What is the different between crashing and fast tracking a project’s schedule?

May 21, 2012 Leave a comment

Crashing and fast tracking are two techniques used to help get a project back on schedule in the event the schedule begins to slip.  When using either technique, you should know what your critical path is.

Crashing a project means to throw additional resources at the critical path.  If you have one person working on a 10 day task, you might throw one or two more people onto the task to help speed up its completion.  The risk is you may assign additional resources with limited tools to complete the task, keeping you from reaching a high level of efficiency.  With the scenario where you crash the schedule, you may be adding a resource to work 5 days, and only shorten the task completion by 2 days.  It is not the most efficient, but it is a tradeoff that sometimes is worth the risk.

Sometimes I like to think of crashing as what road construction crews seem to think they are doing.  You need to dig a hole but there is only enough room for two people to do it, but there always seems to be ten guys standing around waiting to help not sure of how to fit in.  In an effective scenario, think of when you were a child and had a party when your parents were not home.  You enlist your siblings and friends to help you clean.  You are crashing the activity with more resources to complete it faster.

Fast tracking is when you look at activities on a schedule that are normally done in sequential order and instead try to work on them in parallel.  You may only be able to partially work on them in parallel, but you are trying to save any time that you can.  An example is, you normally don’t create the solution until the design is completed.  When fast tracking, you may start the solution before the full design is completed.  You jump to the next phase before the current phase is completed.  Major risks include increased cost and possible rework later on.

A real-life example of fast tracking are the crazy morning drivers on their way to work that are drinking coffee, shaving, and reading the newspaper at the same time.  I find myself in the kitchen prepping breakfast running the coffee machine, the toaster, and the frying pan to cook some eggs and bacon; all simultaneously to cook my breakfast faster.

So in summary, the main difference is crashing a project involves adding resources to a single activity, and fast tracking involves working on sequential activities in parallel.

References

Marchewka, J. (2009). Information Technology Project Management (3rd Ed). John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.

Retrieved from: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6144481.html

Retrieved from: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/fast-track-tasks-to-shorten-your-project-schedule-HA010036399.aspx

Retrieved from: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/about-project-crashing-shortening-a-project-schedule-HA010036416.aspx

Retrieved from: http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/5055.aspx

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The Project Environment

May 18, 2012 Leave a comment

What all entails the Project Environment?

The project environment includes the physical space, and also the project culture.  Marchewka describes the environment as:

  • A place to call home: This includes having ample space and a home base for meeting as a team.
  • Technology:  This includes PCs, appropriate software, Internet access, e-mail, and phones.  You also want to assure that your team has the necessary collaboration tools for the team to communicate effectively.
  • Office supplies: Paper, pens, pencils, staplers, and other non-technology items.
  • Culture: Reflects the values and norms of the team.  One way to establish culture is through a team charter.  This should be created early in the project.  The charter will include expectations, roles, and steps for conflict resolution.

The main discussed goal of a project is to get the project completed within scope, cost and schedule; however, the ultimate goal is to make the customer happy.  To get there you must have an effective team that works well together.  The best way to work well together is to have a comfortable team environment.  It is the Project Managers responsibility to establish this environment.  Fostering a healthy team environment helps build team work.  Better team work helps to complete tasks, identify and mitigate risks, and provide motivation to follow the lead of the project manager.

 

References

Marchewka, J. (2009). Information Technology Project Management (3rd Ed). John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.

Retrieved from: http://www.maxwideman.com/papers/projenviron/intro.htm

Retrieved from: http://www.allbestarticles.com/business/customer-service/pmo-support-pmbok-and-the-importance-of-project-management-support.html

Retrieved from: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hr018

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If Your Company Was Run By: Guns N’ Roses

May 16, 2012 Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if your company was run by legendary rock band, Guns N’ Roses?  How would the company function?  What would the culture be like?

Culture:

It’s a rock n’ roll band, so of course you would have to expect there to be a wild and loud culture.  At the early onset of the company there might have been a lot of partying and an appetite for destruction, but once the stakes were realized and they fought through the lies everything would become more about the illusion of a business.  There would probably be a lot of parties thrown by employees, but they would have to be squeezed in between the boss’ many oddly timed work sessions that give another illusion of hard work.

Management:

Axl Rose is boss, everyone else works for him.  He may delegate some duties, such as the development and creation of his ideas, and also some supporting functions like who gets lunch, but he assumes total control.  He may be late to a lot of meetings or product releases, or he may not even show up at all, leaving employees and customers baffled alike.

Project Length:

The length of a project is unpredictable due to cost overruns, poor decision making and poor planning.  Some projects may seem easy, but they may take several years to be completed, frustrating their customers.  But no matter how long a project takes to complete, the customers are so intrigued, and also have been overly impressed by earlier products, that they will hang around and wait for it to be delivered.

Talent:

There would be a lot of turnover in the company.  The company would start with a few core guys involved in the creative and management direction.  But, after a while one guy would assume full control of the company, essentially forcing the other founding members out.  A few long time employees would stick by that remaining founding member, but there would be a lot of bad blood left from the former members of the company.

