What is Virtualso?

Virtualso is a project managment tool build for creative teams. This app seeks to rethink the typical approach to Agile development by redesigning the interfaces we use everyday while creating. Virtualso provides several tools covering multiple aspects of the creative process with the ultimate goal of making operations more efficent and pushing projects to completion.

Findings

The idea behind Virtualso stems from promient issues in the video game industry. In 2022 alone, at least 60 games were reported to have been delayed, with likely many more delayed internally or cancelled entirely. Research into the reasosns behind this led to several key discoveries.

Organization

The current realities of product development have become so accepted in the minds of the average production team due to decades of reinforcement that the programs adopted by creative industries have become sandboxed and disorganized rather than serving as hubs for teams to come together, leading to reduced levels of cohesion and increased production time and spending.

Agile Integration

As product development strategies get more and more refined, they consistently forget to implement these processes into the tools developers use, leading to disparities between teams and causing projects to be less realized as a result, instead of reinforcing the project pipeline by shaping tools around those strategies.

The Convivence/Cohesion Dichotomy

There is a dichotomy between convivence and cohesion, with most tools leaning heavily into convenience which, while allowing teams to communicate despite their size and location, causes a disconnect among team members, leading to lower rapport and less teamwork, which could be solved by creating tools that create more natural interactions.

Too Many Tools

We exist in an era where there are millions of tools to solve millions of problems, making it so teams will need to adopt dozens to fulfil their needs, instead of being able to use a single tool that can serve multiple needs.

Solution

In order to solve this multi-faceted problem, I have developed a project management platform that reinvents the way we manage projects. With Virtualso, teams can manage their projects, communicate with their team, and track their progress all in one place. What makes this web app unique compared to competitors is our focus on optimizing the creative process by providing tools that are designed to not only manage who does what, but also help them do it.

The app is split into multiple sections, each focusing on different aspects of project management. At current, four categories are in prototyping: Tasks Stacks, Scope Analysis, Artifacts, and Tools.

Tasks Stacks

Tasks Stacks are the blood of Virtualso. They run through the application and are what connects people to projects and to each other. The Task Stack is a reinvention of the tradtional Kanban-style board we see in most project management tools. In a normal Kanban board, you would simply drag an item from one column to the next, perhaps assigning some people to the tasks, setting a due date, and creating some subtasks, but with Tasks Stacks, you can control much more while keeping everything organized. A Task Stack is a collection of subtasks that contain relevant information spaning across multiple teams. In addition to the standard Kanban features, Tasks Stacks let you link to pertinent files, quickly communicate with fellow assignees, overview progress on the task on a team-by-team basis, and see how long the tasks is estimated to take based on the typical performace from yours and other organizations.

Scope Analysis

Scope Anaysis is an extension of the Task Stack. It is a managerial tool that concatenates all the currently active and upcoming Task Stacks and displays them in a way that allows you to see the big picture. Scope Analysis is designed to get products out the door and prevent crunch by giving you realistic estimates as to when your project will get completed. Want to know how much your project will be affected by adding a new task? Just create a new Proto Stack, which will add the task on top of your current Task Stacks, allowing you to see the change is estimated delivery date. Want to know what needs to be cut? Just take a look at the Biggest Contributors section of the page to see what is taking the most amout of time. Not sure if you need to hire more developers? See which departments are falling behind the most based on their Task Stack performace and make a more informed decison. Remember, everything here is built to serve the ultimate goal of getting your project out the door and keeping your team happy.

Artifacts

Built to fulfil the need of simple project storage, Artifacts bring the power of source control to all your team's assets. In this section, you can upload any file you need or links to outside URLs. Artifacts can be hooked into a Task Stack so the relevant people have quick and easy access to them. Artifacts are also versioned, so you can always go back to a previous version or compare two version if needed. Certain file types, such as images and videos, can also be previewed in-app so you don&apps;t need to download them to your computer. Clicking on an Artifact preview will also allow you to comment on a specific area or timestamp, which is especially useful during the iterative design process.

Tools

As the name suggests, the Tools section of the app stores the various tools your organization is using for your project, separated into sections based on function. Your most recent tools will be displayed right on top for easy access. Want to know what tools your team is using? Just naviagte to relevant sections to see (great for speeding up onboarding). Are you struggling to find a tool that fits a specific need? Use the search bar powered by AI to find just what you need, or use the filters to narrow down your search. You can also create your own tools and add them to the app, allowing you to keep everything in one place. The goal with this feature is to keep things more organized and cohesive.

What's Next?

As this is an in-development project, there are still a ton of features being ideated on.

Game Engine Plugins

Since Virtualso is built with game developers in mind, a highly desireable feature would be to integrate certain parts of the app into game engines. Imagine being able to update your Task Stacks directly from Unreal. Or being able to leave comment nodes in a 3D environment and see those comments in the Artifacts section. There are a ton of potential use cases for this feature, and I believe it will allow for even more efficient developing.

Demo

A live demo site is currently in the works for Virtualso. Check back later for updates!