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Scrum Burn-down Charts

In the world of project management there are often disputes over Waterfall vs. Agile methodology.  Most people have a bent or preference and there is plenty of discussion whether Agile can fit within any typical Waterfall project.  However there isn’t much disagreement among Agile proponents on the need for a good SCRUM chart.  Check out the link below from a recent blog posted on PMI.org by Bill Krebs.  Bill has an interesting take on Tracking Burn-down Progress…

http://blogs.pmi.org/blog/voices_on_project_management/2011/04/tracking-burn-down-progress.html

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Utilization Reports

In a Professional Services company, how do you know if you are billing enough hours to be profitable?  One way is to check to see if you’re still in business.  If so, you’re billing enough hours!

Okay, that works.  But wouldn’t it be nice to tune your billable hours for maximum efficiency?  That’s what a utilization report does for you.  It checks the number of hours for billable vs. non-billable.  the image below is a snapshot of one employee’s rates.  Not bad, huh?

Utilization Report

There’s an unofficial law at our company: Either find a way to bill 50 hours a week, or look for a job elsewhere.

That’s the hard reality at some companies.  You can bet management is watching the utilization reports.  Of course, if they don’t they’ll probably go out of business themselves.

–newshirt

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Time estimates are tricky

If you are an inexperienced project manager, engineer, or designer, consider tripling your initial time estimates for projects.  That’s not a slam.  It’s just that new managers don’t take a lot of minutia into consideration when developing project time estimates.  Experienced people have been through a lot of project cycles.  They have seen a lot, and the know the hundreds of little things that can bog a project down or extend it long beyond all normal estimates.  So if you’re new, triple the schedule until you know the details.

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7 Things You Need to Know About Development Project Estimations

Whether you are a project manager planning for a smooth implementation of a plan or a project sponsor on whose decisions a project depends, you cannot escape from the fact that project estimation is essential to its success. In the first place, there are three basic requirements that a project must satisfy: schedule, budget, and quality. The need to work within these essential project boundaries poses a huge challenge to everyone in the central management team.

There are various aspects that affect project estimates, such as team skills and experience levels, available technology, use of full-time or part-time resources, project quality management, risks, iteration, development environment, requirements, and most of all, the level of commitment of all project members.

Moreover, project estimations do not need to be too complicated. There are tools, methodologies, and best practices that can help project management teams, from sponsors to project managers, agree on estimates and push development efforts forward. Some of these include the following:

  1. Project estimates must be based on the application’s architecture. Making estimates based on an application’s architecture should give you a clear idea of the length of the entire development project phase. Moreover, an architecture-based estimation provides you a macro-level view of the resources needed to complete the project.
  2. Project estimations should also come from the ground up. All estimates must add up, and estimating the collective efforts of the production teams that work on the application’s modules helps identify the number of in-house and outsourced consultants that you need to hire for the entire project, as well as have a clear idea of the collective man-hours required to code modules or finish all features of the application. Ground-up estimates are provided by project team members and do not necessarily match top-level estimates exactly. In this case, it is best to add a percentage of architecture-based estimates to give room to possible reworks, risks, and other events that may or may not be within the control of the project staff.
  3. Do not forget modular estimates. Once you have a clear idea of the architecture, it becomes easier to identify the modules that make up the entirety of the application. Knowing the nature of these modules should help you identify which can be done in-house or onshore, or by an offshore development team. Moreover, given the location and team composition of each development team that works on a module, it becomes easier to identify the technical and financial resources needed to work on the codes.
  4. Development language matters. Whether the development language is Java, .Net, C++ or any other popular language used by software engineers, team that will be hired for the project must be knowledgeable in it. Some development efforts require higher skills in these languages, while some only need basic functional knowledge, and the levels of specialization in any of these languages have corresponding rates. Most of the time, the chosen development language depends on the chosen platform, and certain platforms run on specialized hardware.
  5. You cannot promise upper management dramatic costs from offshoring. While there are greater savings from having development work done by offshore teams composed of workers whose rates are significantly lower from onshore staff, you must consider communication, knowledge transfer, technical set-up, and software installation costs in your financial estimates. Estimating costs is often more about managing expectations, but as the project matures, it should be clearer whether the money spent on it was money that was spent well.
  6. Project estimation software and tools help identify “what-if” scenarios. Over the years, project managers have devised ways to automate project schedule, framework, cost, and staffing estimates. Some estimation applications also have sample historical data or models based on real-world examples. If your business has a lot in common with the samples in the estimation tool, it can help you identify what-if scenarios and in turn include risks, buffers, and iteration estimates.
  7. Price break-down helps in prioritization. Breaking down the total cost of the project helps management decide which parts of a system should be prioritized, delayed, or even cancel. Estimating costs for a new project may not be easy, but project sponsors and managers must be able to know and agree on the breakdown of costs of development, technical requirements, and overhead.

