This tag is for questions that involve planning a project schedule or planning tasks for the team.
2
votes
2answers
52 views
How to start my first project?
I'm going to manage my first project that is really a small stream of an even greater project, and my boss said that I could make my own schedule and plans etc.
I have a couple of questions, I need ...
1
vote
2answers
57 views
Explanation on the order of Planning Processes in Rita's Process chart
I am preparing for PMP, currently in Chapter 3 of Rita Mulcahy 's book. I prefer understanding over memorization, the 'why' rather than the 'what'.
I searched on the web to understand why the ...
2
votes
2answers
92 views
Good source for synonyms for user stories in agile methodology
I find myself in an non-agile environment where "user story" actually means "use case, backed by an excel requirements specification, a testing specification doc, and a few required wireframes || mock ...
2
votes
2answers
65 views
In MS Project, can I create a task whose duration depends on two milestones?
I want to show an ongoing "support" task in MS Project, where the start date is driven by one milestone (test environment available), and the end date is set by another milestone (testing complete). I ...
9
votes
5answers
286 views
Proof that badly scheduled meetings hurt productivity
I have a friend who is a developer. He is very stressed out by his manager, who seems addicted to meetings. The volume of meetings is a problem, but what is more of a problem is that they are spaced ...
1
vote
2answers
54 views
How to Evaluate an Implementation Plan by 3rd Party Vendors
Question:
I'm not sure how to handle this.
Background:
We have a software requirement and we've asked two vendors for their implementaion proposal. The first vendor haven't submitted their proposal. ...
2
votes
6answers
144 views
How to reduce planning meeting time involving several teams?
I'm working on a project having planning meetings at the start of every sprint. Three teams are involved on every planning meeting, reviewing pending/todo issues team by team (every issue is ...
-1
votes
1answer
54 views
Need guidance in implementing a third party software tool for enterprise wide organization [closed]
I have been assigned to lead an implementation of a third party software tool. I would like to seek some guidance on making sure this gets implemented successfully.
I think I was asked to provide ...
6
votes
4answers
225 views
Communicating requirements to offshore teams
Just to give a context, there is an offshore team in India for a client in San Francisco. The offshore team is about 9 developers and 4 QA, with one project manager. I am doing onsite coordination for ...
0
votes
4answers
143 views
PM crash course
I have an engineering background and have accepted an offer from a tech company for which I will be leading a brand new web project (mix of PM + tech lead). There is no prior work done except overall ...
4
votes
2answers
122 views
How does a team (new to product and domain) estimates user stories of a ten year old product
I am a scrum master for one of the products in a product development company. Our team, including me, operates from India. However my product owner is in USA. We are working on a feature development ...
-1
votes
1answer
49 views
What's the best approach to structure a project plan for a JSF project? [closed]
We're a Software Development Company that's about to start working on a JSF (JavaServer Faces) project with a Hibernate persistence layer. I'm managing the project, and we have 2 developers on the ...
8
votes
6answers
269 views
Why use iterations in Scrum?
I am a Scrum Master in a 7 person team. We currently use one-week iterations for our sprints.
I find that sprint planning overhead is huge (2 hours each week for entire team), and not nearly as ...
6
votes
4answers
189 views
Is WIFO a good project management method?
Is WIFO (Worst In, First Out) a good project management method? That is, should projects always prioritize work on the part or component that is the worst?
Will WIFO make project quality more even by ...
0
votes
1answer
31 views
How long does it take to upgrade from Project Server 2007 to Project Server 2010? [closed]
If I had to upgrade from an existing Project Server 2007 to 2010 version, how many days can it take? Assuming the following, is a 1 or 2 day estimate reasonable?
Current Project Server 2007 consists ...
7
votes
5answers
266 views
How should a team handle disagreements about story-point estimates in Scrum?
During estimation, the Product Owner presents a user story that seems clear to a team that usually knows their strengths and weaknesses, and that is not hostile. What should the Scrum Master do if the ...
