Project Management for Software Development

Taking Over a Project

In this blog post, Tomek Kaczanowski share a checklist of things to do when you take over a software project as a technical team lead. The list contains more than 60 items that could be also valuable project managers when you start a new project.

group meeting table

Software Project Team Goals

“The reason that most software developers don’t seem to get excited about meeting cost and schedule commitments is that these usually are not team goals. Although management may think that cost and schedule are important, typically no one ever tells the team why these goals are important, and the team...

What Project Managers Actually Do

The activity of project managers should be to gather requirements, estimates and control the work … or is it? This articles suggests that the main activity of project managers is in fact negotiation. You will learn how to gain influence and power in your organization as well as how to...

Evidence-Based Scheduling

This article presents three ways to predict schedules based on historical data with some amount of rigor. Evidence-based project management is a technique that allows you to generate predictions for a release based on historical data—not estimates, but predictions.

Lightweight Project Management Process

In this blog post, Eli Weinstock-Herman proposes a lightweight process for project management and explains that the most critical part of creating a process is to know why your creating it.

An Accurate and Reliable Method for Software Estimation

Significant growth due to estimation inaccuracy can wreak havoc on a team attempting to stay within cost and schedule while executing its established plan. This article discusses how a software team that uses both proxy-based and size-based estimates is able to accurately plan, launch, and execute their project on schedule.

Power and Influence Charting: The Google Way

The most successful projects are those that have a solid foundation and actively supportive sponsors. One key issue that must be addressed during project initiation is the identification of the “right” project sponsor; one who has enough political clout and backing to overcome the obstacles that arise in the lifecycle...