[michelle]

Which do you create more often, parallel or sequential projects? In a sequential project, the tasks must be done in a specific order. In a parallel project, they can be done in any order. We are going to have a preference for this, but we need to decide on a default setting for the preference. Our office is split right down the middle on this issue and people have strong opinions. Help?

Michelle

[duodecad]

Well, this is probably not what you want to hear, but my answer is "both". I'd say my projects are split about 50/50 between parallel and sequential.

Maybe this can be a preference that the user sets individually for each project, when they create it?

I suppose if I was really forced to choose, I'd go for "sequential"-- my logic here is that a parallel project can be set up and worked on as a sequential one (by simply cranking through one task at a time), but a sequential project can't really be done as a parallel one at all-- the dependencies wouldn't allow it. So if I really had to choose only one, I'd go with sequential.

[bluebaltic]

Typically, I want some control over the order in which tasks appear. Making some really wild assumptions based on other posts, I understand that there will be manual prioritization within projects (drag and drop, slide, something).

So, I suppose I'll be expecting my "priority" to be of some importance. I'd rather, I guess, have sequential for this reason.

However, if parallel means they can be done in any order, and I'm setting the order, then I want parallel.

If we're talking totally random without any user control, I don't really like parallel.

[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by duodecad

Maybe this can be a preference that the user sets individually for each project, when they create it?

You can change this setting on each project (or even each task group), we're just wondering which way it should usually be. (We'll have a preference so each person can decide which way they prefer for most of their projects, we're just wondering which preference is more common so we can pick an appropriate factory setting for that preference.)

Originally Posted by bluebaltic

Typically, I want some control over the order in which tasks appear.

Definitely. In OmniFocus, tasks are arranged in an ordered outline (just like in kGTD).

[michelle]

Yes, I didn't mean to make it sound like you would be stuck with one or the other. I was just curious which you use more often so we could determine the default setting.

[JasonI]

First off, I view Projects and Tasks completely differently. Tasks are what you need to accomplish for a given project and a project is a collection of tasks. Projects usually do not have any tie-in to other projects, so they should be set to parallel. The tasks, for me, are what I would like to determine are either parallel or sequential. I think that I would rather have tasks be parallel by default (just me) because many of my tasks in a given project can be done "out of order". Then for the ones that would need to be done in sequence I could just change it over when I needed to.

Now, if you are talking about sub-projects, that is a different story. I think sub-projects should be sequential by default but the tasks, again, would be parallel by default.

Hope that this makes sense and is in line with what you are asking.

[mitchellm]

I'd vote for sequential. I think that would be more sensible as a starting point.

As long as a person has the ability to easily designate parallel or sequential then that's the main thing.

This may be a silly question, but wouldn't it be possible in the general Preferences for the program to set what each person's general preference is (sequential/parallel)? Then they could change from their designated preference as needed when working on new projects?

[michelle]

Yes, we'll have a general preference and we'll make it very easy to switch between sequential and parallel.

[Terry]

Sequential. Most of everything I do is sequential.

[vocaro]

Parallel. Most of everything I do is parallel.