Project Management for Software Development

Appraisals and Agile Don’t Play Nicely

In this blog post, Gary Reynolds explains why the traditional appraisal systems (performance reviews, 360 feedback, evaluations) are in conflict with Agile values because they focus on the individual and not on the teamwork. The challenge is that individuals within an organization expect and deserve feedback on their performance, thus...

Uncertainty in Project Management

Uncertainty in project management cannot be eliminated by any estimation methods. It arises partly because of imperfect knowledge of what to do and how long it should take, and partly because of unpredictable events. This article discusses uncertainty in project management: why it exists, how it behaves, how it accumulates,...

RUP for the Project Managers

This article proposes a set of best practices about RUP (Rational Unified Process) for software project managers. Each best practice is accompanied by suggestions on how you can implement or integrate these RUP best practices into your own project.

Project Managemenent Negociation

Project manager can use influence to get things done, but you’ll still need to negotiate. This article discusses Good, Bad, and Ugly approaches to negotiate in software development projects. You will learn how you might use these in the complex and sometimes confusing “real world.”

Change in Productivity

In this blog post, Tom Perry shares his thoughts about how the software project team productivity is influenced by change. Finding that combination of what works for a project can take time. However, when this happens, it will often produce a dramatic improvement in performance and not a slow gradual...

Social Contracts

This video presents the social contract. It contains a set of rules a team agrees to, that are above and beyond what their basic project roles and responsibilities mandate. It consolidates everyone’s understanding of how the team will behave and interact. The contract can differ from project to project.

Evaluate Your Project Performance with TSP

The Team Software Process (TSP) provides a framework to predictably and effectively build software-intensive products. It relies on data collected by team members to provide insight into how a software project is operating.