implementation team

Jul 17 2009   10:00AM GMT

Why hit the people? Hit the process if there is a failure in a software project

Posted by: Jaideep
Quality Assurance, Software Project, Project Management, people management, HR, QA, QC, Q-tag, developer, quality, quality control, quality culture, quality building, product, stakeholder, business analyst, project manager, project team, development team, testing team, implementation team, product build

People are not wrong, processes are. People in an organization do what they are told to do. Organizations who hit on people at the time of failure are not doing the right thing. It is the process that is to be blamed not the person with Q-tag. As long as quality is considered to be the child of people with Q-tag in the organization, and the culture is so around, the non Q-tag people will keep themselves enjoying building a product without quality. Why not blame the developers for developing so many bugs along with the requirements building. Why not blame the analysts who could not understand or translate the requirements correctly. Why not blame the management for not putting the right people and process at right place. This blame game itself is merely a scapegoat in any organization until the focus shifts from people to process enhancement.

Analyze the failure as a team involving all the stakeholders. Management, business analysts, project managers, project team, development team, testing team, implementation team have to sit together and brainstorm. Failure is to learn and not fail again. Mainly failure can occur due to following three factors:

Teams do not work and deliver in desired fashion – required innovation, awareness, training, cohesiveness, team building, and collaboration
Wrong people in the team – HR and management has to play a major role and look into the recruitment process.
Failed to build right product – needs training, demonstration, pairing, indentifying right people for right job.

Jul 15 2009   10:00AM GMT

Who owns the Q-Tag in a software development company?

Posted by: Jaideep
Quality Assurance, Q-tag, quality control, Software Project, Project Management, stakeholder, project methodology, project management framework, project implementation, software build, software implementation, product approval, Quality-tag, project team, development team, implementation team, testing team, team, QC, QA, business analyst, re-testing, testing, Bug, bugs report, test report

In any software development and implementation company there is always a need of quality assurance and quality control people who own the responsibility of setting the right methodology and framework for development and implementation (QA), bugs identification and product approval (QC). Usually everyone in the organization has an inherent feeling that the quality is the responsibility of only these few persons belonging to this Q-department of the organization. Business analysts understand the customer and business requirement, hand it over to development team for building the product. Development team develops the product, and hands it over to QC team. QC team tests the product, finds out the bugs, and submits the report to development team. Development team fixes the bugs and returns the product to QC persons for re-testing and verification. After few exchanges between development and QC team, the product is declared as defect free and is released or launched for implementation.

If top management, development team, business analysts, implementation team and all other stakeholders think that quality is just the responsibility of only the persons belonging to quality department, they all are wrong. If Q-tag is limited to only a limited persons belonging to Quality department among all stakeholders, a product can never be built with great control on quality aspect.

Q-tag has to be on each of the stakeholder in a software project. When each and every person wears a Q-tag – the analysis, building, testing and implementation will be more justified. Otherwise there will always be a big question at the time of failure of a product build – that who is responsible?

Jun 17 2009   10:00AM GMT

Why User Manuals are so important in Software Project Management

Posted by: Jaideep
User Manual, Software Project, software project management, key user, stakeholder, project implementation, post implementation, user feedback, usability, reliability, stability, durability, report, analytic, feel and look, product support, project support, live run, product training, software training, training team, implementation team, project team, project sign-off, sign-off, business scenario

The product owners or stakeholders might be many in a software project, but the real frontrunners who drive, run and use the software product post implementation are the key users and other users. It is their feedback that matters most. They must be the most comfortable lot on usability, functionality, reliability, stability, durability, resultant outputs in terms of reports and analytics, feel and look of the product. They are the one who are going to matter most in the success or failure of a product during and post implementation. The best tool to give them comfort, satisfaction, confidence and support is the User Manuals that they refer to most of the time during post implementation live run.

Even if the product is excellent and trainings are most rigorous ones, in absence of the project implementation team, every now and then the key users will be seeking help from User Manuals. User Manuals are the supporting agents for them at all times. That is why User Manuals have to be perfect in all aspects.

Infact a user manual prepared for product users should be such treated as a replacement of implementation and training team right from the moment the project is signed off and users start using the product in real business scenario.

May 27 2009   10:00AM GMT

Post Implementation Review – Why required?

Posted by: Jaideep
post implementation review, Project Management, project implementation, Software Project, implementation team, end user, project training, project knowledge, project lerning, software features, software functionality, software performance

A successful implementation does not ensure the completion of project. The reality starts when the implementation team has gone back and users have started using the project in full swing with the help of training material, learning, knowledge and product. The health of users in respect of using the product is sustained, deteriorated, or improved will depend on many factors. A post implementation review is always important to understand the users understanding, pains and delights during this tenure. This will translate further into management’s pains and delights. The overall delight weightage has to be higher than the pain. In a blow of project implementation phase users might feel quite confident regarding the product features, functionality and ease. When the whole thing falls upon them, it usually drive them in confusion, wrong actions or stoppages. Or a smooth drive.

A post implementation survey will help in a real measurement on two fronts. One front will be users’ understanding, ease and comfort (or vice versa). Second front will be product’s stability, performance and functionality. It also will assess the after effects of a successful project implementation.

The conclusions could be misleading although and will require a deep analysis. A user’s lack of understanding may spell into products inefficiency or the opposite of it.

May 25 2009   10:00AM GMT

What is Post Implementation Review?

Posted by: Jaideep
Project Management, post implementation review, project implementation, project sign-off, implementation team

A Post implementation review is conducted after a substantial period from implementation sign-off. This review is to ascertain customer management’s and users’ experience on product in absence of product implementation team. The product has been implemented successfully and the team is gone. Ofcourse sufficient learning, knowledge, exposure and material have been imparted to users by the implementation team.

Post implementation review by the customer management with key users will spell out – user’s depth in using the product and product’s reliability and stability. The format of post implementation review document should be designed by the vendor management for the purpose of understanding the status of project after a certain period of usage post successful implementation. Filled by customer management in agreement with key users’ experience, the report is sent to vendor for their assessment.