Secrets of Successful Project Management: 20 Expert Tips
Secrets of Successful Project Management
20 Expert Tips for Project Success
Tip #1: Define Project Success Criteria
At the beginning of the project, ensure all stakeholders have a shared understanding of how they will determine project success.
Tip #2: Identify Project Drivers, Constraints, and Degrees of Freedom
Every project needs to balance functionality, staffing, budget, schedule, and quality objectives. Define each of these five project dimensions as either a constraint or a driver.
Tip #3: Define Product Release Criteria
Early in the project, decide what criteria will determine if the product is ready for release. You might base release criteria on the number of high-priority defects, performance measurements, or specific functionality being fully operational.
Tip #4: Negotiate Commitments
Never make a commitment you can’t keep. Engage in good-faith negotiations with customers and managers about what is realistically achievable.
Tip #5: Write a Plan
The hard part is actually doing the planning—thinking, negotiating, balancing, talking, asking, and listening. The time you spend analyzing the problem will reduce surprises later.
Tip #6: Decompose Tasks to Inch-Pebble Granularity
Inch-pebbles are miniature milestones that help break down large tasks into manageable chunks.
Tip #7: Develop Planning Worksheets for Common Large Tasks
If your team frequently undertakes certain tasks, develop activity checklists and planning worksheets for them.
Tip #8: Plan to Do Rework After a Quality Control Activity
Almost all quality control activities, such as testing and technical reviews, find defects or improvement opportunities.
Tip #9: Plan Time for Process Improvement
If you want to improve your team’s software engineering capability, you’ll need to invest time in process improvement.
Tip #10: Manage Project Risks
If you don’t identify and control risks, they will control you. Spend time brainstorming possible risk factors, evaluating their potential threat, and deciding how to mitigate or prevent them.
Tip #11: Estimate Based on Effort, Not Calendar Time
Estimate the amount of effort (in labor-hours) associated with a task, then translate that effort into a calendar-time estimate.
Tip #12: Don’t Schedule People for More Than 80% of Their Time
The task-switching overhead associated with multiple activities reduces effectiveness significantly.
Tip #13: Build Training Time into the Schedule
Determine how much time your team members typically spend on training and subtract that from the time available for project tasks.
Tip #14: Record Estimates and How You Derived Them
Document your estimates and how you arrived at each of them.
Tip #15: Use Estimation Tools
Many commercial tools can help you estimate entire projects. These tools can provide a spectrum of possible schedule and staff allocation options.
Tip #16: Respect the Learning Curve
If you’re trying new processes, tools, or technologies, recognize that there will be a short-term productivity loss.
Tip #17: Plan Contingency Buffers
Your budget and schedule should include contingency buffers at the end of major phases to accommodate unforeseen issues.
Tip #18: Record Actuals and Estimates
If you don’t record the actual effort or time spent on each task and compare them to your estimates, you’ll never improve your estimating approach.
Tip #19: Count Tasks as Complete Only When They’re 100% Complete
Use explicit criteria to determine if a task is truly completed. Don’t let people “round up” their task completion status.
Tip #20: Track Project Status Openly and Honestly
Create a climate where team members feel safe reporting project status accurately.
Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
Definition: BPR is the analysis and design of workflows and processes within and between organizations. It involves the critical analysis and radical redesign of existing business processes to achieve breakthrough improvements in performance.
Key Characteristics of Business Processes:
- Definability: Clearly defined boundaries, input, and output.
- Order: Activities ordered in time and space.
- Customer: A recipient of the process outcome.
- Value-Adding: The transformation within the process adds value to the recipient.
7 Myths of BPR:
- The Myth of Reengineering Novelty: BPR combines familiar concepts in a new way.
- The Myth of the Clean Slate: Clean slate change is rare in practice.
- The Myth of Information Systems Leadership: IS is generally a partner, not the leader, in BPR.
- The Myth of Reengineering vs. Quality: Companies use a portfolio of approaches to organizational change.
- The Myth of Top-Down Design: Successful BPR requires participation and ownership at all levels.
- The Myth of Reengineering vs. Transformation: BPR contributes to organizational transformation, but they are not synonymous.
- The Myth of Reengineering’s Permanence: BPR may become integrated with broader organizational phenomena.
Responsibility
Meaning of Responsibility: Taking care of your duties, answering for your actions, being accountable, and being trustworthy.
Why is Being Responsible Important? Responsibility is a core value for living honorably. It means being accountable for your behavior and dependable when you have things to do.
Examples of Responsibility:
- Completing chores without being reminded.
- Taking care of personal possessions.
- Keeping promises.
- Completing school assignments on time.
- Taking care of a pet.
Types of Responsibilities:
- Moral Responsibility: To other people, animals, and the earth.
- Legal Responsibility: To the laws and ordinances of your community, state, and country.
- Family Responsibility: Treating family members with love and respect, following rules, and doing chores.
- Community Responsibility: Treating others well, participating in community activities, and being an active citizen.
- Responsibility to Customs, Traditions, Beliefs, and Rules: Respecting and following customs, traditions, beliefs, and rules from your family, community, heritage, or faith.
Interpersonal Skills
Definition: Mental and communicative algorithms applied during social interactions to achieve specific effects or results.
Key Interpersonal Skills:
- Leadership: Influencing a group towards a common goal.
- Networking: Creating and maintaining effective contacts for mutual benefit.
- Mentoring: Being a trusted advisor and guiding someone’s development.
- Group Work: Working cooperatively with others to achieve team outcomes.
- Delegation: Distributing responsibility and authority in a group.
- Collaboration: Working cooperatively with team members.
- Network Building: Creating and maintaining contacts with people.
- Motivating Others: Encouraging and inspiring others to achieve goals.
Professionalism: The 4-P Model
The 4-P Model describes ideal professional behavior. It includes:
- Proficiency: Being skilled and competent in your work.
- Permanence: Demonstrating long-term commitment to your field.
- Profession: Declaring your dedication to your calling.
- Promises: Adhering to a code of ethics.
Professionalism: Model Zero
Model Zero represents a negative view of professionalism, where compliance and uniformity are prioritized over quality work and individuality.
Bioinformatics and Medical Applications
Bioinformatics: Uses computational and statistical techniques to solve biological problems, often at the molecular level.
Computational Biology: Uses computers to investigate specific biological problems, often with experimental or simulated data.
Health Informatics/Medical Informatics: The intersection of information science, computer science, and healthcare. It deals with optimizing the use of information in health and biomedicine.
Law Enforcement and Technology
Cyber Law Enforcement: Focuses on cybercrime investigation, training, and victim assistance.
Law Enforcement Technology: Law enforcement is increasingly using technology, such as computers in patrol cars, video cameras for traffic violations, and electronic data transfer.
IT in Political Processes
E-governance: Leverages IT to streamline government functions, increase transparency, and improve service delivery.
Benefits of IT in Government:
- Enhanced efficiency.
- Reduced communication costs.
- Increased transparency.
- Improved citizen access to services.
Examples of IT in Government:
- Online portals for citizen interaction with government departments.
- E-Seva in Hyderabad for bill payments and other services.
- E-Choupal for providing information and services to farmers.