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  • Way to update / refresh / reschedule project plan after adding a vacation / changing calendar

    - by CodeCanvas
    I had created a project plan using MS-Project 2010 (not server). I had set the task schedule mode to "Auto Scheduled" and entered the necessary tasks. Since it is a single person project I also added one person to the Resource of the file and assigned that resource to all the tasks and leveled the project. After the plan was put in and tasks were leveled I figured the calendar was not correctly set (in UAE the weekend is Friday and Saturday instead of Saturday and Sunday). So, I updated the default calendar (Standard) of the project by going to Project-Change Working Time-Work Weeks and changed them as needed. But after doing this, the tasks are still scheduled over Friday and Saturday even though I have marked them as nonworking days in the standard calendar. I tried the following for the tasks to refresh, but I was not successful: Updated all tasks to use the "Standard" calendar in the project Selected option so that tasks do not ignore resource calendars Added a constraint "As Soon As Possible" Executed "Level All" Any help on solving this issue would be much appreciated, thanks in advance.

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  • FilePageSetupHeader in MS Project VBA project: Display image dynamically

    - by Anne Schuessler
    I want to display an image when printing a page from MS Page using the FilePageSetupHeader. It all works fine if I pass in the parameter for the Text property as a string as such FilePageSetupHeader Alignment:=pjRight, Text:="&P""C:\filepath\image.gif""" However, I'd prefer to be able to pass the filepath to the image to display as a variable. Somehow I can't get it right. So if I try something like the following: vImagePath = """&P""""" & prjFilePath & "\image.gif"""""" FilePageSetupHeader Alignment:=pjRight, Text:=vImagePath it just displays the path as a string. I'm pretty sure it boils down to something simple like escaping the quotes in the correct way, but I've been playing around with it for a while now and I can't seem to get it right. Any idea how this works?

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  • PERT shows relationships between defined tasks in a project without taking into consideration a time line

    The program evaluation and review technique (PERT) shows relationships between defined tasks in a project without taking into consideration a time line. This chart is an excellent way to identify dependencies of tasks based on other tasks. This chart allows project managers to identify the critical path of a project to minimize any time delays to the project. According to Craig Borysowich in his article “Pros & Cons of the PERT/CPM Method stated the following advantages and disadvantages: “PERT/CPM has the following advantages: A PERT/CPM chart explicitly defines and makes visible dependencies (precedence relationships) between the WBS elements, PERT/CPM facilitates identification of the critical path and makes this visible, PERT/CPM facilitates identification of early start, late start, and slack for each activity, PERT/CPM provides for potentially reduced project duration due to better understanding of dependencies leading to improved overlapping of activities and tasks where feasible.  PERT/CPM has the following disadvantages: There can be potentially hundreds or thousands of activities and individual dependency relationships, The network charts tend to be large and unwieldy requiring several pages to print and requiring special size paper, The lack of a timeframe on most PERT/CPM charts makes it harder to show status although colors can help (e.g., specific color for completed nodes), When the PERT/CPM charts become unwieldy, they are no longer used to manage the project.” (Borysowich, 2008) Traditionally PERT charts are used in the initial planning of a project like in a project that is utilizing the waterfall approach. Once the chart was created then project managers could further analyze this data to determine the earliest start time for each stage in the project. This is important because this information can be used to help forecast resource needs during a project and where in the project. However, the agile environment can approach this differently because of their constant need to be in contact with the client and the other stakeholders.  The PERT chart can also be used during project iteration to determine what is to be worked on next, such as a prioritized To-Do list a wife would give her husband at the start of a weekend. In my personal opinion, the COTS-centric environment would not really change how a company uses a PERT chart in their day to day work. The only thing I can is that there would be less tasks to include in the chart because the functionally milestones are already completed when the components are purchased. References: http://www.netmba.com/operations/project/pert/ http://web2.concordia.ca/Quality/tools/20pertchart.pdf http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/pros-cons-of-the-pertcpm-method-22221

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  • What is better: set up underestimated or overestimated deadlines?

