One of the simplest types of project management setups that we’ve used is what we call a Program-Project framework. It’s a two-tiered hierarchy that lets you see the macro picture without all of the details (Program view) but also zoom into the details on the Project level when necessary. It is useful for relatively small teams, typically with one lead and many contributors. The lead will usually view things from the Program view while the individuals work mostly on the Project level.
The configuration consists of two Tabs, appropriately named Program and Project. For the purposes of this example, the tables themselves are pretty simple, with typical columns such as name, owner, start date, and end date.
What’s important about the table setup is really the data types for each column. Going from left to right in the Program tab, they are: single line text, single select, date, date, single select, record link. The last one (record link) being the most powerful, because it brings a list of all projects associated with the program. Which means on one page, you can see all of the pertinent Program attributes and the full workload of Projects in association. Note that before you setup the record link on the Program tab, you’ll have to establish the Project table in order to do the linking.
Now the ‘fun’ part can begin
This is where you use the table to optimize the strategy of the efforts. Once the data are entered, different views can be setup to understand any conflicts that might be present, whether the nature is staff, timing, or workload.
One of the basic and really productive uses is to lay out timing and sequencing. We typically begin with all Programs having the same start and end date in the Grid view. This makes for fast entry and doesn’t require much thought up front; it let’s you focus on the ‘creative’ task of just entering all of the Programs that are bouncing around in your brain, without having to worry about the details.
At this point, consider adding a Timeline view to the Program tab. This allows you to visualize the sequence and duration of each program according the timescale that you set. This is the view where you can actually start dialing in the ‘real’ start and end times of the programs. This interface makes it super easy to drag beginning and end times across the page, helping you to order things much more quickly than if you were manually entering dates in the Grid.
Balancing the workload in the Timeline view can be done with various considerations. Priority is a big one: what are the really important Programs that need to be started immediately? Which ones can be pushed out to a later date? Most of the time, stuff keeps getting pushed further and further to the right. Another consideration is workload. If there are too many overlapping programs at one time, some of them have to shift around to accommodate bandwidth. And then there are logistical questions. Sometimes one program has to begin after another ends, because the second one depends on the outcome of the first. Timeline is a more-simplified view than say a Gantt view (which Airtable also provides) but it’s a good place to start to get a sense of the high level sequence. At the Program level, there typically aren’t many interdependencies and therefore a ‘fast and loose’ view like Timeline is more dynamic and appropriate. In our experience, when you get to more operations-type plans (such as sourcing parts for a build), using a Gantt is more powerful.
By linking all of the active projects to the programs, you also get a sense of ‘weight’ of the program. Which ones have many, large expenditure projects associated with them? Once you get a feel for the heavy hitters, you can hopefully space those ones out from each other so your team is not drowning. Ideally you can have a single big one active with a few lesser ones occurring in parallel. Of course, Airtable is fancy enough to actually count the number of linked projects automatically 😉 Once you have Count in a column, you could then sort or filter by this number, with higher being the ‘heavier’ programs.
There is a lot more functionality to be squeezed out of the Program-Project framework, but hopefully this is enough info as a starting place. Airtable makes it surprisingly easy to ‘prototype’ within the database for you to configure as you see fit. We would recommend having a duplicated version as your sandbox so you don’t accidentally delete important information.