Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Member You - Project Management - The Traveling Product Manager
When a merchant signs a contract with a credit card processing provider, said business owner must indicate the anticipated monthly volume, average ticket and highest ticket. Invariably, merchants (especially new ones), have an exceedingly difficult time with this speculation process. It’s not easy forecasting one’s volume of business, let alone how much will be secured through the use of credit cards.Despite the arduous task of predicting limits, it is always best to OVER-estimate the volume. While the merchant needs to use reasonable
Week 5: Our Product Manager was scheduled to come back from Europe this week, but a major sales opportunity presented itself in Brazil, so he's off once more. Since the project has already used up 16 person-months, Red desperately needs to determine which features are not going to make it in the product. He asks around for feedback, and everyone has a different opinion. Red therefore decides
The game of chess has been applauded and taught in business school as a game that gingers creative intelligence.Chess is a game involving kings, queens, bishops, knights, castles, and pawns like a real life. The pawns (also called soldiers) advance first, lead or supported by officers all to fight and protect the king. It is like fighting a real war similar indeed to fighting or capturing business competitors, employees, or customers. The only difference is that at the end it is only a game.Chess like every other game is intellectu
Although the above statement sounds exceedingly obvious, the fact of the matter is many software projects lack customer input. Consider the following example:
Week 0: Red, our friendly project mangler, is in charge of the next release of his organization's flagship product. For the past 3 months, Product Management has been meeting with existing and potential customers to determine which incremental features should be added to the existing release. After gathering those requirements, the one and only Product Manager wrote an SRS (Software Requirements Specification) that has now been handed over to Red.
Week 1: After reviewing the SRS, Product Development's first cut of the project estimates it will take between 30 to 34 person-months to meet all of the requirements. Red's budget only accounts for 25 person-months.
Week 2: Red's top priority is to scrub the requirements. Unfortunately, the Product Manager, who just ramped up a hard 3 months, took a well-deserved vacation. He'll be back in 1 week. To get his team going, Red decides to prioritize the requirements himself and cut a few features that he doesn't feel are necessary.
Week 3: Another week has gone by and the Product Manager is back from his vacation, well rested. After spending most of the day going through his inbox, he stumbles across an email from Red informing him that the I18N feature will not make it in this release given the budget constraints. The Product Manager is fuming. “This feature has been committed to a customer and MUST be in the product!” On this note, he leaves for Europe to meet with a huge potential customer.
Week 4: Red is still over budget, and needs to add I18N back in the product. The Product Manager made it very clear that I18N was expected by a customer, but didn't explain which other features were of lesser priority. Red hopes that he can settle everything when the Product Manager comes back from Europe early next week.
Week 5: Our Product Manager was scheduled to come back from Europe this week, but a major sales opportunity presented itself in Brazil, so he's off once more. Since the project has already used up 16 person-months, Red desperately needs to determine which features are not going to make it in the product. He asks around for feedback, and everyone has a different opinion. Red therefore decides
Even if most of your employees want to adopt the principles of 5S, active participation and total involvement in the program is the key to its successful implementation.If you do it right, you will not just benefit from smooth-running business operations, but also having highly-motivated employees eager to continue on with the change process.So how could 5S be effectively implemented? Based on my experience, the following steps are the key treads that would best guarantee the successful 5S implementation:1. C
Week 1: After reviewing the SRS, Product Development's first cut of the project estimates it will take between 30 to 34 person-months to meet all of the requirements. Red's budget only accounts for 25 person-months.
Week 2: Red's top priority is to scrub the requirements. Unfortunately, the Product Manager, who just ramped up a hard 3 months, took a well-deserved vacation. He'll be back in 1 week. To get his team going, Red decides to prioritize the requirements himself and cut a few features that he doesn't feel are necessary.
Week 3: Another week has gone by and the Product Manager is back from his vacation, well rested. After spending most of the day going through his inbox, he stumbles across an email from Red informing him that the I18N feature will not make it in this release given the budget constraints. The Product Manager is fuming. “This feature has been committed to a customer and MUST be in the product!” On this note, he leaves for Europe to meet with a huge potential customer.
Week 4: Red is still over budget, and needs to add I18N back in the product. The Product Manager made it very clear that I18N was expected by a customer, but didn't explain which other features were of lesser priority. Red hopes that he can settle everything when the Product Manager comes back from Europe early next week.