    - by sergdev
    Suppose you are a project manager. You can estimate an effort in days for specific task for specific developer. After performing estimation you obtain some min and max values. After this you delegate a task to developer. Actually you also set up deadline. Which estimation is better to use when set up deadline: min or max? As I see min estimation can result in stress for developer, max estimation can result in using all the time which is allocated to developer even if task can be complete faster (so called Student syndrome). Which other pros and cons of two approaches? Small clarification: I speak about setting up deadlines for subordinates when delegating the task, NOT for reporting to my boss.

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  • Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project

    Common business drivers that lead to creating and sustaining a project include and are not limited to: cost reduction, increased return on investment (ROI), reduced time to market, increased speed and efficiency, increased security, and increased interoperability. These drivers primarily focus on streamlining and reducing cost to make a company more profitable with less overhead. According to Answers.com cost reduction is defined as reducing costs to improve profitability, and may be implemented when a company is having financial problems or prevent problems. ROI is defined as the amount of value received relative to the amount of money invested according to PayperclickList.com.  With the ever increasing demands on businesses to compete in today’s market, companies are constantly striving to reduce the time it takes for a concept to become a product and be sold within the global marketplace. In business, some people say time is money, so if a project can reduce the time a business process takes it in fact saves the company which is always good for the bottom line. The Social Security Administration states that data security is the protection of data from accidental or intentional but unauthorized modification, destruction. Interoperability is the capability of a system or subsystem to interact with other systems or subsystems. In my personal opinion, these drivers would not really differ for a profit-based organization, compared to a non-profit organization. Both corporate entities strive to reduce cost, and strive to keep operation budgets low. However, the reasoning behind why they want to achieve this does contrast. Typically profit based organizations strive to increase revenue and market share so that the business can grow. Alternatively, not-for-profit businesses are more interested in increasing their reach within communities whether it is to increase annual donations or invest in the lives of others. Success or failure of a project can be determined by one or more of these drivers based on the scope of a project and the company’s priorities associated with each of the drivers. In addition, if a project attempts to incorporate multiple drivers and is only partially successful, then the project might still be considered to be a success due to how close the project was to meeting each of the priorities. Continuous evaluation of the project could lead to a decision to abort a project, because it is expected to fail before completion. Evaluations should be executed after the completion of every software development process stage. Pfleeger notes that software development process stages include: Requirements Analysis and Definition System Design Program Design Program Implementation Unit Testing Integration Testing System Delivery Maintenance Each evaluation at every state should consider all the business drivers included in the scope of a project for how close they are expected to meet expectations. In addition, minimum requirements of acceptance should also be included with the scope of the project and should be reevaluated as the project progresses to ensure that the project makes good economic sense to continue. If the project falls below these benchmarks then the project should be put on hold until it does make more sense or the project should be aborted because it does not meet the business driver requirements.   References Cost Reduction Program. (n.d.). Dictionary of Accounting Terms. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/cost-reduction-program Government Information Exchange. (n.d.). Government Information Exchange Glossary. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from SSA.gov Web site: http://www.ssa.gov/gix/definitions.html PayPerClickList.com. (n.d.). Glossary Term R - Pay Per Click List. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from PayPerClickList.com Web site: http://www.payperclicklist.com/glossary/termr.html Pfleeger, S & Atlee, J.(2009). Software Engineering: Theory and Practice. Boston:Prentice Hall Veluchamy, Thiyagarajan. (n.d.). Glossary « Thiyagarajan Veluchamy’s Blog. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Thiyagarajan.WordPress.com Web site: http://thiyagarajan.wordpress.com/glossary/

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  • Solutions for Project management [closed]

    - by user14416
    The team consists of 3 people. The method of development is Scrum. The language of the project is C++. The project will be under the control of the git system. The start up budget is 0. The following things have to be chosen: Build and Version Numbering Project documentation ( file with the most common info for current stage of the project, which will be changed every time the new version or subversion of the project emerges ) Project management tool ( like Trac or Redmine, I cannot use them, because there is no hosting ) Code documentation ( I consider Doxygen ) The following questions have arisen: What can you add to the above list of the main solutions for project management in the described project? One of three project participants has linux os (No MS Office), one has Windows and MS Office (does not want to use Libre or Open Office), one has Windows, but does not have MS Office. What formats, tools can u suggest using for project documentation? The variant of using online wiki does not fit, it must be files. OneNote mb is a good tool for project management, but because of the reason mentioned above it is not possible. What can you advise? Offer a system for Build and Version Numbering.

