Joshua:
If scope creep at the end of a project is unavoidable, how do you prevent it from affecting killing your budget, torpedoing your launch, and making your developers hate you for dumping an eighty-hour task on them the week before launch?
Joel:
As a project manager, I’ve definitely been in situations where clients ask for features that are out of scope. Often they’re responding to internal pressure that wasn’t initially part of our kick-off discussions - and so our Agile processes typically provides us the flexibility to have a conversation about these new features; perhaps we can re-prioritize, trade like for like on value, or simply agree to add the features as well as budget & timeline.
Rich:
It’s no surprise to anyone that software project managers dislike firm fixed price contracts. As many others have noted, firm fixed price contracts are typically accompanied by an expectation of fixed scope by the customer as well. In a world where estimates are notoriously uncertain to begin with, if there is no room to move on scope, the software team is “boxed in”, producing code that tends to veer dangerously away from the best value and quality.
Rich:
There is lots of talk about iterations in the world of Agile Software. What does it all mean? Read this post to find out.
Rich:
Unlike many other goods and services, the process of estimating software cost is uniquely difficult. In this post, I’ll address some of the factors that contribute to this difficulty and make some recommendations on how to mitigate the risk of your project going over budget.
Rich:
What could be so dangerous about planning, you ask? Most project managers see planning as the first and most helpful step they can take towards getting their projects off on the right foot. Yet, in the process of planning, PMs often miss the forest for the trees. Forgetting to re-plan your project, missing the business case, or building a project plan that is too complicated for the effort it is meant to support can doom your plans to failure. In this blog entry, I’ll talk a bit about each of these risks, and how to avoid them.
