Software Production Management

David Pellis escribió en el editorial del PM WORLD TODAY de junio algo muy interesante sobre el auge de la gerencia de proyectos en el sector de tecnologías de información y comunicaciones. Dicho artículo argumenta una creciente demanda en la profesión de gerencia de proyectos, asociada inequívocamente al crecimiento de la inversión en dicho sector.

El Project Management Institute ha sido abiertamente reconocido por la mayoría de compañías del sector y desde luego su certificación profesional (PMP). En la última década el número de profesionales certificados ha crecido alrededor de un 550%, y se estima que un 80% de esos nuevos miembros estén vinculados directamente con proyectos de TI.

El artículo presenta 7 razones para dicho comportamiento de la industria, los enuncio y comento a continuación:

1. Inversión masiva en TI a nivel mundial. De USD$ 2 billones en 1999 a cerca de USD$3.3 billones en 2007 -nota: billones como millones de millones. Es de anotar que el crecimiento esperado para el primer trimestre del 2008 es superior al 5% según algunas fuentes y que este periodo tambien incluye un decrecimiento asociado al “dot-com bubble”. Según el WITSA -publicación Digital Planet 2008, de mayo de 2008- la inversión estimada para 2008 será de USD$ 3.7 billones.
2. La naturaleza orientada a proyectos de las TI. Esta industria esta naturalemente asociada a los proyectos, a todo nivel: desarrollo de nuevos productos o servicios, implementaciones de SW, cambios o renovaciones de HW, migraciones, etc.
3. El fracaso de muchos proyectos de TI. El riesgo de los proyectos de TI se considera superior y segun los estudios realizados, es definitivamente un desastre el desempeño general de la industria. De ahí, supongo yo, el éxito de muchos modelos de offshoring -The Chaos Report (1995), The OASI G Study (1995), The KPMG Canada Survey (1997), The Conference Board Survey (2001) y el The Robbins-Gioia Survey (2001)
4. La creciente complejidad de los programas y proyectos de TI. Creo que este punto no requiere mayor explicación, sin embargo una frase podría resumir esta situación: ante una mayor demanda tecnológicas, la especialización de las necesidades y sus soluciones, y la madurez de un mercado sólo podemos esperar un incremento exponencial en la complejidad de los proyectos -sólo por mencionar algunas de las variables.
5. La evolución acelerada de las tecnologías. Lo que hace unos meses era nuevo, hoy no lo es, lo que hace un año era innovación, hoy es un estandar. Creo es un círculo vicioso, el crecimiento de la demanda y evolución y renovación de la oferta han mantenido el crecimiento del sector, que se ve reflejado en los valores presentados al principio.
6. La era de la información – la Tercera Ola ha llegado. Esta explicación requeriría literalmente copiar el artículo original, pero les recomiendo leer un poco sobre Alvin Toffler el autor del libro La Tercera Ola (1979)
7. Las TI son transversales a toda industria, organización, programa o proyecto. Más que esto diria que las TI prestan los servicios públicos de nuestra era y son el agua y la electricidad de nuestro siglo. Las TI estan implicitas en casi todo nuestro actuar diario, más aún en nuestro trabajo dentro de un mundo globalizado.

Comenzó el Campus Party edición/versión Colombia. Tras meses de espera y ansiedad por fin mis días son de emoción y alegría. Apoyo 100% este tipo de eventos porque le dan validez a las iniciativas tecnológicas de muchos colombianitos jóvenes que buscan innovar y encuentran en estos espacios oportunidades de colaborar, aprender y ser reconocidos. En mi primera visita ví muchos invitados, asistentes, y sobre todo buena energía  -como me lo esperaba.

Mañana viernes 27, estaré intentando presentar una breve introducción a la gerencia de proyectos de software. Creo que sera más una presentación que intente generar expectativa en estos jóvenes y desde luego espero que al menos el 1% logre evitar los errores que cometí yo cuando tenia su edad -tiempo atrás en mis épocas de universitario. El reto:  hacer atractivo el tema de gerencia de proyectos en los geeks. TIP MENTAL: definitivamente no empezar la charla con Valor Ganado, o Control de Presupuesto o Procurement

More than ten years I was forced to wait to see a real web based project management tool -by real I mean a decent software product that seems to address the PM needs and it is not a poor desktop application pushed to the web -like Microsoft Problem Server -oops I mean Project Server. Browsing the web I found the PMXPO 2008 and the SIIA CODiE Awards 2008 pages. Looking at the CODiE Awards 2008 finalists’ list I found @task, a company dedicated to deliver real software that uses the web.

I will try to get a demo or at least a try to that software product. As developer I know a lot of things about web development but also as PM I feel frustrated about the poor quality of the products delivered -that is one my personal reasons because I decided to start the SpZ Framework project. However, there are hope on new products that are jumping in and doing a great work.

