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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

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    The Key Success Factors in IT Business Alignment

    As business needs help set IT’s priorities, how IT departments align their solutions with business objectives hinge on a number of success factors.

    The most pressing issue among CIOs, according to a 2008 survey by Society for Information Management (SIM) is the alignment—or misalignment—of IT with business. As IT departments need to consolidate their resources, there is a growing concern among CIOs that doing so may not be so easy. One cause of this issue is that tech workforces are seen as merely solutions provider instead of as strategic resources to achieve business success. Meeting business expectations effectively should be the goal of IT, but more importantly, of business

    There are several approaches that can be taken to align IT with business. Some approaches focus on the roles of individual IT contributors, while others focus on the needs of the business side and their position in the market. It is up to CIOs to identify key business needs and turn these needs into objectives that their IT organizations must achieve. CIOs also have the responsibility to build organizations that can deliver the right support to various project portfolios.

    IT departments are there not just to provide computing solutions. Businesses will get more value from IT by considering their operational and strategic business needs. As business requirements help set IT’s priorities in terms of identifying resources, form insourcing and outsourcing strategies, and set up infrastructures, how IT departments implement their chosen approaches hinge on the following success factors:

    • Open communication lines. IT departments and their business counterparts should set up a communication system that actively involves all stakeholders. This allows IT to get a feedback from the business side to formulate the best solutions possible; on the other hand, an open communication line with their technical counterparts familiarize business decision-makers to identify and take advantage of the available technical knowledgebase for better organizational and market performance.
    • Business requirements analysis. IT’s exposure to business allows them to identify business needs that should be the key drivers behind most aspects of their operations. CIOs are best positioned to frame projects, infrastructures, and systems according to the needs of their primary clients. The success of IT as a business strategy is judged on how it helped in meeting business objectives.
    • Expectation management. Both sides should be realistic about their expectations of each other. This can be achieved through the two mentioned success factors: communication and requirements. Business managers should know the limitations of IT, and that solutions do not come in cheap, such that in-house resources for application development and maintenance may require engaging third-parties to fulfill business needs. On the other hand, IT should be aware of the technical—and sometimes, financial—limitations of business operations. For example, introducing new systems to the IT enterprise landscape means training batches of end-users which then result in additional work to include end-user documentation and training designs.
    • Organizational protocols and sponsorship. Internal protocols do affect the success of IT-business alignment. Sadly, protocols do not necessarily mean processes; protocols in most traditional institutions mean “just how things are done.” To navigate through layers of bureaucracy where it exists is to identify key personnel and project sponsors who understand and can articulate the justifications for IT projects as business strategies. Where all decision-makers must stamp their signatures in all IT ventures, CIOs should find the right people to champion their causes through coherent analyses of business needs and presentations of business solutions and the hoped-for success criteria.

    At the end of the day, most of the work rest on the shoulders of CIOs, being the key figures that understand the business side of things and have the ability to translate business needs into technology solutions.

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

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    Building a Project’s Business Case

    Forward-looking project managers realize that to avoid failure, they should build the business case for their projects by getting intimately knowledgeable about the reasons why sponsors approved their projects.

    Too many projects get the axe because of the lack of business cases that justify their existence. When project sponsors begin to see projects only in terms of costs instead of potential rewards, there are higher chances that the projects would be canceled.

    It is not the job of the project manager to build the business case. Ideally, project stakeholders and sponsors evaluate the business value and possible ROI from a project. If the project is seen in terms of generating income or reducing cost, the project will have the green light. This is the situation in the ideal world, but this scenario happens a lot less than one would like to believe.

    Forward-looking project managers realize that to avoid failure, they should build the business case for their projects by getting intimately knowledgeable about the reasons why sponsors approved their projects. A project manager should work closely with clients, sponsors and other stakeholders, and ask the following questions:

    What problems should the project address?

    By interviewing project sponsors, the project manager can determine their goals and discuss the issues that the project would solve. In addition to project sponsors, the ones who are dealing with the issues at the workplace, perhaps on a daily basis, are a good source of ideas about the extent and many facets of the problem. Looking at day-to-day challenges from end-users’ point of view enables the project manager to get a better handle of the requirements of the project in terms of design and technical upgrades, as well as in terms of how it will solve end-user problems.

    What are the strategic goals of the project?

    Is it an easier system? Increased productivity? Better networking? Conversion to a marketable product? No matter what it the goals are, they must also come from and supported by the end-users.  At the end of the day, it will all boil down to the business value of the project. And by business value, it means cost reduction, better productivity, and the possibility of selling the product or service to the wider public.  Make sure that the goals are clear and the project’s objectives must reflect these goals.

    What are the project’s basic requirements and what can end-users live without?