Week 5: Our Product Manager was scheduled to come back from Europe this week, but a major sales opportunity presented itself in Brazil, so he's off once more. Since the project has already used up 16 person-months, Red desperately needs to determine which features are not going to make it in the product. He asks around for feedback, and everyone has a different opinion. Red therefore decides
I received a postcard from my local Infinity dealer. The card offered a set of cut crystal and a chance to win a new Infinity if I stopped in during their Grand Opening Sale. It appeared that somebody took some time to plan a classy sales event. Like you though, I generally toss this type of solicitation instantly. But for some reason I kept the card and visited the dealership.The morning I visited the dealer, there was not a sales person to be found. Was I surprised; my expectation was to be met with open arms by a sales person expanding
Week 2: Red's top priority is to scrub the requirements. Unfortunately, the Product Manager, who just ramped up a hard 3 months, took a well-deserved vacation. He'll be back in 1 week. To get his team going, Red decides to prioritize the requirements himself and cut a few features that he doesn't feel are necessary.
Week 3: Another week has gone by and the Product Manager is back from his vacation, well rested. After spending most of the day going through his inbox, he stumbles across an email from Red informing him that the I18N feature will not make it in this release given the budget constraints. The Product Manager is fuming. “This feature has been committed to a customer and MUST be in the product!” On this note, he leaves for Europe to meet with a huge potential customer.
Week 4: Red is still over budget, and needs to add I18N back in the product. The Product Manager made it very clear that I18N was expected by a customer, but didn't explain which other features were of lesser priority. Red hopes that he can settle everything when the Product Manager comes back from Europe early next week.
Week 5: Our Product Manager was scheduled to come back from Europe this week, but a major sales opportunity presented itself in Brazil, so he's off once more. Since the project has already used up 16 person-months, Red desperately needs to determine which features are not going to make it in the product. He asks around for feedback, and everyone has a different opinion. Red therefore decides
Management or Leadership?Simply stated, management ensures that things get done, in accordance with accepted policies, based on the reality of a situation. It involves deciding the how, and the when and often the who. The who can be a cross-over factor in the initial stages. It is doing it right, creating process and systems and insuring efficiency. A manager manages both the process and records the efficiency of the individual’s performance within the process.Leadership revolves around concepts, ideas and effectiveness, enunci
Week 4: Red is still over budget, and needs to add I18N back in the product. The Product Manager made it very clear that I18N was expected by a customer, but didn't explain which other features were of lesser priority. Red hopes that he can settle everything when the Product Manager comes back from Europe early next week.
Week 5: Our Product Manager was scheduled to come back from Europe this week, but a major sales opportunity presented itself in Brazil, so he's off once more. Since the project has already used up 16 person-months, Red desperately needs to determine which features are not going to make it in the product. He asks around for feedback, and everyone has a different opinion. Red therefore decides
You have a great month and make more than you thought possible, but the next month your sales are much lower and by the third month they are almost non existent. What happened and how on earth do you survive this situation?First of all congratulations on your big sales figures. Do you know why this happened? Did you have a good marketing campaign going on at the time or maybe a lot of referrals. If you don’t know make sure you put a tracking system in place so that you do know why in the future?* Were the sales for the item?res were of lesser priority. Red hopes that he can settle everything when the Product Manager comes back from Europe early next week.
Week 5: Our Product Manager was scheduled to come back from Europe this week, but a major sales opportunity presented itself in Brazil, so he's off once more. Since the project has already used up 16 person-months, Red desperately needs to determine which features are not going to make it in the product. He asks around for feedback, and everyone has a different opinion. Red therefore decides to loosen some of the requirements related to performance. “The system might not respond quickly, but at least all of the features will work.”
Week 6: The Product Manager comes back from Brazil. He finally gets to meet with Red and the rest of the R&D team. He informs them that it's critical the system meets the performance requirements. However, the Reporting and the SSO features, which were respectively sized at 2 and 3 person-months each, are not required in this release of the product and can be rescheduled for the next release. The lead developers working on these features inform them they were both were completed a week ago.
I don't think I need to describe the rest of this project. But in case you haven't guessed, it was late and over budget.
If you were to ask this Product Manager whether or not he involved the customer in the project, his answer would be “Absolutely! I spent 3 months gathering requirements and writing an SRS.” But where was the customer feedback when the SRS needed to be scrubbed? And where was the Product Manager when Red and the R&D team needed questions answered regarding the list of features?
In a Hundred Words or Less
Gathering feedback to write your SRS is a great start to involving the customer in your project, but you can't stop there. If your user input stops when Product Management prints out the SRS, you're in trouble!
Involving the customer means having the customer or his proxy (e.g. the Product Manager) available at all times. If you truly believe that involving customers increases the likelihood that your product will meet customer requirements, make sure they are involved throughout the project, not just in the Definition phase.
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.memberyou.net/article/24200/memberyou-Project-Management--The-Traveling-Product-Manager.html">Project Management - The Traveling Product Manager</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.memberyou.net/article/24200/memberyou-Project-Management--The-Traveling-Product-Manager.html]Project Management - The Traveling Product Manager[/url]
Related Articles:
Holistic Recruiting – A New Age For HR Specialists & Executives
Understanding Financial Statements: The Balance Sheet
Bookmark it:
|