May 18 2009 10:00AM GMT
Posted by: Jaideep
Software vendor,
Project Management,
Software Project,
Software Project Lifecycle,
business study,
requirement gathering,
customer,
customer expectations,
software product,
top management,
project stakeholders,
process owner,
end user,
software development,
project completion,
user level requirement,
top level requirement
The most critical stage in software project lifecycle is business study and requirement gathering. Vendor has to be very cautious and careful in understanding all levels expectations from the product they are going to build for the customer. Skipping top level at this stage could be disastrous for both. As a vendor, if you don’t involve customer top management while gathering requirements – you are inviting a mishap!
Customer top Management involvement is very critical during the business study and requirement gathering phase of a software project. The expectations of top management shall invariably be different as compared to other stakeholders of the software project at customer end. Assuming that the requirements gathering from process owners or end users will be sufficient for developing software will be a misconception. A detailed discussion for capturing requirement and understanding top management perception is critically important to lead to a successful completion of the project.
At the Vendor end – the Project Manager has to ensure that besides capturing user level requirements, it is essential to highlight the benefits to the top management being proposed for them from the product. It is not desirable but mandatory to freeze top level expectations at business study and requirement gathering stage.
May 11 2009 10:12AM GMT
Posted by: Jaideep
change management,
Software Project,
Project Management,
project cycle,
Project Development,
software development,
software implementation,
project implementation,
software requirements,
business requirements,
business study,
project manager,
Business Rules,
customer management,
customer requirements,
project team,
business critical change
Change management is a subset of project management. In any software project change is to be managed during the whole cycle of development and implementation. Requirements once specified by customer at the business requirements study phase does not mean that there will be no change in requirements later. Vendor who is not open to mange or cater to this change in requirements will not be able to deliver the product to customer upto his satisfaction. To mange these changes Change Management is essential and both have to play their respective roles in managing the project. Changes could be in terms of specifications, process being re-defined, or change in business rules. The two aspects for change management are – vendor and customer.
At Vendor level the Project Manager should accept changes only that are business critical and not cosmetic or wishful in nature. He should redefine the project/ development/ implementation plan in terms of time and revenues in consultation with his management taking customer management in confidence. He should incorporate changes only after getting it approved by customer top management.
The Project manager has all rights to challenge any change in requirements that is fanciful, not business critical and is impacting the software largely in terms of efforts and time.
At Customer level the Management and Project team have to understand the impact of any small change on the software thereby asking for a change only if it is a business critical change, analysing if the change can be avoided, and understanding the time and cost effect of the change.
Apr 20 2009 10:05AM GMT
Posted by: Jaideep
project manager,
Project Management,
project implementation,
implementation phase,
project lead,
project ownership,
UAT,
business study,
business need,
software training,
implementation process,
implementation plan,
project team,
Risk Management,
Risk Plan,
post implementation,
process owner,
reconciliation,
transaction entry,
project sign-off,
project closure,
project failure,
project success
The customer project manager has to take the lead and ownership of product as soon as it is launched at customer site for implementation. The UAT, training and implementation process can only be effective in case customer project team gets fully involved into each and every activity of the implementation phase. Infact the implementation plan prepared by vendor project manager should be the responsibility of customer project manager to execute.
Customer Project manager and management has to clearly understand the risks involved during the business study, implementation and post implementation phase as highlighted by the vendor Project Manager and to act thereupon to overcome those risks with suggestions from vendor project manager.
These risks could be in terms of consequences involved:
if requirements are not complete and well defined,
the involvement of users and process owners during business study, implementation, UAT, masters creation, transaction entry, reconciliation etc.,
if sign-offs not happening in time, etc.
Even if the sign-off is given and product is not put in use, there is a chance of project failure at both ends.
