Basics of Software Project Management

Project Management Basics

I have been working with projects for big customers as well as our very own startup eZdia. What I have learnt over time and after missing countless deadlines is the fact that good intentions and good people do not guarantee a sucessfull execution. We need to plan and execute in a rigorous manner and managing a projects is a full time job.

Project Managers are the glue which keeps the various elements of the team together and focuses on the goal which is to meet the deadlines and deliver against the scope, time and cost of the agreed upon project. Here’s a short excerpt of the basics starting with the reason for failure and how to succeed based on our experiences and what experts have been discussing.

Introductory Concepts

Why do software projects fail?

1. People begin programming before they understand the problem. Everyone likes to feel that they’re making progress. When the team starts to code as soon as the project begins, they see immediate gains.When problems become more complex (as they always do!), the work gets bogged down. In the best case, a team that begins programming too soon will end up writing good software that solves the wrong problem.

2. The team has an unrealistic idea about how much work is involved. From far away, most complex problems seem simple to solve. Teams can commit to impossible deadlines by being overly optimistic and not thinking through the work. Few people realize the deadline is optimistic until it’s blown.

3. Defects are injected early but discovered late. Projects can address the wrong needs. Requirements can specify incorrect behavior. Design, architecture and code can be technically flawed. Test plans can miss functionality. The later these problems are found, the more likely they are to cause the project to fail

4. Programmers have poor habits – and they don’t feel accountable for their work. Programmers don’t have good control of their source code. Code written by one person is often difficult for another person to understand. Programmers don’t test their code, which makes diagnosing and fixing bugs more expensive
The team does not have a good sense of the overall health of the project.

5. Managers try to test quality into the software. Everyone assumes that the testers will catch all of the defects that were injected throughout the project. When testers look for defects, managers tell them they are wasting time. When testers find defects, programmers are antagonized because they feel that they are being personally criticized. When testers miss defects, everyone blames them for not being perfect.

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