    Aside from building the requirements based on the needs of its users, the project manager should also build the projects’ technical and design requirements and ask what bells and whistles it should have. The project may have a lot of feature that do not have business justifications, resulting in features that took too long to build.  Separating needs from fluff allows the project manager to formulate requirements, identify scope, and allocate resources that are important in creating a working version of the project. The quicker the iteration, the better the chances are of project survival.

    What is the project’s ROI?

    Even at the early stage of the project, it is possible to envision ballpark ROI figures. Because all projects incur costs, a project manager should have a fair idea of when investments will be recovered and generate positive cash flow.

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

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    What Agile Methods Mean to Your Process, People, and Products

    Studies show that most successful projects were those that followed agile principles, proving that model-driven methods are not always the best when it came to managing changes, fast-paced project implementation, or even meeting market demands.

    The concept of agile development is not new. However, many technologists still stick to the age-old notion that software development can be easily designed and the outputs predicted without giving much thought to the more dynamic factors of projects, such as communication lines, people, and change.

    Project managers eventually realized that a lot of projects failed because of rigid requirements, faulty design, and the inability of project teams to adapt to change. For the most part, clients or end-users’ requirements changed through the course of development lifecycles, that by the time applications were ready for deployment, the end products were a good degree different from what was initially planned. This would have been alright, except that towards the end of the development lifecycle, time and financial resources have overshot initial estimates by a good measure.

    Instead of pointing their fingers at development teams or clients, project managers learned to allow adjustments in their methodologies. In fact, many studies have shown that the most successful projects were those that followed agile principles, proving that model-driven methods are not always the best when it came to managing changes, fast-paced project implementation, or even meeting market demands.

    But before adopting agile practices, project sponsors and managers should ask how agile methods could impact their products, internal operations, and people.

    Impact on people and their roles

    A key agile principle, “individuals and interactions over processes and tools,” emphasizes communication and collaboration of project team members. Instead of defining the roles of team members, more importance is given to how well they can perform tasks as a team and create a working version of software. Teamwork cannot be overstated in agile processes, as each member can play the part of the end-user, leader, and engineer. To be truly successful, project managers should allow team members to wear cross-functional hats, communicate freely, and focus on team goals instead of individual—or role-based—functions.

    While it has been initially believed that agile method worked best with co-located teams, experiences of outsourcing service providers proved that this also worked—and perhaps better—with the offshore outsourcing development models. In the first place, collaboration and free-flowing communication is the norm, and not the physical set-up of the workplace.

    Impact on process

    Processes take secondary priority in agile methods. Instead of going through particular stages of the development lifecycle, rapid and short iterations move the project forward, allowing for flexibility in changing the course of the project. Moreover, instead of drowning in documentation as dictated by requirements and design, most documentation is in the form of information exchange among project members. Design and actual product are often inconsistent until the deployment stage.

    Impact on product and quality

    Instead of delivering software that has all the knots and bolts in place according to its original design, the highest priority is satisfying the need of the customer with a simple but working version. The adage, “in perpetual beta” also applies to agile method; software improves with every iteration until all the “nice to have” features are in place. Simplicity allows for more flexibility in change requests, especially because end-users and sponsors or clients eventually discover new requirements along the way.

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

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    Recession-Proof Your Business by Recession-Proofing IT

    Whatever the economic realities may be, technology is an integral part of majority of business operations the world over. How do you maintain your tech-reliant operations in the midst of a challenging business climate?

    Most global businesses depend on technology and business partners to run their operations smoothly while improving margins. In all economic climates, businesses that engage the specialization of the best technology and service providers are also best positioned to establish their brands and build customer loyalty. In the first place, what they can save on support operations and product development can be re-invested in improving market reach and further innovation.

    So how can business leaders maintain their tech-reliant operations going and remain profitable? By recession-proofing their IT operations. Here are some of the steps:

    1. Adopt business intelligence smarts. Any enterprise that has a significant IT workforce or is engaged in technology services knows the importance that data consolidation—or metrics—plays in the success of a product, a service, or of the enterprise. These numbers are the most reliable way to look for trends, medians or any deviations from the norm, and upon which big decisions are made. Consolidate your data.  Get a business intelligence system that allows for easier data collection and consolidation, and reports management.

    2. Consolidate technologies. Technologies should help the enterprise conduct its business, not get in the way of productivity, and more so, of profitability. Due to the sheer size of their operations, many large enterprises employ multiple applications and systems to conduct almost the same services.  Are you using multiple content management systems when one will be enough to handle firm-wide communications? Do you record your project hours separately from your timekeeping application? Is your ERP system composed of too many modules run by too many vendors? Maybe it’s time to let go of some of your clunky systems that take too much time and effort to maintain, update, and consolidate. Opt for the best solutions that can serve the enterprise’s most important and only necessary computing and communication needs.

