active”, “discarded” etc.) to keep track of its state.
As for my reasons to close our Open Project installation down:
The original intention was to migrate the content of all edgeryders.eu admin groups to Open Project rather than Discourse. We later decided against that (I think rightly so, to keep hired team members and ourselves "close to our workplace", which is Discourse, making everyone more competent in the software they should use most). That leaves very little use for Open Project.
The only really useful piece is the project Gantt chart, but we can have that using Google Spreadsheets, too. Which means it integrates with our current file storage solution. And for presentation quality Gantt charts, a different tool was used by Alberto anyway.
Open Project is a lot of form filling, which is not the style of collaboration in our typical project teams. It would make collaboration more structured and organized (admitted!), but only if our hired people use it too. Which they won't, I believe. Matrix seems much better, because it's more enjoyable. It's simply better work/life integration, allowing to mix in some chatting and joking …
Discourse plus Matrix already feels complex from the webmaster's point of view, but manageable and it seems realistic to achieve a high quality and good integration. When adding Open Project to the mix, that would change. I personally haven't even looked into Open Project since doing the setup.
At the current rate of usage, I fear it will end up unused shortly, like our Booktype installation at books.edgeryders.eu (which, by the way, will be closed down soon, its content also moving to Discourse).
(But I also know @Nadia is experimenting with it for the MENA Youth Platform project, and intends to let all team members on it. I am open to wait for the results of that extended test. Nadia, what do you say to the above?)
I saved all content as exports and screenshots locally, so if somebody is missing a piece … . Most content was related to The MENA Youth Platform, and I exported that to a spreadsheet on Google Drive.
(Also, Booktype has been removed, formerly on books.edgeryders.eu. Tidy-up mania!!)
… however, now we are left with an unsolved problem
Here’s my take: Drupal’s journals (easily ported to Discourse boards) are OK to run negotiations. Negotiating is normally done by only one person per project, so coordination needs are low.
Live projects are another matter.
For example, we get plenty of calendar potential conflicts. In September 2017, we are looking at Future Makers missions, Matera 2019 projects community kickoff meeting, very possibly some Reef Brussels activity.
Another example is financial constraints. The cash flow plan is supposed to take care of this, but no one is really looking at it but me. So far we have gotten by because we have been financially conservative and have stashed liquidity in the bank, but as we grow that might get harder.
Maybe we should have a shared Company Google Calendar? Any other idea?