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Jan 2 2009   9:45AM GMT

Timesheet – its purpose, use and importance



Posted by: Jaideep
Project Management, software, software development, developer, tester, project manager, team management, measuring effectiveness, Project Development, Development Manager, timesheet, tasksheet

In an organization engaged in software development business, timesheet is filled by all developers and testers working on any project. Timesheet a sheet of pre-formatted fields in which daily tasks performed by each person are filled in their individual sheet. The intent of timesheet varies from organization to organization. Some organizations use it for raising invoice from the customer whereas others use it to study the developers pace and engagement with the allocated work. The sheet usually comprises of person’s name, date, project name, plan for the day, and the tasks actually performed against the planned activities. It is not a complex format but it returns valuable information. It can also be termed as daily task sheet of each individual.

Filled timesheet is sent by each developer or tester to their respective leaders routinely. Besides sending it to leader, as per organization directive, a copy may be required to send to HR and/or Accounts department. The frequency may vary from daily or weekly to monthly. It may also be used by accounts person to allocate the resource (developer of tester) to the respective cost centre. In positive sense the purpose of timesheet is not to track the person but to prepare a repository to refer to immediately or later for various purposes. The purposes could be the calculation of total man hours spent on a project, the cost incurred on a project, the engagement/pace/% time of an individual in a project, backlog analysis at any stage during the development, re-allocation of task, requirement analysis etc. It becomes a good tool for HR to find out the vacation trend of an individual. HR or project leader can also schedule the trainings and vacations for each individual based on their timesheet that clearly tells their workload level.

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Dec 8 2008   10:07AM GMT

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



Posted by: Jaideep
Project Management, software development, metrics, project manager, ChangeManagement, project implementation, team management, development approach, implementation approach, measuring effectiveness

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?

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