By ExecutiveBrief -online resource on process management, project management, and process improvement.

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Success Factors in Knowledge Management

Knowledge management professionals must keep in mind that KM’s explicit end-goal is profitability while its implicit purpose is to empower participants through intellectual platforms and processes that promote learning and practical knowledge.

Knowledge, without a doubt, plays an important role in the success of any organization. In fact, in order to maintain a competitive advantage, modern organizations incorporate knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and knowledge management into their business processes. The mere survival of many organizations hinges on the strength of their capabilities; moreover, companies form decisions based on their relevant knowledge of their business landscapes.

Thanks to developments in information and communication technologies, it is now easier to develop, store, and transfer knowledge. This capability is particularly true among organizations with global workforces. After all, international competition and globalization are the driving forces behind most technological innovations, and companies quickly take advantage of these developments when it comes to managing the creation and flow of information.

“Ultimately, leveraging relevant knowledge assets to improve organizational performance is what knowledge management is all about,” says Murray E. Jennex in his book, Knowledge Management in Modern Organizations (2007). However, in spite of the lightning-speed creation of new knowledge and the improvements in communication technologies, many organizations still find that their knowledge management practices are lacking. Specifically, within client-consultant relationships, knowledge transfer does not always translate into better performance by all project team members, nor does it always translate into the successful delivery of projects.

To be successful, knowledge management programs require more than simply conducting training sessions or transferring knowledge. Practitioners must always remember that KM’s explicit end-goal is profitability – while KM’s implicit purpose is to empower participants by providing them with the intellectual platforms and processes that promote learning and practical knowledge.

Here are a few factors that contribute to successful knowledge management initiatives:

  • Linkage between knowledge and economic performance – Knowledge management exists because it enables the organization to reach its business goals. Otherwise, there is no point in putting together all the best practices, tacit knowledge, and skill sets in a cohesive system that is accessible by all parties – when and where they need it. As business increasingly becomes more global, the competition for greater market share depends on the capabilities of its players to a certain degree. KM practitioners must be able to identify the business value of knowledge management in their organizations – whether it is to manage projects, provide back-office operations services or to give ideas on how processes can be better optimized – among others. In most consulting relationships, knowledge is the currency by which all transactions are made.
  • Setting and communicating clear objectives for specific organizational or project levels – Heather Kreech, the Director of Knowledge Communications of the International Institute for Sustainable Development has some specific ideas on this very subject. In her paper, Success Factors in Knowledge Management (2005), she states that knowledge-sharing works best when knowledge managers “gather and communicate knowledge at the project/activity/field level before [they] begin to aggregate up to corporate systems and general knowledge marketing strategies”. Having a specific organizational level or project group in mind, results in better designed knowledge management systems, training programs, and tools that can meet the specific needs of workers.
  • Having the appropriate systems and infrastructure – Ideally, knowledge is created, processed, stored, and archived. Managing the process of creating knowledge, communicating this knowledge to participants, and making knowledge available to anyone in the organization, means that an organization must have the right communication systems and data storage facilities. However, it is not enough to simply store knowledge as this knowledge must be found whenever it is needed. Thus, the availability of internal search facilities and computer-based training programs is critical.
  • Having the right champions – KM initiatives need project and process champions who can rally the support of everyone – from top management down to individual staff members. Having management support can result in the freeing up of resources – such as financial, expertise, and infrastructure – all of which are critical to the successful implementation of KM projects. Financial backing means that KM managers can implement training programs, hire both internal and external specialists – as well as acquire the required infrastructure to manage training programs. On the other hand, access to experts from either within or outside the organization, means better identification of knowledge gaps and training requirements, and more importantly, engineering training and communication programs that meet the said needs.

