I asked my project management students to create a project dashboard for the projects they’re organizing, so we can talk about what happens when the indicators go up down or sideways. One of the teams came up with a “risk constellation” chart — which I thought was a brilliant way to show risks. (If […]
I’m teaching project management to graduate students this year. One of their assignments is to keep a project management journal. I explained it this way: PMs make decisions where the consequences — the results of their decisions — can be far removed from the decision. One of the things I want the students to
I’m teaching my older daughter how to drive, and I now realize why inexperienced drivers are so dangerous. They are inconsistent and unpredictable, because they are inexperienced. I can’t help her gain experience by making a list of all possible situations and explaining what she has to do. I have to generalize. Right now,
Eric Sink is writing a series on source control how-tos (also known as software configuration management). If you’re a project manager or functional manager and you don’t know enough about source control, read them. Heck, even if you do know about SCM, read them. Yes, Eric works for a vendor, so his examples are
Thanks to Brian Marick, I read Dave Thomas’s Weeding Out Bugs. Much of Bug-Weeding is developer turf. But here’s what managers can do to help: Look at defect counts by module. When you see a module that has more than it’s fair share of defects, start asking questions about what the developers are considering. You’ll
Well, that’s certainly a provocative title. Let’s see if I can back it up 🙂 First, read Keith Ray’s Engineering post, where he says “software development is a cooperative “game” in creating and deploying “knowledge” and various people-oriented practices help make that work” Some of my recent posts about requirements show the problems when software
Imagine you’re a fly on the wall in a readiness review meeting—a meeting of the project and senior managers to see if the product is ready to release. Senior manager: “Where are we with the testing?” Test manager: “Oh, here’s the defect data and the test data and…” Senior manager: “No, tell me where we
I’m a Tour de France addict. I bicycle like those guys only in my dreams. But when I was watching the race last night, I realized something: the riders who are in a position to win the Tour are adaptable riders. They don’t excel at just sprinting, or just mountains, or just rolling-hills, or
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 he didn’t quite know what he wanted, but he did want a proposal from me.
One of the questions I ask project teams is how they know what to do when. Most of the time, the developers look at me as if I’ve grown two heads and say, “Well, we look at the requirements. We do the high ones first, the medium ones next, and the low ones if we