Software Project Management
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4 Tools to Make a Project Manager’s Job Easier A project manager is responsible for working out all the details of a project. They have to come up with a strategy to work with the team to overcome hurdles in the way of the project’s goals, and they have to accomplish it all without overstepping the budget. Here are four tools that can help keep it all straight. |
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Take Credit for Your Risk Management Activities If you have an important implementation date, early identification of the minimum viable product is a vital risk-management step that helps focus your team’s attention on what's important. Rather than apologizing for intelligent phasing of functionality to manage risk, explain it to stakeholders and take credit. |
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Achieve Success by Joining a Failing Project We all want to be associated with success, so when there’s a failing project, most of us want nothing to do with it. However, if you’re looking for a way to give your career a boost, you may want to rethink that. If you’re not afraid of a challenge, here are some ways embracing a failing project can help your career. |
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The Good, the Practical, and the Expedient When a process isn't working, you'll have to make a choice that will help move things along. However, some choices are less about inspecting and adapting than about getting things done quickly, and that incurs risk. To manage this risk you need to be aware of the differences between "practical" and "expedient." |
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Making Decisions at the Right Level of the Organization Decision-making in a climate of ambiguous responsibility is a no-win situation. If you're in a position of some authority, how can you define exactly what that authority allows in order to better secure sponsor support for your decisions? It involves considering some scenarios and asking the right clarifying questions. |
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5 Common Mistakes Project Managers Should Avoid When you're responsible for leading a new software project, of course it’s impossible to steer clear of every single mistake. But there are plenty of common mistakes project managers fall into that can be easily avoided simply by being mindful of them. Here are five common mistakes PMs make that you should be wary of. |
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“It Was More Complex Than We Thought”: Why Business Analysis Is Essential Many new project fields look simple from a distance because we only see the outputs and interfaces. But corner cases, bad data, users with special needs, regulations—getting inside a new knowledge domain and teasing out the special cases and unhappy paths is a skill. This is why business analysts are so important. |
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Refine Your Product Backlog Continuously to Improve Flow One way to address poorly defined product backlog items is to spend time refining the items as you go. Refining the backlog continuously helps the team deliver consistently and can lead to shorter planning meetings at the start of the sprint. It can even help improve reliability, velocity, and the quality of work. |