By ExecutiveBrief
Technology Management Resource for Business Leaders
http://www.executivebrief.com
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How to Create a Scrum Burn-Down Chart in Standard Time

Scrum burndown charts, or project history charts, as they are called in Standard Time help managers see the time remaining for projects in a line chart.  An example is shown below.  As many know, Standard Time is more than a timesheet.  It contains many project management features like task linking, resource allocation, earned value analysis, utilization percentages and rates.  These can be pretty boring topics unless you need to know where your project is headed.  And then they become pretty valuable tools all of a sudden.  Let’s take a look at the scrum chart.

 

Notice the falling line chart.  We’ll explain that shortly.

 

Scrum Burndown
Scrum Chart in Standard Time

The first step to creating this chart is to turn on project history.  Choose Tools, Projects and click a project to begin.  The project properties will display in the right-hand property panel.  Check the “Save task history” checkbox, as shown below.  This forces Standard Time to save time remaining for each project task when hours are entered into the timesheet.  Hours remaining are the raw ingredients for the scrum burndown chart above.

 


Save Task History in Standard Time
For Burn-down Chart

 

After turning on the “Save task history” option, now you’ll simply create project tasks and log time to them.  The image below shows a sample list of tasks.  Just remember that each task has a “Remaining” number of hours.  Those hours are plotted on a line graph in the scrum chart.  All tasks are combined to give a snapshot status of your project.  As you log daily time, those hours will fall, until they all reach zero.  Then the project is done!  You’ll see this gradual fall in the burndown chart.  Each week, you’ll notice trends developing.  Hopefully, going toward zero and completion.

 


Project Tasks in Standard Time

 

–newshirt

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Vicarious Goal Completion

Bear with me…  Vicarious Goal Completion is a pretty obscure title, but there’s logic to it.  🙂

Psychologists have observed a strange human peculiarity.  And it relates directly to project management.  It’s called Vicarious Goal Completion.  Researchers first encountered it while studying fast food menus.  Can I get you to bite?

When fast food menus contain a “Salad” choice or other healthy food items, people purchase the junk food instead! 

Here’s why: People who see healthy items on a menu feel good about their weight loss goals and give themselves permission to indulge a little.  So, they eat the burger and fries instead.  In other words, they remember eating good and believe they have already attained their goals, so that gives them permission to splurge.  The goals are completed vicariously through the menu itself.

Obviously, this is just a slick way of tricking oneself into dodging responsibility.  They used to call this laziness.  Any excuse to pig out.

I’ve notice the same behavior with software downloads and project tasks.  The ratio of downloads to form-completions is pitifully low.  In other words, people take the time to fill out a download form, but never actually install and test the software.  Vicarious Goal Completion!  The person believes they have finished the job, when in fact, they have only just begun.  Filling out the form gives them a warm fuzzy feeling about the goal of procuring software, and that warm feeling is enough to satisfy them.  They don’t actually care if they download, install, and test.  They have met their goals and that’s all that matters.

The same is true of project management.  Beware of employees who start tasks, but never complete them.  Once a task is started, good feelings arise.  Those good feelings give the employee permission of quit because they feel they have already finished, or full completion is within sight.  Vicarious Goal Completion!  Nobody likes to take their project tasks to the uttermost level of completion – unless forced to do so.

