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Tag: project planning

  • Demystifying Crucial Phases of Project Management

    Demystifying Crucial Phases of Project Management

    With competition becoming more intense for development companies, project management is becoming a more integral part of every project. It’s no longer limited to the actual creation of a new project. Now, it’s about planning, communicating, collaborating and analyzing. With so many moving parts, it’s difficult to understand all of the important phases of project management.

    This guide will cover all the phases of project management so you can understand how they apply to your projects in DevOps. Even if you don’t have a background in project management, you’ll be a pro in no time.

    Defining Project Management

    First, we need to articulate exactly what project management is. It’s the discipline of initiating, planning and executing the work of a team to achieve specific goals within a time frame. It involves a lot of interteam collaboration, and it isn’t any single activity.

    Project management experts draw knowledge from areas including human resources, communications, risk management and even accounting. That being said, there are a lot of moving parts that can make project management tricky, particularly with large projects or growing teams. Knowing all of the phases of a project process makes it possible to navigate these areas effectively.

    A project process is any unique action that represents the entire project internal process within DevOps. This is usually decided by the project manager. It might include instructions, procedures, plans or organizational software.

    Understanding the Phases of Project Management

    When you’re talking about the project life cycle, you need to understand the project management phases. Throughout the project life cycle, you should be able to define clear goals. These will include a combination of the following:

    • What will be accomplished?
    • How will you measure what has been accomplished?
    • Who will work on the project?
    • How will you monitor progress?

    Having these questions above in mind will direct the project along its life cycle. Without any clear initiative or direction, you can’t expect team members to know where to go with their tasks. That’s why clear goals are key in the world of DevOps, where every task matters.

    Now that you know the importance of clear goal setting, it’s time to finally define the phases of project management. There are five in total, and they are:

    1. Initiation
    2. Planning
    3. Execution
    4. Performance monitoring
    5. Closure

    Phase 1: Initiation

    This is the beginning of the project. In this phase, you’ll want to define your goals, what the project is exactly, and how it fits into your company goals. One of the biggest pitfalls in the world of development is choosing to start a new project for technology’s sake. While there’s always something to be gained in innovation, avoid falling for shiny-object syndrome. Just because you have new technology doesn’t mean it makes sense as part of your bigger business strategy.

    To make sure you’re choosing the right project for your team, ask the following questions in this phase:

    • Why are you choosing this project now?
    • Is this project realistic?
    • What does the end result look like?

    From there, you’ll need to get approval for the project from higher-ups. This might take some time, so be sure to articulate your goals clearly at this stage so you don’t waste energy. Finally, you or your project manager will create a project initiation document (PID), which is a formal outline of the purpose and requirements of a new project.

    It’s smart to include developers across teams in these initial meetings to ensure they can give guidance about the technical challenges of a new project. Remember, collaboration is key at every stage.

    Phase 2: Planning

    Now that you’ve gotten the green light, it’s time to create a plan of action. This will involve goal setting and job responsibilities for all team members of all levels. Don’t forget about the S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting process to make sure you’re creating goals that are realistic. Remember, smart goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound by a deadline.

    This is the most vital stage of project management. It’s when you’ll put pen to paper and work out any kinks. Poor planning will reflect itself in every stage after, so take the time to work with teams to decide the best plan of action. Limit your deadlines for every task to 10 days or les to ensure you don’t let obstacles take away from your final product.

    Phase 3: Execution

    The time for planning is over and now it’s time to get down to business. This is exciting because you’ll see your project start to shape itself. Your programmers are busy coding, designers are building graphics and managers are creating progress reports.

    Don’t forget to update your higher-ups during this process, even with small changes. Regular updates are necessary to make sure everything is progressing according to schedule. Conduct weekly meetings to make sure everyone knows how the entire team is progressing as well as their own next steps. A project management software is valuable at this stage.

    Phase 4: Project Performance

    Now that the project is completed, it’s time to reflect on your success. Did everything align with your original goals? Did you meet your deadlines? Think about your objectives, your deliverables, your cost,and the performance of the project. How did all of these things measure up?

    You’ll base your future project plans on the success of your analysis at this stage. Even though the project is officially done, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still more to learn. Also, don’t forget about preparing maintenance for your software going forward. You might need a program like Amazon CloudWatch – monitoring and logging service to continue to learn about the success of your project into the future.

    Phase 5: Closure

    Your project is completed and your analysis is coming to a close. It’s time to follow-up on any final pieces and close the door on your project for good. This is also known as the post-mortem phase because it’s when you’ll decide your key takeaways and stop progressing.

