NINE BEST PRACTICES OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT The difference between failure and success is the difference between doing something almost right and doing something right

— Benjamin Franklin

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The Nine Best Practices†

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!  What are the attributes of a well run project, independent of any methodology?

The Nine Best Practices

!  Formal Risk Management – make risk management a critical success factor.

!  Agreement On Interfaces –capture and document the system interfaces. Not only the software interfaces, but also the process interfaces.

!  Formal Inspections –make visible the development artifacts, review these artifacts, and provide feedback to the authors.

!  Metrics Based Scheduling And Management – measure progress, quality, and other tangible components of the project.

!  Binary Quality Gates – assure progress is being made that meets the quality guidelines.

!  Project–wide Visibility Of Progress To Plan – avoid going dark.

!  Defect Tracking – identify and measure the reduction in defects

!  Configuration Management –identify and control the components of the system and their interaction with each other.

!  People Aware Management –manage the accountability of the staff.

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Formal Risk Management 4

!  Risk management may be a new concept for a project team.

!  Here are some warm–up statements to get us focused. !  If You’re Not Managing Risk, You’re Managing The Wrong

Thing – Rear Admiral Bill Carlson !  Risk Management Is Project Management For Adults – Tim

Lister, The Atlantic Systems Guild

!  These are strong statements, but they focus our attention on the current gaps in the project management process.

!  One way to focus our attention on risk management is to realize that stupid risks are bad.

Addressing – Formal Risk Management 5

!  Risk management must be embedded in all the project management activities

!  It serves no purpose to have a list of risks without a mitigation for each of them ! Even if that mitigation plan is to ignore the risk

!  More sophisticated project organizations make use of programmatic risk management ! This is an easy step to take with simple tools built

around MSFT Project

Agreement on Interfaces 6

!  Product and Process interfaces typically form the essential elements of a program’s success.

!  The creation and management of the interface domain is the role of the architect and the principal developers.

!  Documenting these interfaces is part of the planning process !  “Givers and Receivers” is one approach !  “Value Stream Mapping” is another

!  With a formal description of the interfaces, the project team will be unable to determine the proper approach to reaching “Done.”

Addressing – Agreement on Interfaces 7

!  Interface Control Documents are one starting point. !  Giver / Receiver Maps are another.

Formal Inspections 8

!  Rework done to fix defects not found when the defect was introduced accounts for 40% to 50% of the development budget on large projects.

!  The cost of fixing these defects increases dramatically as the product matures.

!  Finding and repairing the defects before they are absorbed by the next phase is critical to the success of the project

Addressing – Formal Inspections 9

!  The level of formality must match the level of quality: ! This can range from casual presentations to full

Verification and Validation

!  The term “inspection” can be replaced with: ! Technical Performance Measures ! Design for Six Sigma

Metrics Based Planning 10

!  The early identification of problems is the only reason to have performance metrics.

!  The project management metrics are the yardstick for measuring progress to plan.

!  Earned Value Management is a necessary starting point.

!  Technical Performance Measures provides the “sufficiency” part of performance management.

Addressing – Metrics Based Planning 11

!  Metrics based planning is the basis of all good project management methods.

!  The metrics can range from simple to complex, but a minimum set are needed.

!  Cost and schedule performance can be provided by simple Earned Value.

Binary Quality Gates 12

!  The devil’s in the details is a powerful concept for product development.

!  When project planning and monitoring are based on insufficient detail, the discussion of the status of the project is illusionary.

!  Project management without detail is called Let’s pretend.

Addressing – Binary Quality Gates 13

!  The granularity of the “binary” may vary ! Daily, weekly measures of physical percent complete. ! Monthly Contract Performance Report

!  No matter which choice – or even a more traditional approach ! An incremental and iterative approach to delivery

verifiable value to the customer is needed.

Project–Wide Visibility 14

!  Get the entire staff actively involved in identifying problems and risks.

!  When everyone is involved, the likelihood of missing problems is greatly reduced.

!  This broad involvement strengthens risk management and increases the probability of the project’s success.

Addressing – Project–Wide Visibility 15

!  Making programmatic and technical performance visible keeps everyone honest.

!  A “Wall of Truth” approach is used in mature organizations.

Defect Tracking 16

!  Keeping defect reports is not sufficient, the metrics of who, what, where, when, how, and why are as important as the existence of a simple list.

!  By tracking these metrics, basic indicators relating to defects, schedule, cost, requirements, documentation and staff can be made visible.

!  Avoiding the “snowball” effect is one of the outcomes of the metrics. ! Mortgaging the future with defects of the present is the

“snowball effect.”

Addressing – Defect Tracking 17

!  Defect generation and removal rates are part of the “Wall of Truth.”

!  Every defect introduced into the product, must be removed at the expense of future features.

!  Budget for defects “may” help here, but that budget could be better used of the defect was a not present.

!  “Get it right the first time,” is a critical success factor for all projects.

Configuration Management 18

!  Not controlling the products of the development organization dramatically increases the complexity of the result to a level approaching chaos.

!  The result is certain failure, !  The management of the configuration is based on two

simple rules: ! Any piece of information approved at the quality gate level

must be controlled through the configuration management process.

! Any piece of information that is concurrently used by more than one individual or organization must be controlled through the configuration management process.

Addressing – Configuration Management

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!  Separating Configuration Management from Development is the start is higher quality development.

!  Making CM a profession is a critical success factor.

People Aware Management 20

!  Focus on people as a critical foundation for the success of the project.

!  The single most important factor in the success of any project is the quality, experience, and motivation of the technical and support staff.

Addressing – People Aware Management

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!  “It’s the People Stupid.” !  High performance organizations start and end with

people.

Final message … 22

!  Adopting the Nine Best Practices in some form is the beginning of “moving up the maturity scale” of product development.

!  Making the Nine Best Practices your own will require “walking the walk.”

Practicing the Best Practices creates opportunities to deliver value

Questions 23

!  Are there any gaps in the current “practices” that could be filled?

!  How can what we’ve seen today be put to immediate use?

!  How about longer term evolutionary improvements?

Glen B. Alleman Niwot Ridge Consulting

4347 Pebble Beach Drive Niwot, Colorado 80503

303.241.9633 glen.alleman@niwotridge.com

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