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  • Project Server 2010 Beta - can't connect Project client to projects hosted on server

    - by Chris W
    We have a Project 2010 Beta installed on SharePoint 2010 Beta as test set-up whilst we wait for the release versions. Whilst the installation seemed to complete without any issues we're unable to open any projects within the Project 2010 client app. Project pops up an error 'Could not retrieve server initialization data'. My local event logs list some errors from MSSOAP that simply state an unanticipated error occurred during the processing of the request. The server doesn't log any errors. The Sharepoint set up is a farm containing 3 SharePoint servers. I log in to server 'PORTAL' but the Project Server stuff is configured to run on one of the other SharePoint boxes. I presume others have managed to get this working - has anyone got any ideas as to what could be wrong. Everything is patched correctly as far as I can tell.

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  • Is measuring software project metrics popular in todays industry?

    - by Russ K
    I encountered a developer who wanted some outside advice on their teams project. I found out they're developing a huge software suite for the companies executives, project manager and developers that can calculate metrics automatically and graph them per iteration. As a student from a computer science background I know very little on metrics and their importance, but my questions are: Do most companies have some way, doesn't have to be an elegant program, to measure meaningful metrics? Which metrics, single or combined, help you narrow down your projects scope and estimates? As a person who analyzes metrics, how often do you base decisions off of them? IE. Tests failed per week is increasing drastically? Do you feel that the introduction of studying metrics has helped you understand the project better? Not sure why but the developers project intrigued me and I must know more. If y

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  • Drive project success & financial performance with business critical Enterprise Project Portfolio Management

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Oracle Primavera invites you to the first in a series of three webcasts linking Enterprise Project Portfolio Management with enhanced operational performance and better financial results. Few organizations fully understand the impact projects have on their business. Consistently delivering successful projects is vital to the financial success of an asset intensive organization. Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) is not a new concept yet for many organizations it is not considered "business critical". Webcast 1: Plan – Aligning project selection and prioritization with corporate objectives This webcast will look at 2 key questions: Are you aligning portfolio decisions with strategic objectives? How do you effectively measure the success of your portfolio decisions? Hear from Accenture who'll present a compelling case for why asset intensive organizations should consider EPPM as business critical. They'll explore: How technology is being used to enhance project delivery How collaboration enhances delivery performance The major challenges associated with the planning phase of a project Next hear from Geoff Roberts, Industry Strategist from Oracle Primavera. With over 30 years experience in project management/project controls in the construction, utilities and oil & gas sectors, Geoff will investigate how EPPM is a best practice and can support an organization through project selection and prioritization ensuring that decisions are aligned with corporate objectives. Don’t miss out, register today!

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  • What options do individual have to fork a project?

    - by skrco
    Let's assume our example individual has an idea, engagement, ... to fork project. By project I mean any kind of software - thick client, web site, portal, service, driver, plc, ... - anything that can be programmed. Motto of question: What options do our example individual have to fork this project from the early beginning through getting collaborators and users to mature software? Here are the main subquestions: Sandbox phase: Where can he announce his idea and proposal and receive positive/negative critic and feedback? Development phase: Where can he build his team to work on this project? Yet deployed phase: Where can he schedule tasks, assign tickets and bugs to be solved? and the list can go on... What really interests me is the "sandbox phase question".

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  • Safe project development - free repositories

    - by friko
    Some time ago we started a private hobby project. We made a project on javaforge.com, created an svn repository and started developing our app. Right now we are really far with our project, but somehow we never worried if our project is really safe on such free development tool like javaforge ? I mean, what if our project would earn some money and the source code become valuable ? Could it be stolen or could somebody take it over ? We want to be sure that we are not wasting our time and want to be really sure about our project safety. Is it possible to safely develop a project in such free repository ? We would like also to start using redmine, so if you know any safe place for moving our project, please take this under consideration. Thanks a lot.

