15
TL;DR it is a project.
Let's take a look at the definitions of the "project".
PRINCE2:
A Project is a temporary organization that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed Business Case.
PMI:
A project can be defined as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service. Projects ...
14
I tend to go by the definition made by James T Brown, within The Handbook of Program Management:
A program manager is first and foremost a leader. In fact, the program
manager's main leadership duty is to turn chaos into clarity for the
team. Any leader who allows chaos to exist or just passes chaos down
to the team without clarification is not ...
14
Definitions Must Be Localized
I am using a project management system that forces me to define feature requests as either High, Medium or Low priority. Has anyone got a good set of definitions that clarifies what those priorities should mean?
They mean whatever your organization wants them to mean. How any given organization prioritizes features or tasks ...
11
Yes. Using 'the system' as a user in stories is bad.
The whole point of the "as a ... I want ... So that ..." Format is to give the developer an insight in to the reason for the requested feature. This should allow them to fill in the gaps in the specifications.
Rather than "make the button red" you would have "as a customer i want the buy button to be red ...
7
The definition of a project in agile terms is no different to that of a project in traditional terms. The difference is how the project is run and executed and the values behind the project.
Common
Both agile projects and traditional projects:
have a start and end
may be constrained by schedule, scope or budget
should be for a single product; (lets not ...
7
TL;DR
Research and science projects are certainly "projects" from a project management perspective. Your friend owes you the socially-appropriate beverage of your choice if you two were betting on the issue.
Defining a Project
Wikipedia defines a project as follows:
In contemporary business and science a project is defined as a collaborative enterprise,...
7
The Product is the thing that you are building, or the service that you offer, or the need that you want to satisfy, or the vision that you have. The Product is first and foremost an idea "to do something". Only then you can you make it happen. And only then you can decide how you will make it happen.
Like putting together a Scrum team, for example. You ...
6
I really love Wikipedia for definitions:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy
In summary: Governance includes everything to rule the project while strategy describes the way to achieve the project's goal.
Having this, the project's governance should support or even follow a strategy in order to achieve the ...
5
According to the PMBOK, a Portfolio is a collection of projects or programs and other work that are grouped together to facilitate effective management of that work. So, with only one project, strictly speaking, you also have one portfolio. Also you probably wouldn't call it that...
Portfolio Management then becomes the centralized management of one or more ...
5
Kanban is a tool to visualize your waste (work in progress) and keep it limited.
If would you like to see a simulation check this presentation that I've written for introducing Kanban
5
Maybe you can go through materials on slide share? There is a new presentation about kanban - kanban in 4 easy steps.
5
Defining "Project" from a Practical Point of View
When I'm speaking as a project manager, a "project" is a formalized process with a defined goal and an attendant methodology. One can argue about how well-defined the goal should be, how formal the process ought to be, or how rigorous the applied methodology may be, but you can cut through a lot of fog by ...
5
The spiral method is one of the proposed solutions to the problems with the waterfall method. It arranges the steps of the waterfall method in a circle. During the first pass a small amount of the project is developed. As the project progresses each of the steps is revisited. Representing percentage complete as distance from the center of the circle ...
5
There is, of course, difference between method and methodology terms, since etymologically methodology is theory of methods.
Saying it simply and not being entirely accurate, a method is a way of doing things, and a methodology is a collection of methods.
Dictionary definitions describe briefly these terms:
methodology: A set of methods, rules, or ideas ...
5
Ask the person asking you.
This advice applies in general - whenever someone uses a term with which you are unfamiliar, ask them what it means.
This carries a slight risk of making you seem ignorant. Which is far better than the large risk involved when making an incorrect assumption, which can end up being costly to the project.
Not to mention, it's ...
4
The spiral model was developed by Barry Boehm in the late 80's in order to introduce risk management and iterations for waterfall based projects. It tried to solve the problems they found with the waterfall approach.
