Project Management

ThinkingSimple, Agile.

About me.

•Sault Ste Marie, ON

•Assoc. Director VeloCity

•2 kids (boy/girl)

•BA, Msc

•Co-founder

About you?

Observations

•Project Management: designed by engineers for engineers

•Software is designed to support specific types of projects and people

•Project Management is a people process

A Project is… “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result”

– PMBOK Guide (2004)

Typical project•Building a few web pages for a

department.

•Developing a simple web application that collects student information.

•Using Twitter/Facebook/Ning for whatever specific reason*

•Recruiting cycle for students.

A Project is… “ongoing, with many false starts and chronic scope creep. Governed by committee(s), success is not often tangible.”

– Higher Ed.

The Chaos•Conflicting expectations

•Isolated or independent departments

•“This is my ‘third hat’ I am wearing”

•Committees.

•Never ending change requests.

Essential tool #1 – Text editor.

Project definition

•First meeting needs a “memorandum of agreement”

•Define the goals, objectives, and/or outcomes

•Sign it.

Triple Constraint

•Scope

•Time

•Cost

Triple Constraint

•What am I trying to build/deliver?

•How long will it take?

•How much will it cost (time = money, etc)?

Follow a process, deliver a product.

# S: (adj) agile, nimble, quick, spry (moving quickly and lightly) "sleek and agile as a gymnast"; "as nimble as a deer"; "nimble fingers"; "quick of foot"; "the old dog was so spry it was halfway up the stairs before we could stop it"

- http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=agile

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/18091975@N00/

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/orcmid/3879384912/

What about software?

•Web based or not?

•How many people are using it with me?

•Privacy implications?

•Cost.

There are three choices.

•Microsoft Project (larger teams)

•OmniPlan (for the mac users)

•Basecamp*

Microsoft Project is bad

•Forces you into a resource driven process

•Assumes people will do the task assigned

•Full time job to use the tool efficiently

•Expertise is required

Gantt charts

•Allow you to break down the task list to chunks

•You can assign resources

•You can management from a central hub

Hosted solutions•Good: Allow for more flexibility on

access

•Good: Monthly costs, do not go for per user model

•Bad: Does not connect with your directory service (ADS, LDAP, etc)

•Bad: You don’t know where you data is unless you install something yourself*

Ground rules

•Question the use of gantt charts

•Organize into short iterations

•Requirement-based approach

•Schedule tasks involving external groups

http://bit.ly/psweb_agile

Track the project.

Use a process that works for you and don’t let software dictate how you do it.

Contact me.Jesse Rodgers

Associate Director, VeloCity -- University of Waterloo

Blog: http://whoyoucallingajesse.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/jrodgers

Email: jrodgers@uwaterloo.ca