Do [x] A Day » Project Management

Extreme Planning – Gantthead.com

Steve Ward — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 03:29:45 +0000

Extreme Planning by Mike Griffiths spells out the common sense idea that project planning for software development is not just a big plan up front that never changes, but more of an iterative process that evolves as the solution is developed. Software development projects are difficult to accurately schedule up front, because there are too many unknowns, and every software development project is different. But, over time, you can iterate to a more detailed plan as more is known. This article gives some good advice for planning a software development project. (Registration with Gantthead.com is required, but free!)

Solodox – Web Based PM and Doc Mgt Tool

Steve Ward — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:52:01 +0000

Brian Benzinger at Solution Watch writes about a new web-based PM and Document management tool called Solodox. This tool sounds like a great way to manage docs and projects as a team. I am going to keep an eye on this:

Solodox, which launched in alpha last month, is a free web-based word processor and project management application. It allows users to create and store documents online and collaborate with others in real-time. The word processor is similar to its competitors, but where I feel Solodox stands out is in its project management.

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Perhaps my favorite part of Solodox is working with project documents. Solodox offers users a web-based alternative to Microsoft Project, a desktop application used for task management, scheduling, and scope changes. Its interface is very similar, but lacks in functionality. On the left of a project document, users add tasks and change the formatting of a task. On the right of a project document is a calendar view that shows each task as a bar spanning its duration. In the calendar view, users can click and drag on the tasks to lengthen the duration and move the task to a different date. And if you click on the left of a bar and drag your mouse to the right, it will increase the percentage completed for that task (black bar), just like in Microsoft Project.

There are some compatibility issues, (currently only works in IE, for example) but this may turn into a great tool. Watch out for Google Project…

Daily Project Status Updates – Scrum

Steve Ward — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:12:04 +0000

Project managers sometimes wonder about how often they need to check status on their projects. Unfortunately, what ends up driving the status updates is the schedule of status reports. If your communication plan calls for bi-weekly status reports you end up waiting until just before the status report is due to check in with your project team. This is a great way to get into trouble, because if a problem has developed early in your reporting period, you could have been working to get things back on track for weeks and have lost valuable time.

I propose checking on the moving parts of your project daily, as needed. Use common sense with this, and adjust according to the actual needs of the situation, but I would rather be checking status of key tasks more often than not. These updates can simply be a quick “how’s everything going with …” call, or email, or in-person request. Mix it up to keep your team from getting annoyed. Also, if the task is not very important, or has a ton of slack, you can ease up on your status checks.

One software consulting firm I worked with would hold a daily scrum meeting over IM where we asked everyone on the team these three questions:

What did you do yesterday?
What are you doing today?
Is there anything getting in your way?

I don’t think that level of rigor is required on every project, but it does keep everyone moving forward on the important tasks, and if there is ever a problem, you find out as soon as possible.

I also like to encourage my project teams tell me as soon as an issue arises so we can immediately begin to take the appropriate actions to keep the project on track. In some cultures, this approach doesn’t always turn out to be as easy as you would hope.