Driving to a Decision on your Projects

I've written about the basic project proposal (for consulting groups) or charter (for internal IT) in the past. The point of any project summary document is to tee up the what and the why, using an outline like this: Description: What are we trying to accomplish here? What is our ultimate goal? Objectives: These are project objectives, not business objectives. How will we know we are done? Benefits: Why should we consider doing this? What are we getting? Alternatives: Are…

Defining an Effective IT Metrics Framework

21 January, 2007
Metrics, IT Management
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Had a really good conversation about metrics the other day. We've been discussing ways to express how our systems are performing, delivering value, and staying available - and I'd like to use the same general structure for all systems, regardless of function (transactions, integrations, analytics) or platform (Wintel, AS/400, Open Systems). For each type of metric, we need to understand two dimensions: Performance against some Target. This can either be a baseline (a minimum or average expected score), or a…

Another caveat for the erstwhile agile developer

15 January, 2007
Change Management, Application Development
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If your objective is a "sense of urgency", or maybe "time to value", please don't think this gives you carte blanche to push patchy, chewing-gum-and-bailing-wire solutions out into production. Expect the expectation that the production systems' availability level must be maintained. Confused? It sounds like I'm taking two opposing sides ... I want speed and quality, and doesn't the Iron Triangle force you to pick between the two? It's possible, of course, you just need to practice a little discipline…

The Iron Triangle – Quality is a Feature that We Choose to Omit from Projects

Project managers must communicate the trade-off between additional functionality and the time required to fully test the work. Don't assume testing will be completed - it's something that takes time!

A great mission statement for Corporate IT

This is actually an old story, from a previous life, but I need to get back on the posting bandwagon. Way back in the day... ... there was a site on the public Internet with Company Confidential Information out there. The site was put together by an ambitious sales rep with some time on his hands, a few technical books, and a yen for something interesting to do. It was a nice little site, too - even had user ID…

Funny, how techies talk to each other

I'm writing an email to my favorite SQL guru, about a pretty sticky little problem I'm working on, and I found myself making up words ... In the LotesDB, comments / notes are kept in a single field. Each comment is time and date stamped, with a uname, so that's pretty predictable. The data in the field looks like this: 02/15/2002 03:46 PM (Steve Manager): Capital was approved on 2/11. Project Number has been assigned in SAP and server hardware…

War Stories from the Change Management front

Stories make our ideas real and relevant, and are helpful tools when introducing change. This article has a few examples of stories - all around the topic of introducing change.

Documentation Redux – a Shorthand Proposal Framework, and the PMO Surprise

McDonald sent a nice comment on my last post - he's writing a lot about project management lately, and we even chatted about some research he's doing around boomer flight. Since I don't get a ton of comments, I thought I'd respond with a post, instead. He poses the question: I am wondering if documentation of the communications associated with coding and testing (emails, archiving of successive release of code, meeting recordings, archiving of test results, etc.) can in any…

Thoughts on Why Tech Folks Hate Documentation

I've had some flashes of insight on why technical folks don't like to document stuff. Currently, I'm thrashing thru a skunkworks project that is evolving into something that will need to be reasonably available, robust, etc. I'm also trying to lead by example; I ask my teams to build for sustainability and document so they can "walk away". Of course, I'm also lazy - I really don't want to explain things over and over again. However, the time crunch I…

Guidelines for Success with your Skunk Works project

I've been hearing the term skunk works a lot lately, in reference to off-plan projects that are moving forward in all that "free time" people have in the IT department. Sometimes the term sounds slightly perjorative, but I like it when a project I am involved with is referred to in this way. The term's origin is well documented, no need to repeat it here. The Lockheed Martin folks made it famous, when referring to technology projects "on the edge"…