Software project management rules

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In project management, size does matter. Confusing the What with the How. Maximizing the ROI of your Agile transformations. Get free ground shipping on all U. Shop now. We all manage according to rules of thumb. Sometimes we create rules ourselves—perhaps after squeezing through some hard challenge or failing to that teaches a big lesson.

Sometimes the lesson comes to us already formed, and so succinct that we can communicate it in a phrase or a sentence. At other times, we struggle to boil complexity down to its pith. Like many others who read it, we found Brooks' one-line nuggets of wisdom both memorable and highly useful—such as this one, now known simply as Brooks' Law:. It's impossible to count the number of times we've used this quote when managing software projects. The desire to find and share other such memorable rules was the inspiration and driving force behind writing our book Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams , in which we collected over rules of thumb that we and our colleagues have used to manage programmers and teams.

Benjamin Franklin collected and published one of the first well-known sets of maxims, proverbs, and rules of thumb, known as Poor Richard's Almanack. Such rules that we learned while growing up and along life's way are often as applicable to managing software development as to the rest of life. Even though programming code is probably the most mutable of materials, more than one software development manager has applied this traditional principle:.

Nearly everyone has failed to follow this rule at some point, and most of us have lived to regret it. Perhaps none quite so noticeably as the NASA scientists whose Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft, programmed in metric units, received instructions in English units instead from the ground-based system on Earth, causing the craft to leave its Mars orbit trajectory and enter the atmosphere of the planet, where it disintegrated.

Another traditional rule we like, though less well-known, is drawn from the many that predate our profession by hundreds of years and yet still apply to us:. Sometimes bad practices are so deeply rooted that you just need to route learning and the introduction of better practices around them.

In the rest of this article, we'll consider eight major areas of management challenges, with a sampling of the plus rules from our book that address these challenges:. It's bad enough that our business partners pose problems approaching solving world hunger or curing cancer—the vision thing is their job. But when we take on problems—whether theirs or ones of our own devising—without breaking down the complexity into steps and ordering those steps so we can tackle them a few at a time, we do ourselves a disservice.

Ron: At Charles Schwab, my colleagues and I were tackling the challenge of transforming what had been the world's leading discount brokerage into the premier name in online financial services. We quoted this rule frequently:.

This rule in no way diminished the size of the vision, but it reminded us not to tackle everything at once. When I shared it with Mickey, he liked it so much that he made it a mantra at Gracenote as well. But he often followed it up with another oft-quoted principle:. This is the key to solving any seemingly intractable problem.

This rule is especially appealing since it can be used to tackle any problem, large or small. Keep dividing until you find a part of the problem you can handle, and solve it. Then "pop the other half off the stack where you put it" and solve it, or divide it into two halves and recurse. Shortly after Pixar Animation Studios was spun out of Lucasfilm in , and while Steve Jobs was actively involved in Pixar as CEO, he discussed his hiring philosophy at a management meeting:.

Jobs reinforced how imperative it is to hire the right people the "A's" , because allowing a "B" into the organization erodes the organization much more than just that one wrong hire. We believe that hiring the right people is a manager's most important responsibility. But how can you make sure you find the right people? Dave Wilson, a software architect who has guided development for Apple, Sun, HP, Portal, and ParcPlace, shared a rule for helping to find great programmers, and both of us have validated it independently:.

Though we've never limited ourselves to hiring only people who built stuff on their own time, it's a great litmus test for hiring the right people. One of the important lessons about managing—and often a hard lesson to learn—is that communication is as much about listening as speaking. Many companies provide manager training in "reflective listening," which focuses on truly listening and then responding with a message that acknowledges the speaker's point of view.

Rules that remind us to listen can be very helpful. Succinct words for a thought that has been around a bit longer: Epictetus, a Greek-born Roman slave and Stoic philosopher 55— A.

In addition to being a good listener, communication is about making time to meet and talk with your staff daily. As Dave Wilson says:. Rule 6: People drift away from project goals quickly if left alone. Good project leaders talk to people almost every day. Did it work? Mickey: The long-admired Hewlett-Packard best practice of "managing by wandering around" is one of our favorite management tools. Toward the end of the day, I often found myself wandering among my programmers and stopping to talk to those who weren't "heads-down.

These shared moments were some of my favorite times—and hopefully my staff's as well. Rule 7: If you're a people manager, your people are far more important than anything else you're working on. He continued, "If a team member drops by at an awkward time and wants to chat, set aside what you're doing and pay attention. They may be building up the courage to tell you something big. I've noticed this to be especially true when the sudden chatter isn't somebody who normally drops by for idle conversation.

It might be as simple as being unable to get a piece of information needed to complete a task or might be as big as an impending divorce, the death of a loved one, or something equally devastating on a personal level to them […] things that can throw a real monkey wrench into your carefully laid schedule. If they know you'll make them your top priority when they drop by, they're more likely to drop by sooner when things are about to go very wrong.

How do you get a team to work hard to deliver what you need? If decisions are being overruled often and seemingly arbitrarily, this is also a situation that can benefit from clarifying roles.

Another situation that frequently occurs is that many people perform the same analysis tasks. When tasks are not getting done, it may be that nobody knows who should be doing them. When the authority to perform tasks is not understood, it may be time to define roles and tasks, responsibilities, and authority.

RACI is among the most popular models, but there are several alternatives, including: PACSI — Used in situations where multiple stakeholders can review and veto the work of a single accountable person. RACI benefits include: Eliminating role confusion.

Preventing over-allocation of resources to one project and under-allocation to another. Clearly defining roles to all the people who fill them clear understanding of expectations is key to a smooth project and reduces the need for conflict resolution later. Ensuring no task is overlooked when resources are allocated. Providing a fast and efficient way to re-allocate resources when there is turnover. New people can quickly identify their roles in a project and the roles of those with whom they must interact.

Creating a RACI matrix involves the following steps: Decide how to chart the matrix — You can use any number of tools or templates, including a spreadsheet, whiteboard, or software solution.

Identify the project tasks or deliverables —Meet with key stakeholders to develop a list of project tasks. Tasks are labeled across the X or Y axis of the matrix. For example, if you are charting a software project developed under Agile, the Sprint Demo Meeting may be a required activity and should be included in the matrix as a task.

Identify the project roles —Project roles are labeled down the axis of the matrix that was not used for tasks. The project roles make the matrix more understandable and can be useful for adding data you may have forgotten.

Also, the task axis is useful for identifying roles and clarifying resource allocation. This is a good time to assign names to roles as well - one name per role is optimal. Set the tone right away. Communicate early and often. Make meetings meaningful. Gather requirements, then let the team work.

Identify measurable and practical KPIs. Keep the team in the loop. Set your team up for success. Manage risk and resolve issues quickly. Test often, then test again. Recognize hard work. Evaluate the project regularly. Learn How to Manage a Software Project From Experience Project management is a skill that students best study and apply through experiential learning , which is a cornerstone of the Master of Science in Project Management program at Northeastern University.

About Brian Eastwood Brian Eastwood is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience as a journalist. In his career, he has covered small-town politics, enterprise information technology, leadership strategy, and a variety of healthcare topics.

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