Dilbert Scott Adams Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Dilbert Scott Adams Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Dilbert Scott Adams Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

When you don’t trust the team’s estimate Optimists underestimate Pessimists overestimate (adding buffer) As PM, what do you do? Know your team. Eliminate time buffers on each task Theory of Constraints (managing your buffers) Each member gives a reasonable estimate for each task Make the task length 50% of the estimate Add 25% of the estimate to a reserve buffer When a task on the critical path takes longer… use time from the buffer Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Serial Cycle Estimation Trap Estimating the entire project at the beginning – the Trap! Instead, start doing something (a task) Measure it Identify other “pieces” like it Use the measurement as the estimate Serial life cycle projects, use: Confidence Ranges Date Ranges “The schedule estimates are the team’s best guess today…” Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Confidence Range Chart 60% chance project completed by July 1. No chance the project will be completed at the beginning. Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Cone of Uncertainty & Serial Life Cycle Remaining variability 4x 1.0x .25x +400% Design Complete Code freeze System test Time estimate Architecture defined Req’ts baseline Charter approved +25% Continuous refinement: active controls throughout the project needed to prevent cone from widening

* “whatever can go wrong will, at the worst possible time.” Date Ranges Best case The first date you cannot say the project will not be done. It might!  Likely case The date that includes your “fudge factors”. Worst case (Murphy’s Date*) Take the “Likely Date” and add some more “fudge”. * “whatever can go wrong will, at the worst possible time.” Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Accuracy and Precision Not the same thing! Precision Exactness of the measurement (number of decimal points) Accuracy How close you are to the estimate Expresses how you care about is accuracy! Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Separate task sizing and duration Estimating tasks you have never done before: Identify size of smallest to largest tasks Estimate the duration for each size task (Use a Spike to gather data before estimating) “The more large tasks you have, the more uncertainty you have.” Estimate in hours, days, months… what? Spike: A timeboxed task to gain information about other work. Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Getting the team involved Planning Poker: Pick a feature Each member estimates it size Consensus* … use the number Outliers … get an explanation Each member re-estimates size * Consensus or relative consensus … meaning everyone can live with the number. Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Estimating - Tips Estimates are guesses! Beware of optimism. Tasks take longer. Estimating smaller chunks of work is easier. The unit of measure? (person-hours) Estimation and feedback is essential. Iterate on the estimates. re-estimate and replan, re-estimate and replan, … Given a deadline… Incremental life cycle: implement and get feedback quickly Over-constrained project – timebox the phases and tasks. Too much technical risk – consider a Spike. Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Two more tips Use deliverable-based planning for tasks. Visible/tangible products define milestone completion Schedule milestones (or iterations) for midweek. Schedule completion for Friday… automatic slip until Monday Midweek milestones reveals the amount of unfinished work Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

The “How little can you do” approach How much can you do… translates to: Get to work, we have massive amounts of work to do. Forget the schedule. Costs are not the driver. How little can you do… translates to: Understanding the req’ts is key… we want to ensure we deliver value to the customer Schedule is critical Cost is important Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

The Evils of multitasking Guarantees your project will be late. You cannot tell how much the time every person is spending on the project. You cannot tell if you will have the people when you need them. What to do… timebox tasks to end on Friday, allowing for downtime and context switching. “… single biggest contributor to late projects, projects that don’t deliver what they need, and projects that don’t work as well as they need to work.” Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Rolling-Wave Scheduling Rolling wave plan… continuous detailed schedule of a “few” weeks. Each week, you add another week of detail. The 4 week Rolling Wave schedule: The number of weeks should be tied to the length of an iteration… 4 weeks max. When you know enough … 2 weeks may be to short a time. Need enough detail to identify risks. Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

For the first milestone… Engage the team: What tasks are needed to get there? The “stickies” approach Define the tasks in terms of “inch pebbles” Requires breaking work into subtasks The method for constructing a Work Breakdown Structure The shorter the iteration, the easier to re-rank req’ts and adapt to changes… Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Avoid the Student Syndrome Yes… waiting until the last minute to begin work. Breaks project’s rhythm… especially when interdependencies are affected. Avoid task estimates of weeks or longer. Team members should do “inch pebble” tasks. Everyone has a deliverable every day or so… Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

“Defect tracking” and Fig. 8.2 Interruptions How much time is lost… PM must protect the team members from interruptions. Brooks’ Law… management imposed interruptions. Does “pairing” help or hinder? Do members have the support infrastructure they need when they need it? The “builds don’t work” but “it worked on my machine” … 8.12 on page 161 “Defect tracking” and Fig. 8.2 Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman

Prepare for Influence – Page 162 Problem solutions must come from the team. Know how to ask for help and how to give it. Know what motivates a team (the team’s WiiFMe). Share ownership of problems with the team… and openness to other ideas and opinions. Listen to the team… learn what they need to be effective. Allow others time to think… don’t push your ideas without time for others to consider. Collaboration requires the ability to give up your ideas of what to do… to work for the best idea. Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management. Johanna Rothman