What am I looking for?  I’m looking for software that knows how the real world works: the world wherein clients change their minds, employees get sick and go on holiday, and projects suddenly appear requiring all-hands-on-deck for the next 72 hours.  I’m looking for software that can accurately tell me, “can we take on this project without affecting any other ongoing jobs?”  I’m looking for software that understands that nothing ever goes according to plan.

Frankly, we fly by the seat of our pants and tend to make shit up as we go along. That’s what I need this software to understand.

It’s perhaps worth qualifying my complaint by acknowledging that ours might be an industry-specific problem. We are a small team of designers and developers, working closely with our clients to develop brands and build websites.  We offer a very personal level of service, where our clients talk to everyone on the team, and we each take turns running projects.  We have a mix of long-term and short-term projects that run side-by-side.  I suppose we’re “agile” in our working ways, but we are frankly too busy to apply a fixed methodology and label our work process.

Thing is, I think I have an idea on what this software might look like.  I’ve had a bit of an ah-hah moment and I can’t seem to get it out of my head.  What I have also