 

–ray

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Technologies that Matter in a Slow Economy

Bare-bones hardware and software, and all things virtual dictate the game of computing in a slow economy.

A recent advertisement by Microsoft caused a stir among the Mac-loving community of tech workers. The ad shows a flame-haired Lauren looking for a 17-inch laptop for under $1,000. The challenge is that if she finds one that meets her specifications, she gets to keep the laptop and the change from the $1,000. And so she first goes to a Mac store where the only thing that falls within her budget is a 13-inch Macbook. Slightly dejected, she drives off and along the way says the line that struck a raw nerve among Mac fans and probably Apple itself: “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.”

She enters another computer store where she finds two laptops that meet her needs on top of her 17-inch monitor requirement for only $699. The ad ends with the line, “I’m a PC and I got just what I needed.”

Ever since the TV spot came out, the Mac community has been up in arms, dismissing all things PC and the operating system that most of the time goes with it. However, pundits believe that no matter how “cool” Mac may be, the deciding factor for buying PC is price point. When things are tough and everyone is worrying about their finances, notwithstanding the availability of disposable income for some, people are conscious about the amount of money they spend on technology.

The same is true whether one is buying technology services, software, or hardware. As the world gets on with the current crisis, technology is responding at rapid speed to manage the needs of individual and enterprise tech buyers everywhere.

So what are the technologies that actually matter in this climate? Here are a few:

Virtualization – Video conferences, virtual meetings, and screen sharing are just a few of the ways the tech world is replacing bricks-and-mortar or traditional modes of conducting daily business. Virtualization makes it possible for workers to overlap work schedules across different time zones and collaborate on projects that are stored in different parts of the globe. Moreover, telecommuting becomes a trend even–or especially–among large enterprises who benefit from lower overhead costs and thankful workers who are happy to skip daily commutes and save on gas. Who needs to be physically present at the office when you can access your virtual desktop hosted by an outsourced data center?

Cloud Computing – Technology suppliers, from Microsoft to Sun to Amazon to startups, have embraced cloud computing as the next wave of business technology service. Buyers need applications and services that can be deployed as soon as possible and with as little maintenance required. Cloud computing also eliminates the need to build armies of engineers to create applications that can be “rented” anyway.

Enterprise Telecommunications – Businesses are getting savvier when it comes to enterprise communication, that any meeting, conference, or messaging that can be done via BlackBerry, VoIP, or company-supported IMs is welcome. Those that can invest in infrastructure requirements to put these technologies in place for two reasons: (1) to minimize the cost of or need for business travel and (2) to facilitate seamless communication among workers from different locations.

Open-Source – In early February, the British government released a policy that emphasized preference for open-source over proprietary software in order to cut down cost on technology spending. With proper due diligence, the move is surely to be copied by various industries everywhere in the quest to manage operating costs while remaining productive and responsive to customer demands.

Bare-Bones Hardware – The popularity of netbooks can be attributed to its portability, and a more so to a much friendlier price point. As software and file management move to the clouds and storage becomes cheaper, tech buyers, such as Lauren in the Microsoft commercial, realize that they only have to spend on what they need. Who cares about the cool factor when they have to spend their money wisely? In early March, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the company’s plans to deliver the “netbooks” of servers that sport features that meet minimal storage and network management needs of businesses.

By ExecutiveBrief

http://www.executivebrief.com�

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The X, Y, and Z’s of Product Development

A certain thing happens in product development…  (It used to bug me to death, until I got used to it.)  Your product development team just finishes a great new feature.  Everybody rejoices.  Good feelings, pride, and celebrations.  All that…  The new release is posted on the web, and you start to get downloaders.  Potential customers are giving it a look.  And you know they are seeing the great new feature you just added.  It has “X” and “Y” new things.  Everyone will love it.  Everyone will buy.  You’re sure of that!  Finally… we’ve gotten a great product out there…

The next thing you know, you get an email from an evaluator.  He can’t believe how short-sighted your product is.  In fact, he’s practically indignant.  It’s missing a key feature he needs, and he can’t belive you’d ever consider shipping a product without it.