The whole concept of iterations was missing from the early versions of waterfall, although it was clearly stated on the second page of the ...
4
“Contribution Margin” and “Earned Value” examples
Mark covered the concepts well. Here are some examples that might help:
Here is a Contribution Margin example where a company is selling a product for $2.00 each with its variable cost being $0.80 each. During one month the company sells 50,000 units. So the revenue is $100,000, the variable cost is $40,000 ...
4
User stories should be vertical slices that deliver value to an end user. The system is a mindless machine that doesn't care about value so user stories that start with 'as the system' generally will not help you understand why we are doing something from the perspective of the business or a customer.
So there will be stories where you will write 'as the ...
4
While user stories can absolutely be considered a type of requirement, there are distinct differences between user stories and other requirements that I don't see here or in the accepted answer on the Software Engineering site (though it is touched on in other answers).
Most important amongst those differences is the way in which they encourage the team and ...
3
I don't think there is a universally well defined difference, but usually "methodology" is used to mean something bigger, more complex and/or more detailed than "method".
In my experience, Agile folks don't like the term "methodology" much as it has been traditionally associated with complicated, top-down organized, fundamentally un-agile processes like ...
3
Interesting question, I have given it some though now. I think you make one wrong assumption, and that is why you are confused.
First, a very simple and practical, but not fully correct, answer: some sites suggest that model in this would be the same as method (so the first option; e.g. http://istqbexamcertification.com/what-are-the-software-development-...
3
From the experience in my company (which seems to be aligned with the opinions here), a Program Manager is responsible for n Projects managed each by a Project Manager.
Become a Program Manager is the 'career path' for Project Managers (PM).
Some duties I'd list:
Responsible for all non-project-specific paperwork / bureaucratic duties
Responsible for ...
3
It has been my experience that a Project Manager handles one project at a time from beginning to end.
On the other hand, the Program Manager handles multiple simultaneous projects from pre-sales to post sales.
For example, the Program Manager will work with the proposal team as content expert, trying to win the contract. He will be the main or sole ...
3
I'm a bit confused. These terms come from two quite different disciplines.
Contribution Margin is used in management accounting and is the marginal profit per unit of sale. I've never encountered contribution margin in my (admittedly short) career in project management.
Earned Value is a concept that is limited to earned value management, which is very ...
3
User stories are an Agile approach to requirements that emphasise end-user value.
All user stories are written in the language of the end-user such that they can be understood by a non-technical person who will instantly 'get' the value the story delivers.
The reason this is done is that it helps the non-technical end-users understand what progress the ...
3
Yes, as a product owner who writes user stories all the time for a VERY large project that is considered an agile pioneer in our industry, I can say that we would never write "As a system..."
A user story is a story about a user. If you drill down through the logic of why something is needed, there is always a human under there somewhere and that person is ...
3
I don't believe that the two are mutually exclusive. Something can be wasteful to varying degrees and be cautious and be valuable. While not completely subjective, I'm not aware of a particular measurement to indicate that something is wasteful. One definition I saw for waste is: “useless consumption or expenditure; use without adequate return.” In other ...
3
From a great article on the subject at https://theprocessconsultant.com/process-project-even-matter/:
Processes are repeatable. Projects are one-offs. In detail:
Projects are one-offs. At the very least you perform them infrequently. Yes, I know there are such things as project templates. That kind of implies that projects are repeatable. If you are ...
3
It's best to think as user stories as a sub-class of requirements.
IEEE and IIBA both use a three-part definition for what a requirement is:
a condition or capability needed by a user to solve a problem or achieve an objective
a condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to satisfy a contract, standard,...
3
Disclaimer: This comes from my experience on the financial sector. It may or may not be applied to other areas, as some expressions are very common on specific industries but not used in others.
Fire-fighting management.
As described by this hbr.org article, firefighting is the working "model" where
Managers and engineers rush from task to task, not ...
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