Feb 11 2009 11:04AM GMT
Posted by: Jaideep
Project Management,
project manager,
Software Project,
project task,
project milestone,
software team,
programmer,
developer,
technical,
coder,
coding,
programming,
Development,
Project Development,
project progress,
project completion,
PM
A new project is always divided into small tasks and based on the resources available, the task(s) are allocated to individuals by the project manager (PM). A simple metrics is important to follow to monitor (and manger) the completion of tasks and thereby figuring out at any moment of time – the progress of the project. Completion of all tasks automatically declares the completion of the project.
Customer and management will never be interested to go into the detail of each task, PM (you) and your team may be and should be. But your one of the major task during a project is to keep customer and management updated on what is happening, regarding the progress of the project.
Your team of individual developers, programmers, coders or other technical related functions, although have accountability for the tasks assigned to them in individual for which they put in all their efforts to meet your/their completion plans as per the targets set.
So far so good, but as far as satisfaction, and feel of achievement is concerned, you need to group a set of tasks (the important ones that really give sense of achievement) into milestones. The customer and management will be interested in milestones achieved instead of tasks completed. Your team members will feel motivated, inspired and cheerful on achieving these milestones. And above all you will have time to appreciate and celebrate your team’s achievements that you can not do rightfully in case of tasks.
Milestones have more visibility as compared to tasks.
Feb 9 2009 9:55AM GMT
Posted by: Jaideep
Software Project,
Project Management,
project manager,
PM,
project metrics,
Project Status,
project completion,
project task,
project progress,
developer,
programmer,
coder,
coding,
Development,
programming
It is not important what metrics you (the project manager) use, because unless and until you understand the meaning of “task” and “task completion”, you can’t get into the mode of monitoring and measuring it. The progress (or completion) project as a whole is measurable only if it is broken into pieces termed as “tasks”. Based on your resources you can allocate different tasks to different developers/ technical guys. But again the questions arise are – “what do you want to measure?” and on top of it, “do you really want to measure?”. If the answer is “yes” for the second question, then you will start thinking about “how to measure?”.
Metrics or method of measuring is not critical, it is the “what” that matters most here. So when you break up your software project into tasks, those should be measurable and the person doing it has to be accountable for it. Before making your programmer (or the technical person) accountable for a task, you have to evaluate – “is (s)he is fit for the task being assigned?”.
Your method of measurement will decide the clarity of progress of project to you, your team, the management and to the customer. Don’t accept a report from your subordinate declaring a task as completed unless you yourself are convinced. For your conviction you can get it checked by another coder, technical person or quality person, or you can check on your own, depending on the criticality of the task. Since you are going to report to management and the customer about completion of a task, it is important to confirm beforehand.
Transparency about the project progress is as important as the authenticity to both – the management and the customer.
Integrity of task completed is another measure that you have to take into account for your project completion.
