Manage It

Contents......Page 7
Foreword......Page 12
Preface......Page 14
Define Projects and Project Managers......Page 17
Manage Your Drivers, Constraints, and Floats......Page 19
Discuss Your Project Constraints with Your Client or Sponsor......Page 22
Decide on a Driver for Your Project......Page 23
Manage Sponsors Who Want to Overconstrain Your Project......Page 25
Write a Project Charter to Share These Decisions......Page 27
Know What Quality Means for Your Project......Page 30
Start the Wheels Turning......Page 33
Plan Just Enough to Start......Page 34
Develop a Project Plan Template......Page 35
Define Release Criteria......Page 42
Use Release Criteria......Page 47
Understanding Project Life Cycles......Page 50
Overview of Life Cycles......Page 51
Seeing Feedback in the Project......Page 55
Larger Projects Might Have Multiple Combinations of Life Cycles......Page 56
Managing Architectural Risk......Page 60
Paddling Your Way Out of a Waterfall......Page 62
My Favorite Life Cycles......Page 63
Pragmatic Approaches to Project Scheduling......Page 64
Select from These Scheduling Techniques......Page 66
Start Scheduling with a Low-Tech Tool......Page 69
Pragmatic Approaches to Project Estimation......Page 77
Milestones Define Your Project's Chunks......Page 91
Estimating with Multitasking......Page 93
Scheduling People to Multitask by Design......Page 94
Using Rolling-Wave Scheduling......Page 95
Deciding on an Iteration Duration......Page 96
Estimating Using Inch-Pebbles Wherever Possible......Page 98
Bring Me a Rock......Page 101
Hope Is Our Most Important Strategy......Page 104
Queen of Denial......Page 106
Sweep Under the Rug......Page 109
Happy Date......Page 111
Pants on Fire......Page 113
Split Focus......Page 115
Schedule Equals Commitment......Page 117
We'll Know Where We Are When We Get There......Page 119
The Schedule Tool Is Always Right......Page 121
We Gotta Have It; We're Toast Without It......Page 124
We Can't Say No......Page 126
Schedule Chicken......Page 128
90% Done......Page 129
We'll Go Faster Now......Page 131
Schedule Trance......Page 133
Recruit the People You Need......Page 135
Help the Team Jell......Page 137
Make Your Organization Work for You......Page 140
Know How Large a Team You Need......Page 143
Become a Great Project Manager......Page 145
Know When It's Time to Leave......Page 148
Steer the Project with Rhythm......Page 156
Conduct Interim Retrospectives......Page 157
Rank the Requirements......Page 158
Timebox Requirements Work......Page 161
Timebox Iterations to Four or Fewer Weeks......Page 164
Use Rolling-Wave Planning and Scheduling......Page 165
Create a Cross-Functional Project Team......Page 168
Select a Life Cycle Based on Your Project's Risks......Page 169
Keep Reasonable Work Hours......Page 170
Use Inch-Pebbles......Page 171
Manage Interruptions......Page 172
Manage Defects Starting at the Beginning of the Project......Page 174
Adopt or Adapt Continuous Integration for Your Project......Page 179
Create Automated Smoke Tests for the Build......Page 181
Implement by Feature, Not by Architecture......Page 182
Get Multiple Sets of Eyes on Work Products......Page 187
Plan to Refactor......Page 188
Utilize Use Cases, User Stories, Personas, and Scenarios to Define Requirements......Page 190
Separate GUI Design from Requirements......Page 191
Use Low-Fidelity Prototyping as Long as Possible......Page 192
Cancel These Meetings......Page 194
Conduct These Types of Meetings......Page 197
Release Planning Meetings......Page 198
Status Meetings......Page 199
Reporting Status to Management......Page 204
Project Team Meetings......Page 205
Troubleshooting Meetings......Page 206
Manage Conference Calls with Remote Teams......Page 208
Measurements Can Be Dangerous......Page 212
Measure Progress Toward Project Completion......Page 215
Develop a Project Dashboard for Sponsors......Page 238
Use a Project Weather Report......Page 241
Managing Multisite Projects......Page 246
What Does a Question Cost You?......Page 247
Identify Your Project's Cultural Differences......Page 248
Build Trust Among the Teams......Page 249
Use Complementary Practices on a Team-by-Team Basis......Page 252
Look for Potential Multisite Project and Multicultural Problems......Page 260
Avoid These Mistakes When Outsourcing......Page 262
Start People with a Mind-Set Toward Reducing Technical Debt......Page 265
Reduce Risks with Small Tests......Page 266
TDD Is the Easiest Way to Integrate Testing into Your Project......Page 267
Use a Wide Variety of Testing Techniques......Page 270
Define Every Team Member's Testing Role......Page 273
What's the Right Developer-to-Tester Ratio?......Page 277
Define a Test Strategy for Your Project......Page 283
System Test Strategy Template......Page 284
There's a Difference Between QA and Test......Page 286
When Your Project Is a Program......Page 288
Organizing Multiple Related Projects into One Release......Page 289
Organizing Multiple Related Projects Over Time......Page 291
Managing Project Managers......Page 294
Creating a Program Dashboard......Page 296
Managing Requests for Early Release......Page 298
Managing Beta Releases......Page 299
When You Know You Can't Meet the Release Date......Page 300
Shepherding the Project to Completion......Page 308
Canceling a Project......Page 312
Build the Portfolio of All Projects......Page 315
Evaluate the Projects......Page 317
Rank-Order the Portfolio......Page 318
Start Projects Faster......Page 319
Manage the Demand for New Features with a Product Backlog......Page 321
Troubleshoot Portfolio Management......Page 323
Serial Life Cycle: Waterfall or Phase-Gate......Page 330
Iterative Life Cycle: Spiral, Evolutionary Prototyping, Unified Process......Page 334
Incremental Life Cycle: Staged Delivery, Design to Schedule......Page 338
Agile Life Cycles......Page 339
Glossary of Terms......Page 343
Bibliography......Page 345
C......Page 350
E......Page 351
L......Page 352
P......Page 353
R......Page 355
S......Page 356
T......Page 357
Y......Page 358