Software development blunders…..not re-phasing / re-scheduling project tasks…..

It is a common scenario, where in you are into the development phase and you find you are lagging behind on development schedule or implementation schedule for a phase. And in such cases most common mistake made by project managers is “not revising the project tasks and / or priority of pending tasks”.

The outcome of such a scene results in:

  1. The phase getting prolonged more than required
  2. The prolonged tasks does not necessarily involve the whole of team, and in such case the team members who are not involved gets dragged along (doing nothing) with the prolonged phase
  3. Team starts loosing focus on the project
  4. And not to mention, the rest lined up tasks gets delayed as well and ultimately the whole of the project

How can such cases be handled:

  1. The team members involved in the the prolonged tasks should be separated from the rest team and should be allowed to stay focused on the task
  2. Rest of the team should move on with the rest of the tasks / phases of the project
  3. The prolonged tasks should be re-prioritized if not important, I.e should be made part of some other phase of the project wherein it can be given more efforts
  4. Every effort should be made, not to drag the whole team (and / or other involved 3rd party vendors) in prolonged phases, this definitely helps in project cost control.

There would be some cases wherein such tasks are tightly linked with the rest of the tasks, but for project managers who are focused on moving, there is always a as way out:

  1. Rethink the solutions as a whole (there is always more than one way of doing things)
  2. Get experts involved
  3. Get the risk management plan in place (if designed and available)
  4. and many more…..

Over all, the focus should be not to loose team integrity, project goal and timely delivery. You might end up loosing control over the cost up to an extent, but at the same time, you will loose total control over the cost as far as project overrun is concerned, if such proactive approach is not considered.

“Re-phasing / Re-scheduling” has equal importance on Product development as well as Product implementation.

May 19, 2007 · Rahul Desai · No Comments
Posted in: Project Management, Software Engineering

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