According to the official OpenUP website the PM for a software development project that follow the OpenUP methodology is supposed to

1. Encourage stakeholder consensus on prioritizing the sequence of work
2. Stimulate team collaboration on creating long term and short term plans for the project
3. Focus the team on continually delivering tested software for stakeholder evaluation
4. Help create an effective working environment to maximize team productivity
5. Keep stakeholders and the team informed on project progress
6. Provide a framework to manage project risk and continually adapt to change

Points 1, 2, 5 are common to all PM in the universe, stakeholder management, expectation management and motivation management are part of the communication ability required as part of the role. However there are some other points that make me feel not so good:

Focus the team on continually delivering tested software for stakeholder evaluation

Stakeholder evaluation expression seems to be wrong. Stakeholder could be anyone with special interest in the project but not necessarily with decision power. Therefore, stakeholder is not the target of the deliverables for testing. More than one time you will be asked for “What if…” items, “Now that we already do this why…” items that everybody hate. Deliver & Deploy should be done only to the focus group -the right persons that will manage the results in an effective manner and following the software specs, probably an offshore QA team, a client QA or internal QA.

Help create an effective working environment to maximize team productivity

The working environment could be a lot of things, but probably means all external factors related for example to company environment, place/location and contractual stuff. However as IT and software developer I recommend to improve also the software environment -i.e. improve the software tools that the team use to do their work. I will recommend free/open source software but obviously is not necessarily the situation for every project. Something that is common in the companies is to have tools but most of the m out of date, not legally acquired -at least in Colombia is a common practice- not working. As PM you should validate the work effort to build the software but also additional effort imposed by the use of the tools -even the time logger tool that I hope you use. If you will ask the team for additional tasks like time logging, change control documentation and other tasks related to software development and project management, be sure that they can do it fast and easy.

Provide a framework to manage project risk and continually adapt to change

A framework is a set of tools, for a person that is handling a project in progress in quite unfair to ask her/him for also the PM framework. In the most of the cases PM should ask the PM Office or the historical records of the company projects to get templates or at least examples. In the case there is no information available you will have to take a look to the templates available in the Internet – I hope I can finish my templates soon so I can post them.

OpenUP site provides a lot of useful information but please validates it before use.

PM should not have to deal with IT project strategy however almost all the time PM are “abandoned” in the middle of nowhere with a simple request: build a software tool that probably the client do not understand at 100% and it for sure is not documented.

The first steps are to (re)build the project scope and have a plan, but in the meanwhile your new team will need to have the tools to start their work. As PM you probably will have your own tools and templates but the team will have an IDE and that’s it. You should not deal with technical issues, but the reality is that as PM team will depend on you to get the right/optimal resources to simplify the developers work.

If you are those lucky guys that receive a software project since the beginning and not sometime after then you will have a better chance to get the right resources. My recommendation: Keep it simple but useful -even notepad is a useful tool if you use it correctly.

Your team needs:

1. Deal with versions. Even before start your coding phase you MUST have a concurrent version system. In the market you will find a lot, but probably the common ones -and open source are: CVS and Subversion (a.k.a. SVN). Versions will force the team to work closer and with the same structure. If your IT team do it well, you will appreciate it a lot.
2. Common IDE. Developers have their own affairs with specific IDEs. But you are the PM, ask your IT lead and force them all to use the same. I don’t like democracy, PM rules! However, as developer, I love Eclipse IDE.
3. Documentation System. Most of the developers around the world will hate to document their code or applications. At least here in Colombia, when you ask developers to document their code or provide formal documentation they will give you the bad-eye look (in Spanish the malde’ojo) and you will understand that not the greatest documentation will be available at the end of the project. So provide the team with the tools to make this pain softer. I recommend only WYSIWYG tools like a Wiki, Google Docs, or any other fancy tool.
4. Track their progress/work. Development tracking tools are suspiciously linked to Bug Tracking but it is not necessarily the truth. I’ve been using bug tracking tools like Mantis BT and Jira as Tasks Assignation tools. Keep in mind that a Bug is a request to do (fix) something. So why you cannot split your work packages in work items and assign them to the team -as you do with bugs.
5. Provide test environments. I have to say this, why non-developer centric companies like Creative Agencies building Web applications do not understand that a Test Environment IS NOT the developer’s computer. What is this all about? What is the mystery? Test environments are needed, mandatory needed. Release building is a complex task that will have a lot of manually interactions -team pushing changes and enhancements- and it is NEEDED to have a place where to put all together and validate it before release it to a client -even to a client test environment. Please do not cut costs here. I will start a facebook group named “Why we do not have a test environment?” -BTW I do not like facebook, I do not even use it.
6. Put it all together and working. This is the real thing about IT support. Install software is a piece of cake, is not a complex task, put all together and make it work smoothly is the key. So ask you IT team to do it, or do it yourself, like I did for some of my dev projects. There are many ways to integrate everything but I’m giving you some useful links to found the way to do it:

• SVN, MediaWiki and BugZilla working together
• MantisBT & DokuWiki
• MantisBT & Subversion

SpZ Team is currently designing an All-in-One integrated solution. For latest updates check the Framework page.