Spear
I am surprised that I have had a meeting with Terry last month. Terry is a project manager. The project she managed is to move the old workshop report to the web. When I met her in the last month, I think she only needs four weeks to complete the task. But now I have been six weeks, and I have to stay in four weeks.
"Terry," I said. "What happened? Your project spent a lot of time is much longer than expected, but I have not seen that I have not heard that you have already fallen behind the timetable.
"There are some changes on project scope to make us have to postpone the time of the end," Terry said. "But you might be happy, I am going to operate the range of changes. Each change has been consent with sponsors, so we have received additional funding and time."
"So how to explain that no one complains," I asked. "What types of changes have you got?"
"They most of them add extra characteristics and functions, and the changes in our current software are small," she said. "That is why we can deal with most of them. They don't need our team to do too much work."
"What will happen later?" I asked. "Can you complete this project in four weeks?"
"This is unclear," she is a little worried. "Most of the workshops don't have enough Web experience. They are now more and more familiar with this environment, they find that they should join more features."
"Hey, it is not entirely a good thing," I said. "Software project should be a temporary work to generate a set of available software. They need to end at a certain time. I am afraid you will be in a bad situation, your project is not over, do something very Small changes have increased, but unimportant business profits. "
Terry agrees with my point. "In fact, I want to develop a team has begun to lose attention and enthusiasm. I am worried that we have become a little lazy."
"We should talk to your sponsor to talk about this project," I suggest. "This is not to say that they have no chance to do more changes. If additional changes do have business value, let us consider strengthening them later."
advice
In most items, the sponsors of the project focused on completing the original work within the scope of the budget and time limits of both parties. However, in some cases, sponsors are more relaxing, they begin to agree or have a large or small range in the process of software construction.
As long as project managers and sponsors actively manage and authorize these changes, this will not turn into project scope. However, in these cases, the project manager needs to reach a cut-off point, that is, this time will no longer accept any additional changes. This makes the development team to focus on the final test and final software implementation.
Terry's project is a good project that can make this cut-off point. She is well managed by the project, but she has introduced risks with her sponsors. When people are over-pursuing perfect solutions, the greater the risk of developing team careless and energy scattering, which means that reduced software quality and more problems in the future.
At this point, a better way is to stop all changes with the sponsors. The recommendations for new changes can still be considered, but they will be placed on a backup list arranged in priority.
This list will be considered after the program starts running and stabilizes. These changes can now be seen as an application. Support teams can complete them, or they are placed in a new second phase of the project.
