In the previous two articles in this series, adapted from my book Practical Project Initiation, I’ve described fifteen practices the project manager can apply to lay the foundation for a successful project, plan the project, and estimate the work to be done. In this final article I share two additional estimation practices, three good practices for […]
In Part 1 of this series, adapted from my book Practical Project Initiation, I shared four best practices that can help you lay the foundation for a successful project and two practices that are useful for project planning. This article continues the series by describing five additional project planning best practices and several practices for estimating […]
Managing software projects is difficult under the best circumstances. The project manager must balance competing stakeholder interests against the constraints of limited resources and time, ever-changing technologies, and challenging demands from high-pressure people. Project management is a juggling act, with too many balls in the air at once. Unfortunately, many new project managers receive little […]
I conclude this three-part series on the customer–development partnership by elaborating on the Requirements Bill of Responsibilities for Software Customers that I presented in part 1. Responsibility #1: To educate analysts and developers about your business BAs depend on you to educate them about your business concepts and terminology. The intent is not to transform […]
Software projects can derail in many ways. You can avoid making many classic mistakes if you study the many books and articles available on software engineering and project management, as well as the lessons your own teams have learned on previous projects. Sure, everyone’s very busy when you’re launching a new project, and taking the […]
Requirements will change and grow over the course of any software project. This is a natural aspect of software development. In fact, if a project doesn’t experience some requirements evolution, the team likely is ignoring reality and risks releasing an irrelevant product. The prudent project manager anticipates and plans to accommodate some requirements growth. Scope […]
In part 1 of this three-part series, adapted from my book More about Software Requirements, I described the importance of documenting the scope of each software development project or iteration. The context diagram and the use case diagram are two useful techniques for representing scope. This article describes two other methods for documenting scope: feature […]
At Jama, we work with the world’s most innovative companies and government agencies to manage the entire lifecycle of product delivery. They think differently, challenge the status quo, and are constantly looking for new ways to improve product delivery to gain that competitive edge. Unfortunately many find it really challenging to work with a legacy […]
Great business analysts are grown, not trained. The job includes many soft skills that are more people-oriented than technical. An organization’s BAs likely will come from diverse backgrounds, which could include the business side, the IT side, and subject matter experts. Whatever their backgrounds, new BAs will have gaps in their experience, knowledge and skill […]
With the “intent to delay” announcement one week before HIMSS, we knew there would be a good amount of new buzz on ICD-10. For any industry there are pragmatists, collaborators, and innovators. [Deloitte did a great job of categorizing this theory around ICD-10.] Not to over generalize by any means, the majority of insurance providers […]
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