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“So, How’s It Going?” Thoughts on Reporting Project Progress People near the top of your org chart often want project status updates to be short and sweet. But oversimplified measures risk miscommunication. Be thoughtful when someone asks, “So, how’s it going?” If you summarize too much, you can lose context, and these managers may feel misled later. |
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The Abstraction Problem As technical people, when we give too much information in a project status meeting, we can overwhelm managers. Worse, if we don’t answer the implied question ("When is this thing going to be done?"), the managers will get answers elsewhere. Read on for ideas to get you speaking the same language. |
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The Typical Project Over Time: A Long-Term Trends Report What does a typical software project look like, and how has what’s “typical” changed over time? QSM segmented more than 10,000 completed IT projects and looked at several software development metrics for each ten-year time period. |
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How Do Innovative Companies Run Their Meetings? How much do unproductive meetings cost? Approximately 11 million meetings happen in the US every day, and employees lose approximately four work days each month due to unproductive meetings. So what can some of the best run companies teach us about effectively running meetings? |
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What's in the Winter 2015 Issue of Better Software Magazine? Many of us spend more time (and money) beefing up our technical skills when we could use guidance on developing soft skills. The Winter 2015 issue of Better Software should have just what you need to overcome organizational roadblocks in your quest for agile nirvana. Read on to see what's in it. |
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What Do You Do on a Snow Day? Extreme weather happens, and it can make getting into the office difficult (or impossible). Do you try to collaborate remotely? What if everyone else is taking the day off? If you still want to get some work done (instead of building snowmen), here are some perfect tasks you can do on your own. |
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Goals Are Good, but Adaptation Is Often Better Setting goals is admirable. But in doing so, you can't neglect the possibility of change. What good is achieving your goals if they became irrelevant or the assumptions behind them were incorrect in the first place? It's smarter to focus on the ultimate outcome you want, not just compliance to plan. |
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Long-Term Trends: Project Schedule and Productivity on the Decline QSM recently completed an analysis of how project schedule has changed over time and the subsequent impact on effort and productivity. The results indicate that project size, effort, and productivity have all decreased over time. This story explores the findings and shares some related observations. |