5
votes
4answers
280 views
Is there any alternative to MS-Project server to build a collaborative deployment plan?
Objective Questions:
How do you guys coordinate cross-team deployment plans? Are you still using the old school Excel for these plans?
How do you rearrange tasks in a way the dependencies between ...
5
votes
3answers
180 views
Changing backlog story point estimates mid way through a release
Background: We are mid-way through a development which was estimated for a customer on a fixed price contract. To come up with the estimate we built a backlog by trying to list all user stories and ...
10
votes
2answers
241 views
SCRUM Sprint and tasks/user stories that cannot fit into a sprint!
Say I have an Epic that is estimated to take 3 sprints to do.
And the Epic is broken down into
A to Z tasks/user stories.
Problem is, to do B, we need A, to do C we need B, etc....
And in sprint ...
3
votes
1answer
75 views
Starting responsive web design from desktop planning? (x-post from ux.stackoverflow)
I originally asked this question from http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/28987/starting-responsive-web-design-from-desktop-planning-project-time-crunch, but was referred to here
Backstory:
Our ...
5
votes
2answers
100 views
Can the scale of a project be considered a constraint?
The triple constraints are listed as Time, Cost and Scope. PMBOK 4th Edition lists 6 project constraints: Cost, Time, Scope, Quality, Risk, and Resources.
Can the scale of a project be considered a ...
5
votes
4answers
358 views
Planning poker on virtual teams
I'm looking for a way to make it easier to perform planning poker on a virtual team (i.e. a team that is not co-located with one another).
Requirements for a successful planning poker:
Since we're ...
12
votes
5answers
340 views
How do you manage technical debt?
In real world, business initiatives always take higher priority as there are associated ROIs and deliver something tangible to the users. But there are technical initiatives and projects that need to ...
4
votes
2answers
128 views
How to keep all the developers on the same page in Scrum?
We are a small team of 6 developers. We usually complete 4 to 5 user stories in a given sprint. Typically every person takes a complete user story and some take a couple of them.
The problem arises ...
8
votes
4answers
257 views
Is PM considered a billable resource?
In a software development firm that I work for, contracts are billed based on 3 items: Design, Development, and PM.
Example: A simple software project could take 200 hours and would be broken down ...
3
votes
1answer
124 views
Heilmeier's Catechism Breakdown
Heilmeier's Catechism is a set of questions that any research project or product development project should be able to answer to assess its feasibility.
So far I've found this example.
Specifically, ...
2
votes
2answers
138 views
How to apply project management skills for a bulky project?
Suppose I was working on a 3 months web development project, alone. And I had to start developing everything from scratch. I had to perform each and every activity that a software development life ...
4
votes
3answers
182 views
Which metrics can help estimate the size of a project?
I am putting together a project sizing tool to help understand what artifacts are required for projects (E.G., a simple project may not require a project charter, whilst a complex project may require ...
5
votes
3answers
171 views
How to plan work under live issue without the battery
We are working under quite old project with quite much legacy code. This means that we have around 3-5 live issues every sprint.
We were handling that by batteries inside sprint. But I recently read ...
8
votes
7answers
341 views
Accuracy of Estimates
Aclear16, on an answer from another question, brought up the notion of accuracy of estimates. In my view, this notion is nonsensical; however, we talk about this often in PM circles.
In an ...
4
votes
2answers
219 views
How to manage different detail levels in a project plan to be presented to different audiences?
In any given project, a variety of detail levels are needed:
executive summary
technical summary
delivery team summary
delivery details
How can these different levels of detail be contained and ...
5
votes
4answers
149 views
Resources used by multiple PMs
I am the Infrastructure PM on a large project, working as part of a team of PMs with different responsibilities. These include Development, Testing, Environment Support, and Implementation. My remit ...
0
votes
1answer
84 views
What are the steps to be taken in the initial projects in Software Companies? [closed]
I'm working in the middle level of a software company. My role is a software developer. I don't know what processes are to be handled in the Software Development company?
