Can a project be a noun?
 

From what I can tell, projects and tasks are generall verbs, since they are something you do, e.g. "plan camping trip" and "buy trail map".

As a software developer, most of my work revolves around the several software system we write and maintain.

So would it be reasonable to have a project such as "photo browser" with subprojects such as "design login screen" and actions like "install security patch"?

Many TIA!
Mark

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Mark Harrison
Pixar Animation Studios

Your way would work, but I would probably make "photo browser" a [B]folder[/B], "design login screen" a [B]project[/B], and "install security patch an [B]action in a single-action list[/B] within that same folder. I think conceptually, for me, non-complete-able groupings fit the folder idea better, and I reserve the project level for complete-able things. Note that you can also do more things with a project than an action group (e.g., I think, place on hold, or drop, or focus), which might argue for my setup, too.

Nouns for Project names seem fine to me, as long as they're descriptive enough to tell me what they are at a glance. By eliminating verbs, the project names fit in the sidebar better, too. But I do like all my actions to start with verbs.

For example, if I were the president of a super power, I might have a "Military Actions" folder. In there, I might have a "Desert Storm" project with actions such as "Build up force in Persian Gulf", "Launch invasion", "Sieze objectives", etc. I'd want "Desert Storm" to be a project, not a folder, because it has an ending and I would want to mark it as completed at some point. "Military Actions", however, is an ongoing area of responsibility that will continue indefinitely.

If Mark is going to complete work on the "Photo Browser" at some point (presumably, the feature is completed at some point), then I think he should keep it as a Project.

In Mark's case, I would understand [I]Photo Browser[/I] to be shorthand for [I]Develop Photo Browser[/I]. I don't want my project names to be too long (I like to have them fully visible in the side bar), so I tend to leave out implicit verbs.