“Projects” in Harvest
All team and vendors at Cantilever will encounter some or all of the the project types described below.
Project: “Company and Culture”
This project is where Team Members can track time for work that is not directly contributing to the completion of project tasks and deliverables. It's also for continuous improvement work (like updating Notion docs or team playbooks), time spent on hiring-related work, general system/app setup and access provisioning, All Hands meetings, off-sites, etc. (This work is still billable to Cantilever but we track it separately to understand how much time we spend on the "non-work" aspects of work.)
Tasks include:
Example: For all the meetings and communications that happen outside the context of project or task-specific work: coffee chats with team members, Slack or email discussions not related to project work, all-hands meetings, etc.
Examples: Making improvements to team process by updating templates, configuration, documentation; discussions and communications related to improving the way we work, collaborate, and communicate. One-on-one meetings, quarterly reviews, etc.
Examples: Vetting candidates, coordinating and conducting interviews, communicating internally about decisions or offer terms for candidates, etc.
For anything else
Project: “Core Coverage”
This is a common Project for all Clients as it’s central to our current service offerings.
Tasks include:
Examples: high-level strategic thinking, planning, and communication with clients exclusively to diagnose and triage client questions, requests or issues so that they can then be addressed through “Emergency Response” work or refined through “Task Definition” for planned maintenance.
This is to be used sparingly for true client emergencies. Typically work billed as “Emergency Response” is billed at a higher rate. Clients should understand in advance what it means to utilize these hours.
Examples: responding to and resolving a website downtime for a client; diagnosing and fixing an issue with core functionality on a client’s production website.
For anything else
Project: “Planned Maintenance”
This is a common Project for all Clients as it’s central to our current service offerings. Planned Maintenance is primarily for the execution and delivery of tasks that have already been planned as part of “Core Retainer” strategic work.
Tasks include:
Examples: inspiration gathering, content modeling, information architecture, content strategy.
Examples: writing or editing/updating content for any medium.
Examples: entering approved content into a Content Management System, entering approved content into website code (hard-coded copy or media).
Examples: preparing a content draft for review, conducting a review of a content draft, presenting content strategy, drafts, or other content deliverables to internal or external stakeholders.
Example: Inspiration gathering, sketches, and other work that contribute to design work and typically precedes the creation of a draft deliverable.
Example: Work contributing to design deliverables that address project/task requirements and team feedback. Most design "work" will utilize this task: wireframes, mockups, figma comments, annotations, design documentation to support deliverables, etc.
Example: Design meeting with a client stakeholder or peer to review a proposed solution; internal meeting with other designers to discuss a design direction or mockup. Async review work that could include preparing shareable files or exports, creating a video/Loom recording presentation, or other deliverables specific to presentation/delivery of the work.
Example: Inspiration gathering, researching known solutions and patterns, pseudocode, diagramming, and other work that contributes to development work and typically precedes the implementation of the code/configuration/deliverables.
Writing code or “no-code” development, writing tests, writing documentation, performing self-QA, preparing code for peer review.
Example: Conducting peer code reviews and QA; setup and coordination to have a company stakeholder review a new feature.
Example: design or technical inventories and audits; scoped/planned customer interviews or research; synthesizing research findings or data to create a report/deliverable for a client.
Example: Setting up access for team members; setting up a new staging and production environment for a new app; rotating API keys or app credentials; organizing files in Figma to support more efficient work on a project; communication related to scheduling meetings or access; time spent writing “project status” updates or synchronous “kick-off” or “check-in” meetings where there is no decision-making or progress on work being made.
Examples: Converting an approved, high-level plan or project document into Asana tasks; design or development team refinement of an Asana task to get it ready for assignment and estimation; communication with peers related to the definition, estimation, and assignment of an individual task; communicating with the team or client stakeholders to verify the relevancy and accuracy of a specific and focus of a plan.
For anything else
Project: “CLIENT_NAME PROJECT_NAME” (SOW)
Usage is nearly identical to “Planned Maintenance” but work is organized and tracked as a distinct project in Harvest, typically because there is a signed Statement of Work for work that is separate from “Core Retainer” or “Planned Maintenance”.
The most efficient way to track time for larger initiatives within client projects is to create a separate Harvest project. Our general policy is that any time we scope and estimate a specific initiative (subproject) above 10 hours of effort we should create a separate Harvest project for it. This allows us to provide the client with a line item breakdown of such initiatives. Another benefit of doing this is that it reduces the number of inquiries/complaints we get about hours from our clients. When they see the line item and they can correlate that to an estimate that they approved it’s easier for them to absorb that we delivered what they asked for. When we send a bill with a large “general” line item it creates an ambiguity that the client may fill in with their own interpretation or fears.
Tasks may include:
Examples: inspiration gathering, content modeling, information architecture, content strategy.
Examples: writing or editing/updating content for any medium.
Examples: entering approved content into a Content Management System, entering approved content into website code (hard-coded copy or media).
Examples: preparing a content draft for review, conducting a review of a content draft, presenting content strategy, drafts, or other content deliverables to internal or external stakeholders.
Example: Inspiration gathering, sketches, and other work that contribute to design work and typically precedes the creation of a draft deliverable.
Example: Work contributing to design deliverables that address project/task requirements and team feedback. Most design "work" will utilize this task: wireframes, mockups, figma comments, annotations, design documentation to support deliverables, etc.
Example: Design meeting with a client stakeholder or peer to review a proposed solution; internal meeting with other designers to discuss a design direction or mockup. Async review work that could include preparing shareable files or exports, creating a video/Loom recording presentation, or other deliverables specific to presentation/delivery of the work.
Example: Inspiration gathering, researching known solutions and patterns, pseudocode, diagramming, and other work that contributes to development work and typically precedes the implementation of the code/configuration/deliverables.
Writing code or “no-code” development, writing tests, writing documentation, performing self-QA, preparing code for peer review.
Example: Conducting peer code reviews and QA; setup and coordination to have a company stakeholder review a new feature.
Example: design or technical inventories and audits; scoped/planned customer interviews or research; synthesizing research findings or data to create a report/deliverable for a client.
Example: Setting up access for team members; setting up a new staging and production environment for a new app; rotating API keys or app credentials; organizing files in Figma to support more efficient work on a project; communication related to scheduling meetings or access; time spent writing “project status” updates or synchronous “kick-off” or “check-in” meetings where there is no decision-making or progress on work being made.
Examples: Converting an approved, high-level plan or project document into Asana tasks; design or development team refinement of an Asana task to get it ready for assignment and estimation; communication with peers related to the definition, estimation, and assignment of an individual task; communicating with the team or client stakeholders to verify the relevancy and accuracy of a specific and focus of a plan.
For anything else
Legacy Projects
There are still some legacy projects (for services that are no longer offered to new clients) that are actively used. Those should have the same tasks as the standard “Project” or “Planned Maintenance” but might have one-off tasks for billing purposes that will be labeled as “Legacy”.
"Tasks" in Harvest
Tasks in Harvest represent the kind of work that you're doing, not what you're doing. (The "what" is the Note). Task types are regularly updated to suit the growing needs of the team and the dynamic nature of our work.
- See the "Projects” in Harvest above to understand how to use each task type; when in doubt, ask the team!
- Every project should also have an "Uncategorized Time" task that should be used when you're unsure of where to categorize time.