Can you explain me in ...
4
votes
8answers
798 views
What are the benefits of using Gantt charts during the execution phase of a project?
After a decade of managing software projects, I've found Gantt charts to have very limited use after the Planning phase.
What are the perceived benefits of Gantt charts, especially during the ...
2
votes
2answers
160 views
What is a “typical” duration for how long it takes to start up a project?
We are trying to put some statistics together internally to get a better handle on how long it takes to complete pre-project work for business improvement projects. This work includes work corresponds ...
3
votes
2answers
83 views
Creating synopses of existing movies - hire a team, or crowdsource?
To create a movie database website for a regional language industry, I would like to know whats the best way to acquire/build a large collection of movie synopses for my site.
Currently I have thought ...
1
vote
2answers
132 views
What tools do you use for creating an offer and project management? [closed]
What tools do you use for the whole chain of talking to a customer, creating an offer, doing project planing and actually creating a project within a software so you have a stable work basis?
I am ...
4
votes
5answers
359 views
What Information to have on project planning sticky notes?
I've been assigned as PM to an ongoing project that had a few issues when I started. It looks like these have been resolved but the team will have to review and update the project plan to address ...
5
votes
9answers
217 views
Should a client/customer be in the room or participating during planning poker?
From my understanding, planning poker involves the development team or the executors of the project and the project manager or the project owner. I recently had a debate with our project manager on ...
4
votes
7answers
234 views
Quick win or long term sustainability?
My project has to deliver middleware components that will support a large, complex system development spanning multiple phases. My phase is due to implement in 6 weeks, with future phases being ...
8
votes
5answers
239 views
How to communicate with project leaders when they are doing poorly
I have been on multiple projects where the project leaders have not involved themselves in the project enough to even learn what the project is really doing. Other times the project leaders didn't ...
4
votes
4answers
110 views
Is keeping two project plans ever appropriate?
I feel that if I publish a project plan that shows completion on date X, I can't very well push for completion at date (X - 3 weeks). But If I publish a plan that shows date (X-3 weeks), how can I ...
2
votes
3answers
376 views
Tracking punchlist items in a project plan
As a project gets closer and closer to handover to QA, I find myself tracking a list of outstanding items that need to be completed before the software is completely ready for testing. I'm trying to ...
1
vote
2answers
65 views
What's the best way of making projections about go-live dates that fall outside of your planning horizon?
We operate a quarterly planning horizon and yet we have a very healthy order book. Detailed plans only stretch out as far as 3 months. How do I tell a customer who has just ordered when they will be ...
6
votes
5answers
388 views
How to organize multiple releases/feature sets
I'm the product manager for two of my company's application sets, and I've been running into some difficulties trying to manage future releases and how best to move them around. If I have version 2.2 ...
4
votes
1answer
462 views
Technical Specification Tools
I am planning to write a technical specification document / functional specification for my personal project. Can anybody suggest any useful links / tools / templates that can help me?
I am mainly ...
1
vote
2answers
797 views
How to structure a project plan
I had an initial meeting with my project stakeholders and was able to define a strategy based on goals that everyone agrees with. The goals are:
Data access
Data storage
Data validation
Analytical ...
2
votes
2answers
308 views
How should an organization divide user stories between scrum teams?
We have a development team that works on multiple "products". We create a unified user-stories backlog, and effectively treat the multiple products as different feature areas of the same virtual big ...
9
votes
5answers
239 views
PM learns deliverable is vaporware, team has been hiding it from the client & want PM to lie to client also.
I will TRY to keep this simple. I was brought on this project approx. 1/2 way through to fill the role of CM DB SME(20+yrs broad based experience). The PM (non-technical by his own admission) ...
1
vote
5answers
211 views
Statistical Product: How to handle projects effectively
Some background: In our organization we develop statistical product and there are big team of statisticians. They often changed specification due to change in clients' requirements. We have n number ...