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  • Assigning resources to MS Project 2007

    - by adam
    Hi, I'm planning a redesign of a site in Project 2007. I have three developers to hand, all with the same skills. There are about 80 templates to be rendered as part of the redesign, and each template has been added as a project task. Each of these tasks can be done by any of the 3 devs, and each will take a day (with a few exceptions). There is no order in which the tasks must be completed, so there are no predecessor rules. I'd like to be able to assign tasks to a 'Developer' resource group, and for Project to see that three tasks can be done at once (as the group has three resources members) and queue the tasks as such. Googling leads me to Team Assignment, but that appears to be part of Project Server. Surely I can do this in standalone Project? Thanks, Adam

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  • The Future of Project Management is Social

    - by Natalia Rachelson
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} A guest post by Kazim Isfahani, Director, Product Marketing, Oracle Rapid Ascent. Breakneck Speed. Lightning Fast. Perhaps even overwhelming. No matter which set of adjectives we use to describe it, social media’s rise into the enterprise mainstream has been unprecedented. Indeed, the big 4 social media powerhouses (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter), have nearly 2 Billion users between them. You may be asking (as you should really) “That’s all well and good for the consumer, but for me at my company, what’s your point? Beyond the fact that I can check and post updates, that is.” Good question, kind sir. Impact of Social and Collaboration on Project Management I’ll dovetail this discussion to the project management realm, since that’s what I’m writing about. Speed is a big challenge for project-driven organizations. Anything that can help speed up project delivery - be it a new product introduction effort or a geographical expansion project - fast is a good thing. So where does this whole social thing fit particularly since there are already a host of tools to help with traditional project execution? The fact is companies have seen improvements in their productivity by deploying departmental collaboration and other social-oriented solutions. McKinsey’s survey on social tools shows we have reached critical scale: 72% of respondents report that their companies use at least one and over 40% say they are using social networks and blogs. We don’t hear as much about the impact of social media technologies at the project and project manager level, but that does not mean there is none. Consider the new hire. The type of individual entering the workforce and executing on projects is a generation of worker expecting visually appealing, easy to use and easy to understand technology meshing hand-in-hand with business processes. Consider the project manager. The social era has enhanced the role that the project manager must play. Today’s project manager must be a supreme communicator, an influencer, a sympathizer, a negotiator, and still manage to keep all stakeholders in the loop on project progress. Social tools play a significant role in this effort. Now consider the impact to the project team. The way that a project team functions has changed, with newer, social oriented technologies making the process of information dissemination and team communications much more fluid. It’s clear that a shift is occurring where “social” is intersecting with project management. The Rise of Social Project Management We refer to the melding of project management and social networking as Social Project Management. Social Project Management is based upon the philosophy that the project team is one part of an integrated whole, and that valuable and unique abilities exist within the larger organization. For this reason, Social Project Management systems should be integrated into the collaborative platform(s) of an organization, allowing communication to proceed outside the project boundaries. What makes social project management "social" is an implicit awareness where distributed teams build connected links in ways that were previously restricted to teams that were co-located. Just as critical, Social Project Management embraces the vision of seamless online collaboration within a project team, but also provides for, (and enhances) the use of rigorous project management techniques. Social Project Management acknowledges that projects (particularly large projects) are a social activity - people doing work with people, for other people, with commitments to yet other people. The more people (larger projects), the more interpersonal the interactions, and the more social affects the project. The Epitome of Social - Fusion Project Portfolio Management If I take this one level further to discuss Fusion Project Portfolio Management, the notion of Social Project Management is on full display. With Fusion Project Portfolio Management, project team members have a single place for interaction on projects and access to any other resources working within the Fusion ERP applications. This allows team members the opportunity to be informed with greater participation and provide better information. The application’s the visual appeal, and highly graphical nature makes it easy to navigate information. The project activity stream adds to the intuitive user experience. The goal of productivity is pervasive throughout Fusion Project Portfolio Management. Field research conducted with Oracle customers and partners showed that users needed a way to stay in the context of their core transactions and yet easily access social networking tools. This is manifested in the application so when a user executes a business process, they not only have the transactional application at their fingertips, but also have things like e-mail, SMS, text, instant messaging, chat – all providing a number of different ways to interact with people and/or groups of people, both internal and external to the project and enterprise. But in the end, connecting people is relatively easy. The larger issue is finding a way to serve up relevant, system-generated, actionable information, in real time, which will allow for more streamlined execution on key business processes. Fusion Project Portfolio Management’s design concept enables users to create project communities, establish discussion threads, manage event calendars as well as deliver project based work spaces to organize communications within the context of a project – all within a secure business environment. We’d love to hear from you and get your thoughts and ideas about how Social Project Management is impacting your organization. To learn more about Oracle Fusion Project Portfolio Management, please visit this link

