Project management entry
Karl E. Wiegers, miRnshi translation (Non-programmer magazine No. 3) When you expect the day, it may be a fear that day, finally came: from the engineer's team you have been promoted to the software project leaders or team leadership s position. This may be the professional path you choose, maybe you are not awesome, you will try it. In any case, you may lack the relevant education of engineering subjects, personnel management, and leadership. This requires more leadership and management (they are not a matter), but not like Dilbert (translation: famous IT comic protagonist), it is simply confronted with the boss. When you consider a new goal, consider the following list of event plans. Each highlight is caught once, which is impossible. But this suggestion can help you put your attention to improve you and your team performance. Establishing priority as a manager, the first thing to do, the most important thing is that you need to consciously establish a priority. You need a new job when you are still in a heavy software development activity. Excessive manager novice can't resist the attraction of technology, which will lead to other personnel of the project group to get managers when they want to get managers. Effective leaders know that their primary task is to serve other groups. These services include training and guidance, solving problems and conflicts, providing resources, establishing project objectives and priorities, providing appropriate technical guidelines. To make each group, you can always help them. I found it very meaningful to position themselves in the work of people who were supervised by me, not the opposite. In the things you do, for the team members asking you to help them, there should be a priority of non-mask interrupts. The second important is to make your customers satisfied. As a manager, there is no direct ability to satisfy the customer, because you are no longer available as an individual to provide products and services. Instead, you have to build an environment, allowing your team members to maximize the needs of our customers. The manager provides a powerful method to effectively improve customer satisfaction. Third important, work for your project. Because there are many other technologies, or other managers' request help, such as work. When these and two high-level conflicts, they must be prepared to push. Obviously, things that have satisfied with other managers are your least important thing. In an orderly organization, if you have successful success in more than three major links, other managers will be excited. We don't all be lucky to work in a good environment, but you must do your best to do your best to do the biggest responsibility on your task. Concentrately, happy, to help your group members as much as possible, don't put your energy on top of your superior. Analyze your skill gap unless you have prepared for your new location, you will feel some gaps relative to your current leadership and management skills. Excellent technical background may be a factor you are selected as leadership roles, but you have to do excellent, you need more skills. For others' comments and projects, you have truly list your strengths and shortcomings and then reduce the gap. Software personnel do not be famous in a satisfactory interpersonal skill. You will want to enhance experience in handling interpersonal relationships: resolve conflicts, persuasive, and instill ideas. You have to deal with people including recruitment, dismissal, discussing schedules, and commenting in your office to comment some of the business. I found that my management career started from a listening skill class is very good. When as an individual proposal, we often feel very comfortable when we submit our own technical agenda. Effective management requires more cooperation and good relationships with acceptance. It takes some time to learn how to (when) cleverly guides its own natural judgment. Listening Skills provides an exchange mechanism, I have found it is useful in many occasions. Then, to the other side of the podium, improve your speech ability. If you really don't adapt to the public's speech, learn Dell. Carnegie class will be helpful.
You will find that through such training, you can help you better adapt to future work through this training experience and improve communication skills. As a project leader, in order to plan and track the project, you have a responsibility to adjust the work of other people when you need a correction measures when you need a project fallback. Participate in project management training lessons, read some books and articles about projects and risk management. Participate in the Project Management Society, read the monthly magazine - PM NetWork. SEI's software capability maturity model provides a lot of useful recommendations for software project plans and project tracking. Establish a priority capability, control the effective conference, clear communication, and for you, as a manager's performance will have a substantive effect. Defining "Quality" Almost everyone will carefully treat quality problems and want to produce high quality products. However, there is no unified definition for the quality meaning of the software. Traditional software quality points and "enough good" software views have a fierce debate. In order to help the team success, take some time and your team members, and customers will explore the meaning of quality. These two camps often do not have the same definition in their minds, which can be easily operated on different purposes. Focus on the manager of the delivery plan will not be worried about the engineers who want to check the code of each line of code; the customer who believes that reliability is very important to a product with very little use but with a lot of BUGS; one Very good gui may make the user bored because the user is familiar with how to effectively use the previous version of the product. In order to better understand the customer's view, in Kodak, my group has invited our customers and their managers to discuss this topic on this topic. This forum is very meaningful. Those who use our products have their own understanding. Through discussion, we can know what we have to make quality ideas and they do not match them. Understand different, you can concentrate, take care of our customers' greatest benefits, rather than make developers get the biggest satisfaction. The traditional description of the software quality includes the need to consistent with the manual, meet the customer's needs, the code, and documentation is not defective. "Six-Sigma Quality" This flip word has established a very high scale for monitoring the frequency and density of failure. However, it does not apply to fast product delivery, availability, sufficient character set, has paid the price of the price such as the price. We are always keen to cover all of these quality characteristics as much as possible, however, compromise always must. In a demand phase of a project, we have developed a list of ten quality properties, such as efficiency, synergistic, correctness, and learning, we think this is the most important for users. We invite the customer's key person to assess each attribute in a scale of 1 to 5. Once we decide which properties are the most important, we can design and implement these goals. If you know the quality meaning of the customer and there is no trouble in the process of designing the quality attribute, and the customer is satisfied with the quality properties, then you are very fortunate. In the quality instructions of many concerns, I have heard one: "The customer is back, but the product is not". With your customers, developers have identified appropriate quality objectives for each product. Once determined, the clear highest priority of the quality goal is given. With example, you will ask your own work according to very high quality standards. This motade: "Strive to be perfect, satisfied with excellent." Recognition results for the results of the results of your members, is a very important means to motivate them. This should be one of your most important things unless you have a commendation process in your group. Commending things including symbolic things (certificates, tourism rewards) and practical things (movie tickets, restaurant gift coupons, redemption awards). When sending gifts, some kind words should be said: "Thank you for your help" or "congratulate achievements".
