In project management, optimizing the allocation of work among team members is crucial for success. Placker's tools offer a platform for managing projects seamlessly. However, one common query among Placker users is the ability to set specific working hours for each member assigned to a card.

While Placker's current functionality doesn't directly support individual working hours per member on a single card, there's a creative workaround that can achieve a similar outcome: splitting the card into checklist items and assigning each member to one of these items, along with specific working hours.

Most tools, including Placker, distribute work evenly among members assigned to a card, which might not always reflect the actual distribution of work or hours dedicated by each member.

To navigate this limitation, Placker offers a flexible feature that can be used creatively: checklist items within cards. This approach allows project managers to break down a task (card) into smaller, manageable pieces (checklist items) and assign them to team members with specific working hours. Here's how to implement this strategy effectively:

1. Break Down the Task: Identify the different components or stages of the task at hand. This breakdown should reflect the actual work process and the different areas of responsibility among team members.

2. Create Checklist Items: For each component or stage identified, create a checklist item within the card. This step transforms a broad task into a series of smaller, assignable tasks.

3. Assign Members and Hours: Assign each checklist item to the appropriate team member. Alongside this assignment, communicate the specific working hours for each item. To do this, click the checklist item row in the Gantt view and add the effort in the panel or create a child card.

4. Set the resource plan visibility to show only by checklist, when available. This will make the card effort to be hidden when there are checklist items with effort.

5. Track Progress: As team members complete their checklist items, they can mark them as done, providing a clear visual representation of progress on the overall task. This method not only facilitates workload management but also enhances transparency and accountability within the team.

In the screenshot below, it's visible that both James and Karen are involved in Task A. However, James works 2 days (from Monday to Tuesday) while Karen works 5 days (from Monday to Friday).

A related feature that could be useful when adding effort to checklist items is to enable enable “Aggregate checklist items on card level”. This makes the effort of the card to be the sum of the effort of its checklist items.

This is exemplified in the screenshot above, where the effort of card A is 7d (2d + 5d).

For details on this feature, check this article.

While Placker's current functionality may not directly support setting specific working hours for each member on a card, the platform's flexibility allows for creative solutions like the checklist item approach. This strategy not only circumvents the limitation but also enhances task management, accountability, and team collaboration.

Remember, the key to successful project management lies not just in the tools we use but in how we use them. By thinking creatively and leveraging Placker's features to their fullest, teams can achieve greater efficiency and productivity, even within existing constraints.