project management

What is the ‘unit to measure’ your project progress?

A project starts with initiation phase and ends up with project closure report. Then afterwards there is post project feedback (after a considerable amount of time given to the customer to get conversant with the product) and warranty support followed by support contracts over a period of time. ...

Quality of documents says it all about the health of the project

A software project has to undergo various stages before reaching the final stage of customer sign off. At each stage of the project there are certain set of documents that are maintained by the project team for internal or external purposes. These documents are prepared by various team members...

Why is Change opposed?

A coder or programmer when told that he is not writing his code, by way of presenting him with a list of bugs, he is being told to CHANGE. A tester when is told by his superior that he lacks business depth for testing the product, he is being told to CHANGE. A project manger when told that he...

10 innovative ways to become a “lousy” project manager

Project Management is not simple. It requires lot of skills (and learning and experience) to become a good project manager. A good project manager is the one who plans and executes well – all the stages of a project. Finally if project finishes in time with a SMILE ON CUSTOMER FACE, the project...

How do you do your project sizing?

Next month is a marriage in your close relation. You plan to buy an expensive suit length and get it stitched by the best tailor in the city. You buy the best cloth, go to the best tailor, he takes your measurement and gives you a trial date suitable to you. You go on that date, find minor or no...

Top 5 reasons of Project Manager getting fired

Project Failure: First failure will downgrade the level of next project to be given to the project manager. Not only this, but it will also trigger hidden cameras in the organization that start monitoring each and every step of project manager. These hidden cameras could be top management or some...

The 80-20 rule for Developers

The 80-20 Rule or most commonly known as “Pareto Principle” was first formulated by the famous Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1895. The principle was named after him and still holds good almost in all the aspects of life. Vilfredo Pareto found that 80% of Italy’s wealth was with 20% of...

An IT guy posted a question on LI… regarding software project development and testing…

On LinkedIn an IT projects guy posted a question about plus and minus of outsourcing software testing for his software project. After getting 12 replies from various experts he posted his intention behind this question. The intention was to outsource development and testing to two different vendors...

Six indicators for a project manager – of their downfall (or failure) in project management

If you, as a project manager, are fond of thunderstorms, volcano eruptions, etc. it is ok howsoever you drive a project. Otherwise look below at six indicators mentioned below. Even if one of the reason prevails in your project’s lifecycle, manage it, get rid of it, immediately, before a small...

Ten golden rules for Project Management Standards – evolution to adherence

1. Evolve, develop and freeze standards. 2. Keep a breathing space by not developing too rigid standards. 3. Live with open mind. Always be open for change in standards, if it is for improvement, and if it makes sense. 4. Let everyone involved in the projects have the same drink at the cocktail....

Responsibility of a tester – a different perspective

The responsibility of a tester is to ensure the peace of mind of the end users who are going to use the software product. Another target should be to safeguard customer's investment in the product. In order to discharge this responsibility, the tester should focus all his skills on understanding...

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

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...

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

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...

If you don’t change with the ‘Change’ you get [ex][change]d

In my June 15 2009 post – “Do’s (+) and Don’ts (X) in Project Management”...

The life of a Project Manager in a Software Project

At the birth (inception) of a new software project the project manager is puzzled and confused just trying to gather and understand customer requirements. He starts like a wanderer in the dark islands of customer for collecting various requirements and understanding their business norms. The moment...

Fifteen Checkpoints for project managers – if your commitment towards project merely a Pretence?

You, as a project manager are most crucial factor of a project being the key driver. Your commitment matters most as it can do any wonders. Your real commitment can put fire in your team member’s belly to run the project full swing. But if your commitment is merely Pretence, it can wipe off the...

Outsource in a software project without losing control over it

We learnt in earlier two posts about the strategic decision of a management to outsource a complete project or part(s) of a project depending on certain factors, and the factors respectively. In this post let us see at the various components of a project that are most widely outsourced or otherwise...

Five Reasons of outsourcing

Outsourcing is neither bad nor good. It is a strategic decision based on certain parameters taken by an organization to offload some projects or part of a project to a third party. Offloading certainly comes with many boons and many banes. Offloading should be managed very carefully as the project...

Role of Vendor and Customer in managing User Manuals

As already has been discussed, User Manuals play a crucial role in any software project and are the solid bonding between product, users, customer management and vendor project team. The stronger this bond is the more comfortable and happy each stakeholder will be. Each player has to play a crucial...

Six Pack User Manual – how to build

Six major key points that should be kept in mind while preparing User Manuals can be as listed below: 1. Simple – Never expect your product users to be as knowledgeable about your product as you are. Remember when you first time tried working on this product, how ignorant or untrained you...

Do’s (+) and Don’ts (X) in Project Management

Ten symptoms to know if your project is infected with influenza A (H1N1)

10. When you start getting increased number of bugs as compared to earlier releases 9. When your developers stop thinking about quality in code 8. When bugs pass through QC unnoticed 7. When you stop acknowledging quality efforts and start giving more importance to speed and volume of...

Ten Reasons of getting into pitfall of leaving a scope of software development at customer site

In the previous post we learnt what all could a software project could lead to in presence of higher scope of software development at customer site during implementation phase. Let us see what all factors are responsible of insufficient requirement gathering during business study phase of a...

Five pitfalls if you are leaving a scope of software development at customer site

Ideally, in a software project, for an offshore customer, the requirement gathering phase should be given an extra care to understand to a maximum extent so that the product developed and tested when ready for implementation at customer site requires no development. Practically, it is very...