It takes a lot less thought and money on commendation and rewards, you can get a lot of friendly and future cooperation. Including the customer representative, and those who have been contributing to the project have also been commended. Discuss with your team, understand the way they are interested in commendation and reward. Make a recognition activity regardless of the awareness of the size of the group culture. It is also necessary to give you the interest in the interested interest in each team's work, to eliminate all your strength. Commendation is a way to showcase members and other people outside the group - you have to know and thank them for the contribution to the team's success. Some projects who have learned that your team in the past have not made complete success. Even in a successful project, we can often think that something will be better next time. When you enter a new leadership role, you need to spend some time to understand why early projects fail, and plan to avoid making the same mistake. For software development, each manager spends time to handle each possible error. It is very difficult. Learning past success and failure is the beginning of a success. It is possible to start from the past, there is no project that has not been examined, do not manage its success or failure, and the implementation of the project (sometimes referred to as an event analysis). Your goal is not to be judged, but in order to make better in future projects. Take this, you can understand what is already good, what should be better. In the main milestone of each project, by collectively discussed or fair organizers, the leading group is analyzed by the brainstorming manner. In addition, you must understand the best criteria for understanding the existing software industry. A good starting point is Steve McConnell's Jolt Award winning works: Rapid Development, Part III of Rapid Development, Microsoft Press, 1996, describe 27 best criteria. Also avoid 36 common software development errors in McConnell described. Your group members may oppose new ways, but your role is as a leader, ensuring that team unanimously uses the best available methods, processes, and tools. Actively promote the information sharing between group members, so that local single best practices can become part of each developer's toolbox. Establishing an improvement goal Once you have established a review of past projects, it has established the meaning of quality to the group, you have to build some of the short-term and long-term improvement. The goal is to be quantified as soon as possible, so you have to divide a few simple stages, indicating whether you take the appropriate process toward the goal. For example, if you determine that the project is often postponed by the instability of the demand, you can build a goal of improving the demand stability, an increase of 50% in 6 months. Such a goal requires you to know the number of changes in the week or monthly demand, clear their source, take action to control those changes. This may require you to change the way of communication with those who submit demand changes. Your goals and stages are components of the software process improvement program, you have to make them. As a lack of creative bureaucratic bureaucratic, the "process" is very popular. Although in fact, each team can find ways to improve its work. Of course, if you always work in an existing job, you don't expect you to get better than before. There are two strong reasons for improvement process: correction problems, prevent problems. Make sure your improvement efforts should surround questions that may threaten the project success. Leading Your team finds the strengths and shortcomings of the current method currently being used, as well as the risk of projects. My group held a "two-stage brainstorm" practice to determine the stumbling block of the software productivity and quality process. In the first meeting, the participants wrote their ideas about the theme of the conference on the note, one note. The organizers write them on the note on the note and group. Finally, we will get a major classification and record it on the moving map. The second meeting, the same participants wrote the idea of solving these obstacles on the note and attached to the proper position of the wall chart.
Further refinement, induction of some detailed activities, it can be part of our efforts to remove obstacles to help team members to achieve the quality and productivity of software. Establish measurable and achievable goals for easy intensive improvements. To make the target have a significant priority and can monitor the process periodically. Remember your purpose is to improve your project and company success, do not satisfy some process improvements mentioned in the book. It is necessary to treat improvements as mini projects, with a small project that can be distribute, resources, plans, and responsible. Otherwise, the process improvement activities will always be higher than the preceptive priority of the tempting technology. Slowly start this article with many suggestions to help you, a new software manager, lead your group to great success. In the face of new work stresses in the day, try to keep your mind clear. You are still a very important role in the cultural and habits of a long-time shaping software development group. You don't have to finish all one, you can choose several of the most relevant to the environment. As a software manager, in addition to the project, you have to be responsible for the completion of the budget. You also need: Leadership technicians form a team with cohesiveness; establish an environment in which cooperative team work; encourage and reward the practice of advanced software engineers; balance from customers, companies, group members, and your own needs. This is a major task, I wish you good luck!
