The daunting task of Project Management

Project management is one of the key areas of software development. The success and failure of a project depends on how immaculately the project was handled. A Project Manager is also like the ham of a burger. The upper slice is the client who tries to get most of the benefits from the deal and the lower slice is the organization, who meaningfully looks into the margin factor. So a project manager, needs to keep the client happy by giving him impeccable features within deadline while at the same time he cannot put the margin factor at stake.

A software development life cycle starts with project initiation note and passes through various layers of engineering, risk management, configuration management, metrics and measurement to the conclusive part. This article tries to focus more on the task of project management in the eyes of other areas of process.

Project Initiation: Obviously, it is the business development manager who first gets closer with the client. He proposes and based on the proposal the agreement is signed between the client and the organization. It is that time when a project manager is recruited or assigned in the project. The project manager is then have the option to select his team based on the resources available as per the required skills. But how would he know ther number of resources he requires?

Estimation, re-estimation and re-re-estimation: A business development officer signs the deal based on some estimation of the project, but the initial estimation is always inconclusive. Even if he prepares the estimation in collusion with the project manager, but absence of proper requirement elicitation will always make the estimation futile in the later part. When a PM is given a project, at first hand he must re-estimate the project to find

1. If the BDO has estimated the project properly.
2. To use the estimation as his safeguard tool. So in future if the project is going through rough patches, then he can produce the estimation to save his back.

A Project Manager should always estimate the project on regular basis to find out the ups and downs, to find out the current status of the project and to re-align the deadline if required. It is this estimation part which gives him some numbers. Number of resources required. How many more persons to be inducted to increase the pace of the development? What is the optimum level of resources etc.

Project Management Areas

Requirement Elicitation: Requirement elicitation is an art and if done properly then the chances of change requests minimizes. In this zone communication skill is extremely important because first of all A PM needs to frame the right question to the client. At the same time he needs to understand what does client want to say. There are various techniques available in requirement elicitation. Some are conventional and some are unique and exciting. A project manager comes out with a detailed requirement chart, which is then used as raw source of system and application design. A failed requirement analysis only keeps the chances of change requests alive.

Project Monitoring: No doubt, this is the most elongated part of project management and SDLC. Along with this comes and gets intermingled configuration management, decision analysis, review and risk management. Lets go through each area and discuss its importance. Project monitoring and control is the most important step of SDLC. While others generate either in the beginning or in the end, the actual software development happens at this stage. The skills of PM are also tested at this level. Risks mitigation, evaluating decisions, reviewing actions are required on continuous basis.

Risks involved: Risks are integral part of any project. If you can see risks you are winner. If you cannot you yourself are at risks. What kinds of risks a project can have?

• Employee Attrition: An employee can leave at the mid of projects or might get sick. You must be prepared for that.
• Vendors: You might have thought of buying a component in the project initiation part but later found vendors stopped selling that.
• Employee crunch: You are not getting proper resources for the project and the project is thereby getting delayed.

Decision analysis: In the monitoring part a Project Manager might need to take many decisions. The challenge is that a problem can have many solutions. Accepting the perfect solution is an art and should be skillfully mitigated by the PM.

Reviewing Actions: Peer review is something which helps a PM to look at himself in the mirror. Did he follow processes properly? Did his any of decisions is counter productive? Instead of taking peer review as criticism, a PM should always take its s constructive measure and correct his decisions at right time.

I don’t see configuration management is not the PM’s job unless he himself is the configuration manager. Similarly a PM must be contented with the Metrics defined at the organization level. To sum up you might be then interested to know what skills are required for a PM and what risks he is subjected to?

1. A Project Manager should be a good estimator
2. A Project Manager should be person with excellent communication skill
3. A Project Manger should be a good visionary.
4. A Project Manager should be well apt in handling project management tools.
5. A Project Manager should not micro manage a project.
   1. Micro management means very closely observing the team members. A team member is also a stakeholder of the project. The more you will micro manage, more the developer will feel alien to the project. A PM should provide ownership of tasks to the team member.
6. A Project Manager should be a good politician.
7. A Project Manager should always keep informed the stakeholders.
8. A Project Manager should always calculate the money spent, returns coming and profit acquiring. A quality project without any margin is not a success.
9. A Project Manager should be a motivator and should understand de-motivating factors for his team members.
10. And he should always rely on numbers and not on any abstract terms.

Important Links:

1. Risk Management
2. Project Management Tips
3. Project Management Skills
4. More Project Management Skills
5. Configuration Management
6. Decision Analysis and Resolution (DAR)
7. Peer Review
8. Project Management