     

    Project managers will meet together to decide key players, project performance, and deadline analysis. How can you learn from the events of the past few days or weeks to grow during your next project? Don’t overlook this stage. It’s important to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. If something didn’t work out the way it was planning, talk about it.

     

    Finally, host a team meeting to talk about how the project went as a group. You might have a different perspective than those under you, and it’s important that everyone feels heard. Take team member feedback seriously so you can learn from it for next time.

    Manage Projects Successfully

    In the world of DevOps, project management plays a lead role. Don’t overlook any stage in the process as not being necessary. It’s important to have a well-rounded, thoughtful approach to leadership. There is no perfect way to lead a group in big projects, but you can use every phrase to carefully tackle new challenges and grow your team strengths.

     

    When you practice these stages above, they’ll come naturally. You’ll notice each stage leading gently into the next, and that’s how you make a business that’s ready for anything. Every project manager will experience some level of failure, but learn how to roll with the punches and keep moving forward.

    — Wendy Dessler

  • 7 Causes of Continuous Delirium

    7 Causes of Continuous Delirium

    When we think of CD, we typically think of continuous deployment as a result of continuous delivery, which is a goal of DevOps.

    In this article, I coin the phrase, “Continuous Delirium,” to mean unending confusion or bewilderment in development environments. There are probably several examples that could fit the bill here, but for now I offer seven real-world examples. I bet you’ve seen or heard about at least one of these.

    Now that I have your attention, here are seven causes of Continuous Delirium, each with cures rooted in DevOps:

    No. 1: Insufficient Configuration and Build Management

    Insufficient configuration and build management in software builds leads to the same or similar software impurities rearing their ugly heads again and again. You build, test, discover the defect, fix it—or so you think—build again, retest and boom: The same coding error or software malfunction recurs.

    “You can cure this malady with a rational approach to the build and configuration management process, checking software in and out with established procedures for each software module using a tracking sheet that identifies the revision of the sub-modules for the entire software product,” notes Jon M. Quigley, founder of Value Transformation, a product development consultancy and training firm based in Lexington, North Carolina.

    No. 2: What’s Going On? Who’s Doing What?

    When there is no reasonable understanding of the work, who is doing what work and who is responsible for what—and there is no consistent measure of what is good work or bad work—you have a breeding ground for anarchy.

    “You cure this ill by establishing what constitutes the appropriate quality of work as well as by periodically reviewing the state of the objective with the receiving or depending entity,” says Quigley. Make sure everyone is on the same page with the same definition of what constitutes quality work and make sure the objectives have not changed. Also, ensure these goals are also clearly understood by all.

    No. 3: Confusing Clean Daily Compiles with Testing

    When you do not test the software as early as possible and throughout the development process, you can’t really say it has no bugs. Error-free compiling is not error-free software. Software compilation does not have the same investigative effect as using the software in the customer environment.

    “Test throughout development using complimentary testing approaches such as testing to requirements, combinations of stimulus testing and exploratory testing, for examples,” says Quigley.

    No. 4: Planning Too Far Out to Control

    The further you try to plan things out into the future, the less control you have as you follow the project through to conclusion. “When we treat a plan as though we know everything associated with the project for the next 12 to 18 months, we are fooling ourselves,” says Quigley. By breaking projects into bite-sized increments, you can better assure successful completion of sub-projects and of the project as a whole.

    No. 5: A Lack of Customer Involvement

    Customer involvement is critical to customer satisfaction. “By getting the product or a prototype into the customers’ hands for exploration, you can retrieve feedback for developers,” says Quigley. This may expose the project to risk in the form of the potential for a great deal of change at the customers’ request, but the other side of the coin is the risk that nothing changes and the customer doesn’t use the product at all.

    “Rather than try to deliver one incarnation of the product at some future date, break down the delivery into separate iterations that meet prioritized customer expectations one by one as you refine the product and add features as you go along,” says Quigley.

    No. 6: Isolating Change Management from Customer Involvement

    Customer involvement means there will be change. Change requires change management. There is a given—and correct—assumption that customer involvement will trigger change management at some point. You cannot isolate the one from the other.

    Further, just as you can better address customer requests for changes by breaking the project into smaller subsections, so also can you manage budget through change and change management. Project subsections enable you to see the need for change a little at a time so you can create change in a more targeted and cost-effective manner.

    No. 7: Forget About Collaboration—at Your Own Peril

    It is necessary for DevOps team members to collaborate at all levels, except those where the work on software is so minor that it wouldn’t benefit from shared thought. To maintain development as an expedient process that benefits from all stakeholders, open communications and collaboration must reach and pull from all team members. Otherwise, the project could suffer from a lack of critical input.