[Obligatory note: This post, as with all my posts on this blog, does not reflect the views of ThoughtWorks, my employer.]
I'm head of product development for ThoughtWorks Studios. In that capacity, I receive a lot of feedback about our products. This feedback ranges from nuts-n'-bolts-feature-requests to general impressions about our suite of tools. In the impression category, there's one complaint that I hear frequently -- that Mingle is too heavy/complicated. I used to be puzzled by this -- our most devoted customers praise its flexibility, simplicity and ease of use. How could Mingle be both simple and too heavy? A few months ago, after digging around on this issue with users, I realized one of the root causes. People confuse how an individual Mingle project is configured, with Mingle itself. In other words, if a team or an organization decides to use Mingle to create a difficult/heavy process, then users new to that Mingle instance assume that Mingle itself is the problem, not the configuration.
Mingle is a blank slate. Mingle's ease of use is highly correlated to the simplicity of the process you follow -- if your team's process is a bear, Mingle will be complex too. It requires a different mental model to use effectively. Most people approach project management tools the same way they approach their email client, i.e. they expect a fixed structure and navigational model. For example, most people know that email clients have a common affordance called an "inbox". Thus whenever you encounter a new client, you look for an navigational element called "inbox". Mingle does not have a fixed structure like this (with a few exceptions such as the Overview page).
Mingle is much closer to Microsoft Excel. When you open a random spreadsheet the first time, the only structural affordances are infrastructure -- the sheets, columns, cells, formulas, and rows. As a user, you have no idea how the spreadsheet works because its structure is based on its function. Until you understand the function, you don't understand the spreadsheet. Mingle has list views, grid views, tree views, transitions, queries, custom properties, and macros. Mingle allows you to compose these elements in a very powerful way to manage, collaborate on, and track your work. When you open a Mingle project there isn't a place called "plan" unless you've made it or it's part of a template you're using. That's a mental shift for a lot of people. Once you make that shift, the possibilities are pretty cool. This shift is why we see some customers using Mingle not just in their software teams, but in their legal, HR, and marketing groups too.
If you are using a Mingle project that's complicated, talk to your project admin; there's a good chance that the configuration is in your way. I would suggest you follow that people over process and tools thing some people are talking about. :) If you're looking for information you can't find in your project, take a look at the Explore Mingle page to understand some of the general mechanics behind creating your own views. If you're still having trouble, hit us up at our
community site.
This clarification in no way takes us off the hook for making Mingle simpler, nor is it an excuse for things we do need to improve. We want to continue to make Mingle the best and most flexible collaboration tool on the planet. We own Mingle's flexibility -- to the extent that we give you a sharp knife you can get cut. Hopefully, with a little knowledge, teams can wield that knife more effectively.