Five guidelines for customer project team while filling Post Implementation Review form

The Post implementation review is usually filled collectively by customer project team and signed by the project sponsor, who is usually one of the senior members of management. This form is to be submitted back to vendor (after filling) to serve the purpose of – sharing experience, product...

How to prepare for Post Project Implementation Review?

Both vendor and customer have to understand that the real journey of a product starts only after a successful implementation of software at customer site. The challenges get a new meaning once the project team leaves the customer site after project sign-off. Both the managements can celebrate the...

Post Implementation Review – When, ldeally?

When is to perform a post implementation review? A witty answer could be – obviously after implementation. Ha! Definitely a successful closure of implementation could declare a project closure with a formal project acceptance report or project sign off. So shall we have a post implementation...

Post Implementation Review – Why required?

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...

What is Post Implementation Review?

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....

5 reasons of top level customer expectations missing in requirement study document

As stated in previous two blogs, top level expectations gathering is very crucial during the business study and requirement gathering phase. And respectively I mentioned how vendor and customer can be careful (and should be) about that. Although it is rare and unexpected, but there are instances...

Vendor’s role in involving customer top management while requirement gathering phase

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...

How to manage Change Management – in terms of scope of the project

Scope defined and decided upon initially by vendor and customer mutually has a large impact on timeline, progress and success of a project. A change in scope at a later stage may call for a big impact on project schedule and progress. Let us see the roles of vendor and customer respectively in this...

SIGNificance of Sign-offs at appropriate stages

Sign-off at various stages has a significant importance during project lifecycle. Everyday sign-off can be a headache for customer, no sign-off can cause headache for vendor, so there has to be a balance of sign-offs of milestones, achievements and stages of project so that the sanctity of...

Two aspects in Change Management in Software Project

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...

Change Management in terms of people – how to manage during a project

Although it can not be avoided in real life scenario and that is why there is a risk plan and risk management to avoid such circumstances. But still a lot can be done to atleast minimize the risk and thereby mitigation. Vendor - Management has to ensure the bare minimum changes (preferably NO...

Project Management Practices – whose call – vendor or customer

Project initiation starts with the marriage of vendor and customer to produce the desired software product. The desire comes from customer, with a promise from vendor to deliver the desired product. The time and investment (in terms of people, equipments, and expenses) calls for a superior quality...

Roles of Vendor and Customer Project Managers to avoid Project Overrun

Project management is a joint effort of vendor and customer teams. Project Organization members have to play their respective roles timely and religiously to get the best of the results. Both have to go hand in hand right from the start of the project till end and even beyond. The relationship does...

Project Overrun – what is crucial – time, money or both?

A classic scenario happened in an organization recently as told to me by a project manager of that organization engaged in software development and implementations. It is related to project overrun. A new project started with a set of requirements from a customer for development and...

5 ways to control project overrun

Project overrun is simply a project crossing its boundaries set by the organization. These boundaries may vary from organization to organization depending on how they blindly or how over-extensively (both extremes) they want to look at it. 5 ways to control project overrun could be:

5 myths about Project Overrun

All projects are prone to overrun. An overrun acceptance is directly proportional to an organization’s fault absorption capacity. Accordingly the definition of overrun is framed to demonstrate an overrun project as rightly completed project. 5 myths about Project Overrun could be:

Role of customer project manager at customer site during implementation stage

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...

Role of vendor project manager at customer site during implementation stage

The vendor project manager has to work as a consultant to the customer project manager rather than taking the full command at customer site during implementation phase. From vendor side, it is the responsibility of the project manager to highlight the risks (in terms of user’s availability,...

Responsibilities of project manager during project implementation phase

Project managers (the customer end and the vendor end) have to work hand in hand during the implementation stage of a software project happening at customer site. The key responsibility of both the project managers working on the project is to ensure successful implementation and project...

Project Manager’s vision has to be perfect 6/6 for project implementation

No project manager can claim there was not a single problem in any of his projects. But then he is to tackle them. To tackle them he should be aware of them. To be aware of them, he has to have an ability to foresee them than to overlook them. The earlier he envisages those problems, the more time...

Application developed, tested and built well does not ensure successful implementation

It is not only the project manager but all stakeholders who get affected by the project over-run or failure. It could happen due to any reasons. One of the major reasons that have emerged is the lack of vision of the project manager, project sponsors, project directors and other stakeholders to...

20 most powerful and Smart weapons for Project Manager to Lead in Recession Period

Due to recession, there is scarcity of business and projects for software organizations. In such a situation, the projects in hand (and the forthcoming ones) have to be handled very carefully for a win-win situation. To attain that, there are certain smart weapons that a project manager needs to be...

How to manage new entrant in a project team

A new entrant at any level should never be burdened (leave aside “overburdened”), and an ample time should be given to him to prepare himself for the forthcoming project(s). If already there is a load of work, the minimum should fall on the new entrant, rest should be shared among the existing...

Don’t create panic when team momentum is at bottom of the graph

Usually during the period between first project close-out and next project initiation, most of the team members of project have not much to perform except utilizing their time in non-visible activities. This could include personal web browsing, social sites, pending emails, thinking about...

A wonderful powerhouse gifted to a project manager – his Team

All project managers depend on their teams working on the project and in turn the persons who form the team. Teams could comprise of project leader, module leaders, functional consultants, technical consultants, database architecture, system designers, developers, programmers, testers etc. To keep...

7 mandates for Customer Organization on Software Project “Ownership”

In software project there are two key agencies involved – customer and vendor. Both have to own equal responsibility in managing, monitoring and completing it successfully. In my earlier blog I have mentioned 6 mandates for Vendor Organization on Software Project Ownership. Here I would like to...