He asks, “Can you do it?  When will it be available?

“Maybe, next month.  Can you describe it more fully?”

“Oh, I can’t wait that long…  Forget it.”

The situation is that you’ve completed “X” and “Y” but haven’t gotten to “Z” yet.  And that’s what spoiler-boy wants.  Problem is, you never considered “Z” until you completed “X” and “Y.”  Or worse yet, didn’t consider it until he pointed it out.

This is so common.  People cannot see to very down the product road-map.  That’s human nature.  They can see “X” and “Y” but only have fuzzy glimpses of “Z.”  That is, until some grumpy customer complains that it’s not in the product.  He doesn’t see the hard work you put into getting the first releases out.  I.e. getting “X” and “Y” out.  He just sees that “Z” is missing, and feels pretty certain that he can’t do without it.  He’ll move on…  Somebody out there must have it.  “I’ll look around…” he says.

Better get cracking.  Again…

 

–ray

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Let the Client Be Your Project Leader

Customer-driven project management uses the voice of the client as a guide at every turn of the project’s life cycle to achieve optimum quality.

Project teams that put the interest of their clients are assured of repeat businesses and long-term relationships. They know that at the end of the day, their processes and methodologies are established to meet clients’ expectations. And meeting clients’ expectations hopefully means satisfaction.

It has always been the goal of project teams to complete projects on time within cost and fulfill quality criteria, but it has often been the case that when projects are implemented, project teams focus on their tasks more and lose sight of their relationships with clients. Now, thanks to the current dynamics of an increasingly demanding business environment, the management concept of too much organizational and process control that on many occasions resulted in alienating customers is slowly giving way to a marriage of disciplined process implementation and customer satisfaction. And by satisfaction, it means giving more than what is required.

Customer-driven project management uses the voice of the client as a guide at every turn of the project’s implementation process to achieve optimum quality. According to Bruce T. Barkley and James H. Saylor in their book Customer-Driven Project Management (2001), this management approach involves the following items, which we expand to meet the more complex needs of today’s client-supplier relationships:

  • Cooperation between client and vendor through a structured process. There has to be a mutual understanding of every step of the process and what is required from either party. Such expectations are written down as requirements, roles and responsibilities, decision points, milestones, and metrics.
  • The customer drives the project through customer-driven teams. The customer’s satisfaction is the end-goal of all efforts, and this satisfaction is defined by continuous quality improvement of products and services.
  • A link among the customer, process owners, and suppliers. The link refers to the integration of all efforts and internal processes used to arrive at task completion and their integration. Furthermore, this link also means unlimited access to clients, sponsors, and their project counterparts through open communication to set expectations and facilitate feedback.
  • A customer-led team that is fully capable to accomplish and improve every aspect of the project. The client is involved in building and managing the project team. But while the client has a high level of involvement in managing the team, members are encouraged to identify key areas of improvement, and communicate this knowledge. Unless empowered to do so through open communication, access to the right tools and technologies and trainings, project team members will only focus on accomplishing their tasks without so much regard for improvements in products and services, and this does not spell a healthy competitive spirit in the grander scale of things. In other words, make consultants out of project teams because in the long run, their accountability for the project will result in competitive products.  Encourage creativity and innovation.
  • A disciplined project management methodology. Clients and providers should agree on a project management system and implement this agreement at every stage of the product lifecycle. Because of the nature of this approach, the project starts and ends with quality, which means that quality issues are identified at the start of the project and addressed throughout its course. How quality issues are addressed also largely depends on a well-designed systems and implementation plans.

    • Customer-driven project management does not veer far from many project management approaches. However, client leadership and continuous improvement through the team’s feelings of ownership of the project spell the difference between just finishing tasks and pleasing the customer. 

    By ExecutiveBrief
    Technology Management Resource for Business Leaders
    http://www.executivebrief.com