Project management is a continuous process of planning, executing, measuring, and re-planning. It’s the process of meeting your commitments in spite of all the change and obstacles along the way. It’s a tool for managing change and complexity. It’s hard, and because some aren’t successful with it or don’t do it well, it doesn’t mean that project management is not valuable. Sometimes we blame poor execution on the process or the tools, but too often in software management it’s the skill that is at fault. The difference between the 300 Avg. batter in baseball and the 200 Avg. batter isn’t the bat, the ball, or the rules of the game, it’s the skill of batter. If we can focus on the skill rather than debate the need for the tools, we can progress the practice of software management to higher levels because skills can be improved with practice and education.

Why does it take so long to deliver software products? Many stakeholders ask this question during the course of a software development project.  It’s interesting when the developers ask this question because they know what …

 
Purpose 
To clarify some possible misconceptions about the goal of this article series, it is NOT to advocate that there should be unrealistic schedules.  Quite the contrary, I don’t support expecting a team to deliver herculean …

  
Management Approach
I’ve identified eleven tasks that I believe are essential for delivering to an unrealistic schedule.  While the tasks are numbered, they signify a loose priority.  It’s not intended for them to be followed exactly one …

You’ve probably been there, working to deliver on one of those unrealistic schedules.  They all roughly follow the same trajectory.  The marketing team sponsors the next project with a must hit inflexible date, an inflexible …

Does your final project schedule look identical to the project schedule that you began your release with?  If it does, you either aren’t managing your schedule or you are working on a dead product.  Project …

“Another 30 defects uncovered yesterday,” reports the QA Lead. “Ten defects were fixed,” reports the Tech. Lead. Taken alone these are alarming statistics, and if they persist long enough, the release date would certainly be in jeopardy.

Many software teams struggle through the QA phase with great anxiety as they normally work through the phase without a compass: nothing to tell them whether they are on track or not. How many defects are left? Will we be able to fix all the defects before the release date? These are a few of the questions that teams have anxiety about. It’s only until a few weeks before the planned release date that they come to grips with the realization that they are in trouble.