    3. Go virtual. SaaS, cloud computing, and virtualization are some of the most popular buzzwords this year, thanks to businesses finding new ways to trim IT budgets without necessarily trimming operations and lowering the quality of their services. Barring security breaches, software-as-a-service is the option for small and medium size enterprises because of its speed of implementation and flexibility for small- to medium-scale operations. Cloud computing, on the other hand, is a by-product of Web 2.0 practices and excess computing and storage capacity. Lastly, thanks to the global scope of many enterprises, virtualization is not just a buzzword but an operational reality among many project teams, service providers, and even top-level executives.

    4. Standardize processes; adopt agile methodologies. Time, money, and your clients’ patience are finite resources.  Work with a service provider that can help you at every stage of product development–from requirements gathering, to product or technical design, to development, to implementation, and to product release. Choose a service provider that specializes on agile development that allows for incorporation of improvements at every release of the product whether it is meant for the outside market or the organization’s internal operations.

    5. Outsource, and outsource intelligently. Don’t just engage a service provider, whether offshore or nearshore, based on cost-savings alone. Look for long-term benefits from a combination of cost-savings, technology savvy, methodologies, consulting skills, and management culture of the vendor.

    By ExecutiveBrief
    More at: www.executivebrief.com

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    Project Managers: People Don’t Like To Be Led

    Project management advice: People don’t like to be led, especially professionals with clear responsibilities.  Nobody likes “a person who knows” to tell them what to do next.  All the time.  It’s demeaning and annoying.  So what’s a project manager to do?

    Clearly, project managers and leads need to stay a few steps ahead of team members.  If they don’t, projects go astray.  Why?  Because it takes time to formulate a clear vision, one that won’t break down in the face of life’s challenges.  Only by staying ahead of the team can the leadership maintain that strategic edge.  But it’s when that strategic direction turns into tactical dictatorship that things go badly.

    Some managers have such a hard time articulating their vision that they resort to dictating exact tactical steps to achieve it, rather than relying on competent people to pull it off.  See the issue?  It’s a difficult balance.

     

    –ray

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    Beginning of the End: Defining Project Closure

    When undertaking a software development project, an effectively designed closure plan serves as an outline of required tasks that must be carried out appropriately in order to result in successful project delivery, and adequate preparation is one significant element when it comes to ensuring a smooth transition to implementation. The closure plan must be considered at the outset of the project, as the client outlines their specific software requirements. With a detailed description of the desired end result communicated and understood, the expected capabilities and deliverables of the software are established. But as you enter the final stages of a software development project, what can be done in order to ensure that the program is completely suitable and fully primed for implementation?

    Key Components
    According to Joe Coley, independent software developer and member of Northeast Dataflex Consortium, “Projects that I’ve been involved with…have been very much subject to additional needs and desires of the user community.” In effect, this means that the end deliverable becomes the focus of the closure plan — that is, to ensure a high level of end user satisfaction with the software requested and therefore created. Coley has 20 years of experience in the information technology industry and offers much insight on the subject. When it comes to key components for successful closure plans, he highlights three main aspects to consider:

    • Assess the project requirements. In order to determine the best course of action throughout the cycle of a project, it is necessary to first consider the scope of the project. Establishing a clear outlook and complete understanding as to the required deliverables will greatly improve the ability to adequately determine exactly what tasks must be carried out in order to meet these deliverables in an efficient and timely manner.

    • Communication. While communication is always essential throughout the cycle of any project or initiative, it is imperative to establish a specific plan for obtaining end-user input, as needed and where feasible. Therefore, a key component to a successful close is establishing and maintaining open lines of communication with the appropriate groups. The end users comprise the group of those who will be utilizing the software in real-time business applications; they have the critical business knowledge as to ways in which the software can be created or functionality that can be incorporated so that the result will be a valuable tool with the capability to enhance their business functions.

    • Offer continuing support. When it comes to considering a focus on the continuing support needs of the end-user community, Coley cites a specific reason to do so, “There is always an expectation of continuing support in the form of application tweaks, bug fixes, and enhancements.” By extending continuing support to the end users, they have more confidence in the software program as well as in their chosen developer.

    Any components, however, are unique to each project and must be considered on a individual basis; while there may be similarities among projects, what may have worked well during a project in the past might not be best suited for a current project. Establishing and maintaining a plan with the end user in mind makes for a smoother transition and successful close of a software development project.

     

    Full text of the interview with Joe Coley is available here: http://www.executivebrief.com/article/the-beginning-of-the-end-defining-project-closure/.

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    Why is SaaS only popular in small business?

