_The_Lone_Codeman

_The_Lone_Codeman_

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

How not to plan and run IT Projects - a success story

One thing, in the IT professional world at least, I find very interesting is IT Projects. Especially projects in my area - software/application projects - from analyze to development and testing to finally rollout. Did the project plan reflected reality, what development model was used and how successful was that compared with others, how was it executed, what roles are involved, what are the costs - in time and money, timeline and ETAs, where are the bottlenecks, how are the members of the team doing…questions on that sort.

::Be Aware!
In this line of work you have to deal with a lot of nice hype wordings, abbreviations and acronyms.

Be aware; the use of "nice" wordings is often a measurement on the level of a person's knowledge - the more it's used the less knowledge. Like baking; mix all the hype development- and project terms and you have a really nice looking cake. "This is a RAD project were we will use XML Web service using WSDL through SOAP, UDDI is not necessary. Important is to use XP people in XP, OOD and OOP. The ETA is ASAP".

Very often the cake looks great, but it lacks in taste.

::My current Project
I am currently running a world wide project (analyzing, development, initial testing and rollout) and, up until now, it the best project I've ever been involved in. Everything runs smoothly and, believe it or not, I am ahead of time. The only weak spots are where I am dependant on others. That's where my bottlenecks proved to be.

::The DIAA Project Model
How is this possible? Do I use a brand new project model? Maybe a new development model? No, I am doing it all alone. If you need a name of my model, hey let's call it the DIAA (Doing It All Alone) model.

So, is the DIAA model a good way of working. The answer would be a big fat NO! It basically goes against all rules of good practice. The risk factor is enormous, technical backup and support is limited. Huge workload… I can go on forever. So, why am I doing it? To test my model, create some new terms, wrap it all in a package and sell it for big bucks of course! ;)

::Summary for smarties
- Except for testing; include as few people as possible.
- If possible, use ONE person representing the business/user side. Use one point of contact to business!
- Do not let business people in technical discussions. Don't waste time and effort!
- Use experienced "hands-on" people. Learn to select the good people!
- EVERYTHING can be simplified. Do not hide behind terms and hype wordings!
- Eliminate dependencies.

- posted by TheLoneCodeman @ 3:43 PM

Comments:

Tjena!

Jag tänkte bara komma förbi och hälsa. Det var länge sen vi pratade sist. Hoppas allt är bra. Vi cs!

kram :D

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:04 PM