development approach

When your development team is at job – don’t interrupt

When a new project lands into the hands of a project manager for development, he converts the whole project into smaller units and allocates it to different developers. Developers are divided into the groups based on the work allocated. These teams prepare their plan to develop and start working accordingly. Once the development plan is with the project manager, and the developers are tuned into development, the project manager should make least interruptions in their schedule (none unscheduled) thereby helping them in meeting their targets. Different ways in which a project manager can interrupt (which he can and should avoid) can be listed below. These are not in any hierarchy and all lines carry equal importance. The interruption points are:
1. Unscheduled review of the progress of development
2. Discussion related to any past project
3. Discussion related to any future project
4. Allocation of any other task other can the ongoing one
5. Shuffling of developers from one team to another
6. Re-allocating a developer to another project
7. Inviting a new member in a team for development load sharing
8. Approving leave to developer (unless it is too urgent or critical)
9. De-motivating even a single team member of different development team (remember – it spreads like a virus among other members)
10. Don’t forget to appreciate them at each small achievement

15 checkpoints for a Project Manager at the start of a new Project

Usually at the start of a new project, a project manager has to forget the sad points of the previous projects and also to get to ground from the unusual achievements too. At this juncture a project manager is supposed to start afresh with new zeal, a new team or new members in the team, a new working, a new strategy and a new requirement. At the start of any new project and during the project, if the project manager keep track of following 15 checkpoints, he is safeguarding his project towards timely and successful completion of his project. The 15 checkpoints can be listed as below (not in hierarchical manner though):

1. What development or implementation approach are you using?
2. Are you ready for the change?
3. Are you focused on continuous improvement?
4. What metrics do you use to decide the success or failure?
5. Are you using your previous project’s measurements against current project performance?
6. Are you able to prove that your current development or implementation approach is optimized?
7. Is this proof based on objective measures or just an individual perception?
8. Are you aware of any soars in the project?
9. Are you prepared to not let those soars convert into festers?
10. Are you aware when to start measuring project performance?
11. Are you using the right metrics?
12. Do you analyze and document startup problems?
13. Do you document the learning at each step?
14. Are you improvising your practices?
15. Are you measuring effectiveness of each point listed above?