Tag Archives: project success

Meetings, Project Portfolio, and Lean

Posted on May 27, 2008 by Johanna Rothman

I’ve been writing pieces of the project portfolio book, and was wondering how to explain how managers get caught in the trap of having too many projects. Then I read Joe Ely’s Minimizing Work-in-Process for Knowledge Workers, and had an … Continue reading →

Posted in lean | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

What Does Done Mean for Your Project?

Posted on May 16, 2008 by Johanna Rothman

One of the problems I see in projects is that there is not a sufficient definition of done. For agile teams, it’s not clear what done means for a timebox. For non-agile projects, the team may not agree on what … Continue reading →

Posted in agile | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Measuring Project Completion Progress

Posted on December 4, 2006 by Johanna Rothman

  I taught my project dashboard workshop today. One of the things most people want to measure is progress towards project completion. But you can’t measure project completion progress unless you have completed features: developed, integrated, and tested features. A … Continue reading →

Posted in dashboard, implement by feature, measurement | Tagged , | 3 Comments

When Do Your Defects Become Obvious?

Posted on April 28, 2006 by Johanna Rothman

  It’s been a heck of a week. My office is in my basement (a walk-out basement with lots of light–it doesn’t feel like a basement). Earlier this week, I thought I had a leak in the foundation–there was a … Continue reading →

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Respect Your Project — or Leave It

Posted on June 14, 2004 by Johanna Rothman

  I’m in conversation with a client about a possible project. The Big Guy wanted to meet with me immediately, but had constrained time, so I shifted my schedule and met with him. It was clear from our conversation that … Continue reading →

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Release Criteria Define What “Done” Means

Posted on March 12, 2004 by Johanna Rothman

  Want to make sure you complete your project as early as possible? Define release criteria. Release criteria are the few critically important objective criteria that define what “done” means for your project. Sometimes, it’s a combination of date, defects, … Continue reading →

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Why Defects/KLOC Doesn’t Supply Enough Information about Product Quality

Posted on March 1, 2004 by Johanna Rothman

  A colleague emailed me a few days ago, and asked “for a code base with a [given size], what can we expect to see for numbers of defects per KLOC (given the actual industry average or given what the … Continue reading →

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Applying the Rule of Least Surprise to Projects

Posted on February 5, 2004 by Johanna Rothman

  I just read Jim Coplien’s paper about teaching design called “Close the Window and Put it On the Desktop”. He references the “Rule of Least Surprise,” which is to do the “least surprising thing.” In design, it means the … Continue reading →

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People, Process, and Predicting Project Success

Posted on January 6, 2004 by Johanna Rothman

  I’ve been thinking a lot about the comments people made on the Best Practices… post. (Thank you for your comments.) Here’s my experience. Great people, people with sufficient functional skills and domain expertise can trump process, good or bad. … Continue reading →

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Best Practices Don’t Predict Project Success

Posted on December 30, 2003 by Johanna Rothman

  I received an intriguing email this week asking this question: ” [..]if we were to put a quantitative value against each best practice, summed them up, and compared the total against a possible maximum could we have a predictor … Continue reading →

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