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  • Presenting agile estimates for Pivotal Tracker project

    - by Tom Styles
    I've been developing for 6-7 years but never in a particularly agile way. With the latest project I'm trying to make our development process more professional, and more agile. We're using Pivotal Tracker to track the project and have gathered some pretty well thought out stories. We're also trying to keep some of our (Prince2/Waterfall mindset) project managers happy. So far I've got them to accept that requirements always change priorities always change some of the requirements won't be delivered if you fix the time scale you should fix the time scale short sprints and regular review is good However they still feel like they need to get a better grip of roughly how much will be delivered within a certain time. I've come up with a spreadsheet to demonstrate what we might expect to get done in a range of 4 different timescales. Questions Are we setting ourselves up to fail Are there better ways to do this

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  • Project-Based ERP - The Evolution of Project Managemen

    Fred Studer speaks with Ray Wang, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research and Ted Kempf, Senior Director for Oracle's Project Management Solutions about trends in the project management market, where enterprise project management is heading in the next 2 - 3 years and highlights from Ray's new line of research on project management solutions.

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  • When row estimation goes wrong

    - by Dave Ballantyne
    Whilst working at a client site, I hit upon one of those issues that you are not sure if that this is something entirely new or a bug or a gap in your knowledge. The client had a large query that needed optimizing.  The query itself looked pretty good, no udfs, UNION ALL were used rather than UNION, most of the predicates were sargable other than one or two minor ones.  There were a few extra joins that could be eradicated and having fixed up the query I then started to dive into the plan. I could see all manor of spills in the hash joins and the sort operations,  these are caused when SQL Server has not reserved enough memory and has to write to tempdb.  A VERY expensive operation that is generally avoidable.  These, however, are a symptom of a bad row estimation somewhere else, and when that bad estimation is combined with other estimation errors, chaos can ensue. Working my way back down the plan, I found the cause, and the more I thought about it the more i came convinced that the optimizer could be making a much more intelligent choice. First step is to reproduce and I was able to simplify the query down a single join between two tables, Product and ProductStatus,  from a business point of view, quite fundamental, find the status of particular products to show if ‘active’ ,’inactive’ or whatever. The query itself couldn’t be any simpler The estimated plan looked like this: Ignore the “!” warning which is a missing index, but notice that Products has 27,984 rows and the join outputs 14,000. The actual plan shows how bad that estimation of 14,000 is : So every row in Products has a corresponding row in ProductStatus.  This is unsurprising, in fact it is guaranteed,  there is a trusted FK relationship between the two columns.  There is no way that the actual output of the join can be different from the input. The optimizer is already partly aware of the foreign key meta data, and that can be seen in the simplifiction stage. If we drop the Description column from the query: the join to ProductStatus is optimized out. It serves no purpose to the query, there is no data required from the table and the optimizer knows that the FK will guarantee that a matching row will exist so it has been removed. Surely the same should be applied to the row estimations in the initial example, right ?  If you think so, please upvote this connect item. So what are our options in fixing this error ? Simply changing the join to a left join will cause the optimizer to think that we could allow the rows not to exist. or a subselect would also work However, this is a client site, Im not able to change each and every query where this join takes place but there is a more global switch that will fix this error,  TraceFlag 2301. This is described as, perhaps loosely, “Enable advanced decision support optimizations”. We can test this on the original query in isolation by using the “QueryTraceOn” option and lo and behold our estimated plan now has the ‘correct’ estimation. Many thanks goes to Paul White (b|t) for his help and keeping me sane through this

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  • How to represent an agile project to people focused on waterfall [closed]

