Joshua:
If scope creep at the end of a project is unavoidable, how do you prevent it from affecting killing your budget, torpedoing your launch, and making your developers hate you for dumping an eighty-hour task on them the week before launch?
Mike:
One of the hardest jobs in the software business is estimating new projects. It takes a substantial mix of experience, brute force effort, and a little luck. Estimation really is an art that refuses to be mastered, taking constant re-learning in order to improve over time. I'm by no means perfect at it (I doubt anyone really is), but I've certainly learned a lot about it over the years. Here, I'll share some of my experiences.
Betsy:
As expected, DrupalCon 2011 won’t only be about Drupal -- from a technical standpoint, that is.
Nalini :
One of the things I've enjoyed about working in an agile, open source environment, is the collaborative approach to tackling problems.
Joel:
I’ve always been told the project manager is an often overlooked component of a successful enterprise project.
Mike:
So, the DrupalCon session that I’m giving with Dave is titled “Planning and Executing a Successful Drupal Implementation.” …. Wait… sorry, I just fell asleep. Yeah, it doesn’t sound very exciting does it? Well, hopefully it will be more interesting than the name let’s on. In an effort to try to get some folks in the door before heading out to happy hour next Monday, we wanted to share a couple of the topics this week in the blog.
Rich:
What is one of the key differences between an experienced project manager and one just entering the field? I believe one is this - a recognition that uncertainty is an unavoidable part of the gig, and the ability to manage makes the difference between a great PM and merely a good one. It's neat to find a tool that helps PMs to do just that - that tool is LiquidPlanner.
Rich:
It’s no surprise to anyone that software project managers dislike firm fixed price contracts. As many others have noted, firm fixed price contracts are typically accompanied by an expectation of fixed scope by the customer as well. In a world where estimates are notoriously uncertain to begin with, if there is no room to move on scope, the software team is “boxed in”, producing code that tends to veer dangerously away from the best value and quality.
Mike:
As the open source Drupal CMS platform continues to gain popularity, I’ve noticed an unfortunate trend. Many organizations with the potential to use Drupal are underestimating the amount of effort that goes into building and shaping a Drupal website into the solution they desire.
Irakli:
Software project estimation is a tough. If you get it right, great; but if you get it wrong - that's an issue. For anything but the most trivial, repetitive tasks there is no simple way. Except, math and the experience of other people. In this blog post we will describe an industry-standard Program Evaluation Review Technique that can help plan projects more realistically and even calculate expected error of estimation.
