Quality & Performance

According to Watts S. Humphrey, an expert on software quality and Fellow at Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute, developers must be responsible for providing error-free code at each stage of testing. Top Management must support developers by letting them self-direct their work. Programmers need to be motivated and exited to do high-quality work and have some control over how they do it. 1

DeMarco and Lister in their study found that there are no correlation between productivity and programming language, years of experience, or salary. Their study showed that providing a dedicated workspace and a quiet work environment were key factors in improving productivity. They suggested that top management must focus on workplace factors to improve productivity. 2

1 Eisenberg, Bart, "Achieving Zero-Defects Software," Pacific Connection ( January 2004)
2. DeMarco, T & T. Listner, Peopleware: Productive projects and Teams. new York: Dorset House, 1087.

Project Management Software

Open Source:

http://www.dotproject.net

http://taskjuggler.org


Low-end:

http://business-spreadsheets.com

Collections:

1. www.projectreference.com : Site created by former Columbia University instructor with lots of great links
2. www.allpm.com : The Project Manager's Resource Center
3. www.4pm.com : Project Management Control Tower
4. www.pmblvd.com : Project Management Boulevard
5. www.tenstep.com : The Tenstep Project Management Process Methodology
6. www.projectsatwork.com : Projects @ Work
7. www.chiefprojectofficer.com : Chief Project Officer
8. www.gantthead.com : Gantthead.com
9. www.pmforum.org : Project Management Forum
10. www.projectnet.co.uk : ProjectNet
11. www.cpbonline.com : The Center for Business Practices
12. www.irnop.org : The International Research Network on Organizing by Projects
13. www.maxwideman.com : Max's Project Management Wisdom
14. www.infogoal.com
    

1.Why selecting a systems development approach is an important business decision? Who should participate in the selection process?

Selecting a system development approach is an important business decision because it can have a big impact on the the time, cost, and end product of the systems development. Depends on the willingness and capability of the organizational change that can be involved in system development different level of risk and return should be taken into consideration. Businesses today required to build applications rapidly to stay competitive. This involves a lot of different departments in requirements gathering and most of cases produces the need of business processes change during identification of pain points and deciding which way to go to resolve problems. Managers should be aware of the different ways of approaches, evaluate and choose the right one depending on the type of organization, it's own resources and desired controls over the process. All stakeholders should participate in the selection process.
During the Business Process Reengineering the first step of identifying which business processes need improvement and have a highest priority requires a strategic analysis and pain points determination by Senior Management. Identifying and describing existing processes, understanding the process costs and process duration bring to the next step of decision how to improve these processes and can involve different layers of organization and even multiple companies if they are part of the shared processes.

2.Some have said that the best way to reduce system development costs is to use application software packages. Do you agree? Why or why not?

If the organization doesn't have internal resources and have pretty standard business processes that can easily be set up in the application software package, it is a good way to go in case of right choice of the best vendor solution. Some vendors are specialize in industry preset solutions for their systems. If organization has an unique requirements, then customizing the packages can be very costly and create a hassle for the future software upgrade and maintenance.

Summary of article The Experience Trap. By: Sengupta, Kishore, Abdel-Hamid, Tarek K., Van Wassenhove, Luk N., Harvard Business Review, 00178012, Feb2008, Vol. 86, Issue 2

“As projects get more complicated, managers stop learning from their experience. It is important to understand how that happens and how to change it.”

The authors of the article made a research on experience-based learning in complex environment. They used a computer-based game to simulate managing a software project from start to finish with a goal to be on time, within budget and with the highest possible quality. In the experiment the simulation games were setup to examine the decision making process of experienced managers in a variety of different context. The results of the experiments showed that managers did not take into account the consequences of their previous decision when they need to make a new decision.

When people make a decision they base on their previous experience and knowledge. In a simple environment cause-and-effect relationships are easy to discover, but on the complex ones, such a software projects, it not always work like that. Authors recognized three causes of the breakdown in the learning and suggested ways for organizations to enable learning form experience in the complex projects.

• Time lags between causes and effects. Example - hiring a new team member during the project creates time lag for hiring and assimilation.

• Fallible estimates. In software project initial estimates usually terns out to be wrong. Managers don't do correction on the productivity estimates during the project.

• Initial goal bias. During the project the scope usually become bigger. Sticking to the initial targets actually create counterproductive outcome.

To fix the experience learning cycle:

• Provide more cognitive feedback.

• Apply model-based decision tools and guidelines.

• Calibrate you forecasting tools to the project.

• Set goals for behavior, not targets for performance

• Develop project “flight simulators”.

Experiments showed that learning on the job will work only in the simple environment, not complicated. Mangers to be successful need to get more formal training and have decision support tools tailored to their specific projects.

Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?

Summary of article Can You Say What Your Strategy Is? By: David J Cillis and Michael G Rukstad , Harvard Business Review, April 2008

A company strategy statement usually can be summarized in 35 words.

A strategy statement identifies the business objective - what the company wants to achieve. It defines the scope of the business - “ the part of the landscape in which the firm will operate”. Competitive advantage of the business is the essence of the statement and has complimentary internal and external components explaining why customers need to choose the company's products and how company will deliver this value proposition to them. These three elements require trade-offs that makes every company unique.

A well designed strategy statement can have a great influence on the company's success.