Software Project Management Organization and Staffing Roles: PM: needs decent technical skills. Know enough to participate in or at least follow technical discussions. (understand and participate in tech problem solving) Also if they aren’t technically skilled they risk loosing the confidence of technical staff, especially those who value technical skill. Program = many related projects. High performance organizations will have a program office that consolidates and shares good pm practices with projects.

Functional – organized around primary functions such as engineering, marketing, HR. Might have finer levels of distinction such as req, des, code, test. Projects that span functional groups are a challenge. PM’s must work with functional managers to assign, monitor and coordinate work. Matrix – Project members have two bosses. Projectized – functional roles duplicated within each project. Trading motivation for efficiency.

Project Success: A Long-Term View Project success is more than delivering desired features at an acceptable level of quality according to an agreed upon schedule and budget. True long-term success is meeting schedule, budget, feature and quality objectives without sacrificing your people. Is delivering desired features at an acceptable level of quality according to an agreed upon schedule and budget a necessary and sufficient condition for project success? It’s necessary but not sufficient? You also need to have content if not happy teammates. Cost and quality goals are especially hard to evaluate at the end of a project. Better yet, wait a year and then evaluate how well the project met its cost and quality goals. Projects that ostensible meet their cost and quality goals may not look so successful when you factor in the cost of recruiting new staff and fixing post production quality problems. Meet the cost, schedule, quality goals without damaging the people involved. At the end of a project staff should be refreshed and looking forward to the next project. Add “Meets the needs and expectations of all stakeholders”? Long-term success also include efficient use of resources. Not just balancing but improving productivity and effectiveness.

Motivation