Human Resources would not have a lot of control over talent acquisition.  The boss would control this process only seeking out the best development talent available, sometimes going through several employees until the right fit was found.  The boss takes full advantage of ‘at will’ employment.

Employees would not be developed from within as training is not a high priority.  Axl expects those that are hired to already know what they are doing and to buy into his style of managing.

Methodologies:

The development processes would be very ad hoc.  No one seems to know what is going on except for the boss himself.  It is difficult to identify any specific methodology.  The development of projects would appear to those on the outside to be very chaotic and strung together in a very haphazard manner.

Since Axl brings in the best, he would rely on the talent that already exists with those employees.  The results would prove to be unpredictable.  At times it would seem like employees are not doing anything except telling people that they are about to do something big.

Costs:

Due to poor planning and decision making, as well as high employee turnover and highly talented replacements, costs are very high.   Most of the costs go into the ad hoc development processes, the search for new employees as old ones leave, and the cost of training those new employees on Axl’s methodologies.  A lot of money would be spent on the equipment to perform job tasks, always having the latest and greatest computers and other tech gadgets to try and remain relevant in the public eye.  This would be an area Axl would want to show off.

Conclusion:

While it might be a lot of fun from the start to work for Axl, in the end it may prove to be too frustrating for anyone’s professional goals.  Lasting a year would provide anyone with valuable experience on how not to run a business to their next place of work.  Many former employees would feel left out in the dark and develop a lot of frustration and anger towards Axl.  They might stick together and form other companies they may do fairly well, and they might say things they regret and later change their stories to try and reconcile and rejoin the company.

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Why adding people to a project that is already behind schedule can make it later

May 8, 2012 Leave a comment

There are many issues when adding new people to an already late project.  Fred Brooks states in his law that “adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”  You may be asking yourself, why is this the case?

For one, you have to account for the training time that will be required to get the new workers up to speed.  Additionally, there is an increase in the amount of communication time amongst the project.  Team members must get acquainted with each other.  If the new team member is also a new employee, there is a greater risk as you do not know their skill set and how quickly they learn.  You must factor in the time it takes for them to get set up with Human Resources, and also with all of their accounts needed for the projects they will be working on.  While adding existing employees is better, it still takes time to learn the new applications they are not used to.

A very basic example is to compare a project to a woman giving birth.  One woman giving birth takes 9 months.  Nine women giving birth do not decrease the birth time to one month.  A game like football is a great example, as it requires so much planning and their defined roles played out on the field.  Rarely do you see season-changing trades made at the trade deadline.  A football team requires a lot of chemistry and players knowing and understanding their job.  Adding in a fresh face at the end of the season, especially a quarterback, only sets the team back.  Last season the Houston Texans went into the playoffs with a third string rookie quarterback because they knew someone outside of the organization would set the team back, requiring a lot more time to get situated with the team.

In a way, adding new team members to a project is much the same, more so to the football comparison than to giving birth.  You could start out the day with a certain amount of work left.  When the new members start, you must train and communicate with them.  At the end of the day, you would most likely end up even further behind schedule.  But sometimes it is simply unavoidable and adding new people is a must to keep our sanity.

References

Marchewka, J. (2009). Information Technology Project Management (3rd Ed). John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.

Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

Retrieved from: http://electronicdesign.com/article/articles/is-it-always-a-bad-idea-to-add-resources-to-a-late.aspx

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Developing a software maintenance strategy? Some tips on where to start.

May 3, 2012 Leave a comment

There are several places where you can find information on developing a software maintenance strategy.

Two common software process models are ITIL and CMMI.  ITIL is a set of best practices for IT services.  If your organization provides IT services, including providing a service desk, ITIL helps to provide practices to help them develop their strategy (ITIL, 2012).  CMMI is a process improvement framework that can be used for both development and maintenance organizations.  CMMI’s goals are to identify strengths and weaknesses and to turn those weak process areas into strengths (SEI, 2012).  Determining your approach comes from what the goals of the client are for their product.  ITIL and CMMI can help.

For a set of standards, you can look to ISO.  ISO/IEC 14764:2006 provides details for the management of software maintenance applications, including for planning, execution and control, review and evaluation, and closure of the maintenance process (ISO, 2011).  It can work for managing one or more maintenance projects.

IBM created a report on best practices for software maintenance for operating data warehouses.  The importance of a study like this is with the increase in Cloud computing.  Cloud related products would have to increase the size or quantity of data warehouses as a client moves to use contractors to store their data and applications (IBM, 2005).  If you are such a contractor, this is a good resource to help develop a strategy.  This can also be helpful for other application types that conduct maintenance with an impact on several applications or services.

References

ITIL. (2012). What is ITIL? Retrieved from: http://www.itil-officialsite.com/AboutITIL/WhatisITIL.asp.

Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute. (2012). CMMI Overview. Retrieved from: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/.

International Organization for Standardization. (2011). ISO/IEC 14764:2006. Retrieved from: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=39064.

IBM. (2005). Data Warehouse Software Maintenance Strategy.  Retrieved from: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/data/pubs/papers/dw-maint-strategy.pdf.

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