    While SaaS has been gaining popularity recently, it is remarkably noticeable that its popularity is still limited mostly to small and medium-size businesses. Larger enterprises are still reluctant to embrace hosted application for their IT needs.

    According to a recent Forrester Research paper, “The Truth about Software as a Service,” which is a result of a late 2007 survey of IT decision-makers from North America and Europe, only 16 percent of respondents are using SaaS applications. On the other hand, 80 percent are still reluctant to adopt SaaS. Of the 80 percent, only 47 percent expressed interest, while 37 percent were “not interested at all.”

    If SaaS has been gaining popularity recently, the gap between big-business IT decision-makers who were interested in it and those who were either partially interested or totally uninterested is too wide.  As if to counter the SaaS advantages that were cited in the previous blog, researchers and tech workers in big enterprises cite various reasons why it is not being widely adopted outside the realm of SMBs. 

    One of the top reasons why big businesses are reluctant to adopt SaaS is business continuity. Put simply, the market’s atmosphere is fraught with uncertainty that SaaS vendors could just shut their doors easily. When it happens, where do the hosted data go? What alternatives are immediately available to end-users?

    Next to business continuity, data security, vendor lock-in, and accountability are some of the issues that clients — both large and small or medium-size businesses — raise most of the time. Because many large enterprises are sensitive about their company data, they are reluctant to hand company information to third parties. In terms of accountability, there have been complaints about vendors’ dishonesty about real downtime rates and the speed with which they address it. If a service is suddenly cut off, IT departments ask how long it takes for the service to be available again and what kind of assurances are provided to address such issues.

    SaaS are typically fit-for-all, so customization is another nagging issue. Maybe small businesses’ IT needs are not complex, that is why they are more willing to sign up with SaaS vendors. On the other hand, enterprises that provide more than one type of service, sell more than one product, are present in different locations, and employ thousands of employees have IT needs that are as complex as their multinational presence and multiple businesses. That most vendors do not offer customizable services to match big businesses’ needs is one of the signs that it is still in its infancy.

    Related to downtimes is the issue of scalability. Can a hosted service support thousands of users who access the application simultaneously? If it cannot, can a business enlist the help of another vendor? This is where the issue of interoperability and portability also come in. In most cases, transferring data from one SaaS provider to another takes time and considerable effort.

    That SaaS became popular among SMBs means it is promising. However, this promise does not translate well in big business so far.

    By ExecutiveBrief
    www.executivebrief.com

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    The Pros and Cons of SaaS

    Why SaaS may be the next wave in enterprise computing.

    Much has been said lately about Software as a Service (SaaS), which is often interchangeably referred to as “cloud computing”. While pundits may disagree on whether SaaS is cloud computing, its primary feature is application provided as a service to customers via the internet.  Because applications are hosted, this eliminates the need for installation and running of applications on clients’ computers, or even servers, as well as maintenance and support. Moreover, SaaS reduces the need to purchase and maintain hardware.

    But before getting into the much-praised or marketed trend, it is worth considering first why SaaS is such a hot commodity nowadays.  According to experts, security, maintenance, and cost are among the top reasons why SaaS is being embraced by enterprises.

    Moreover, due to the challenges that face companies regarding outsourcing, such as communication gaps and security, SaaS either supplements the need of businesses to outsource parts of their IT requirements. This is especially helpful for small and medium-size businesses that do not have large IT departments, or those that can only afford to pay general IT workers instead of specialists. Because staffing has become problematic due to reduced budgets that affect tech spending, SaaS offers a way to meet their technology requirements without spending more on overhead.

    Whereas the application service provider (ASP) business did not make as much mark as it should have in providing enterprise computing, SaaS is being touted as the trend that will replace and even overcome ASP.  Scaling was ASP’s main challenge, which required “separate execution environment” or different server environments for hosting different applications.  SaaS replaces multiple resources to run applications with shared computing resources, such as the same software version that runs on the same platform. This proves cheaper for end-clients.

    SaaS providers offer flexible contracts that have targeted costs for specific services. Many tech projects run for only a few months, so services that provide exactly what businesses need in terms of scope and time, with corresponding costs, are advantages that SaaS vendors are only too happy to explore.

    SaaS provide specialized software that increasingly meet clients’ needs. As vendors gain more knowledge about what businesses want, these insights are incorporated into version upgrades, which means better software and, just as important, more responsive service.

    It is common knowledge in any industry that freeing up the need to manage back-office processes, including technology services, allows companies to concentrate on bigger, more important business areas. Perhaps at the IT level itself, this is also true. Freeing up the upkeep of some technology processes allows IT departments to focus on the services that they can provide in-house.  In effect, SaaS vendors upgrade the quality of both hosted applications and, indirectly, the quality of services of in-house IT departments.

    By ExecutiveBrief
    www.executivebrief.com