Project Management for Software Development
Tutorials and tools for managing, estimating, planning and tracking software development projects: PMP, Agile, Scrum, Lean, Kanban
Systems and software projects traditionally experienced some degree of project failure. In this context, failure is defined as a project that demonstrated a failure to match, within a reasonable tolerance, the expected outcome. Successful software projects demonstrate good project management methods incorporating modern processes and effective utilization of metrics. This...
Historically, estimation methods have focused on effort at the team level. Recent agile software development practices have shed light on taking individuals – who are acting as part of a team—into consideration. A lot of software – mobile device apps, services, components – is now written by one-person teams, thus...
Marathon training and product development have a lot of similarities. They should be both treated and executed as time bound and goal oriented projects. To be successful, you need a lot of flexibility, introspection and continuous improvisation.
Do project managers in software development use software to manage their projects? Or does the shoemaker’s son always go barefoot as the famous proverb says? A recent Methods & Tools poll asked the following question: “Does your project use a software tool to plan, estimate and track project activities?”
Estimation in software project management is often an issue. This blog post discusses some psychological aspects of estimating in software development. It explains the following effect that impact our estimation activity: The “halo” effect, framing effects, overconfidence, attribute Substitution, base-rate neglect and anchoring. It defines what they are and give...
Many project tracking taskboards look like they were imposed on the team. They are monochromatic, small and rarely providing too much useful information. A clear and informative taskboard is the heart of a successful team. It keeps everyone focused, radiates loads of information useful on many occasions.
Every organization has to make the decision to replace or make significant business changes to their current legacy system or codebase. Using well-known, core Agile principles, we have found that this transition to software that adapts to rapid business change does not have to be painful, nor expensive, nor technically...
In project management, the measurements and metrics are important activities for successful product development. This article describes a set of metrics successfully used in industrial practice in distributed product development. Based on the experiences, the reasoning for selecting these metrics was that they are easy to capture and can be...