    - by ahsteele
    Our team has been asked to represent our development efforts in a project plan. No one is unhappy with our work or questioning our ability to deliver, we are just participating in an IT cattle call for project plans. Trouble is we are an agile team and haven't thought about our work in terms of a formal project plan. While we have a general idea of what we are working on next we aren't 100% sure until we plan an iteration. Until now our team has largely operated in a vacuum and has not been required to present our methodology or metrics to outside parties. We follow most of the practices espoused in Extreme Programming. We hold quarterly planning meetings to have a general idea of the stories we are going to work on for a quarter. That said, our stories are documented on 3x5 cards and are only estimated at the beginning of the iteration in which they are going to be worked. After estimation we document the story in Team Foundation Sever. During an iteration, we attach code to stories and mark stories as completed once finished. From this data we are able to generate burn down and velocity charts. Most importantly we know our average velocity for an iteration keeping us from biting off more than we can chew. I am not looking to modify the way we do development but want to present our development activities in a report that someone only familiar with waterfall will understand. In What Does an Agile Project Plan Look Like, Kent McDonald does a good job laying out the differences between agile and waterfall project plans. He specifies the differences in consumable bullets: An agile project plan is feature based An Agile Project Plan is organized into iterations An Agile Project Plan has different levels of detail depending on the time frame An Agile Project Plan is owned by the Team Being able to explain the differences is great, but how best to present the data?

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  • Getting your bearings and defining the project objective

    - by johndoucette
    I wrote this two years ago and thought it was worth posting… Some may think this is a daunting task and some may even say “what a waste of time” and want to open MS Project and start typing out tasks because someone asked for an estimate and a task list. Hell, maybe you even use Excel and pump out a spreadsheet with some real scientific formula for guessing how long it will take to code a bunch of classes. However, this short exercise will provide the basis for the entire project, whether small or large and be a great friend when communicating to anyone on your team or even your client. I call this the Project Brief. If you find yourself going beyond a single page, then you must decompose the sections and summarize your findings so there is a complete and clear picture of the project you are working on in a relatively short statement. Here is a great quote from the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) relative to what a project is;   A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. With this in mind, the project brief should encompass the entirety (objective) of the endeavor in its explanation and what it will take (goals) to create the product, service or result (deliverables). Normally the process of identifying the project objective is done during the first stage of a project called the Project Kickoff, but you can perform this very important step anytime to help you get a bearing. There are many more parts to helping a project stay on course, but this is usually the foundation where it can be grounded on. Through a series of 3 exercises, you should be able to come up with the objective, goals and deliverables on your project. Follow these steps, and in no time (about &frac12; hour), you will have the foundation of your project plan. (See examples below) Exercise 1 – Objectives Begin with the end in mind. Think about your project in business terms with a couple things to help you understand the objective; Reference the business benefit in terms of cost, speed and / or quality, Provide a higher level of what the outcome will look like (future sense) It should be non-measurable, that’s what the goals are all about The output should be a single paragraph with three sentences and take 10 minutes to write. *Typically, agreement must be reached on the objectives of the project before you would proceed to the next steps of the project. Exercise 2 – Goals A project goal is a statement that answers questions about who, what, why, where and when. A good project goal statement; Answers the five “W” questions for the project Is measurable in each of its parts Is published and agreed on by all the owners This helps the Project Manager receive confirmation on defining the project target. Using the established project objective done in the first exercise, think about the things it will take to get the job done. Think about tangible activities which are the top level tasks in a typical Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The overall goal statement plus all the deliverables (next exercise) can be seen as the project team’s contract with the project owners. Write 3 - 5 goals in about 10 minutes. You should not write the words “Who, what, why, where and when, but merely be able to answer the questions when you read a goal. Exercise 3 – Deliverables Every project creates some type of output and these outputs are called deliverables. There are two classes of deliverables; Internal – produced for project team members to meet their goals External – produced for project owners to meet their expectations The list you enter here provides a checklist for the team’s delivery and/or is a statement of all the expectations of the project owners. Here are some typical project deliverables; Product and product documentation End product/system Requirements/feature documents Installation guides Demo/prototype System design documents User guides/help files Plans Project plan Training plan Conversion/installation/delivery plan Test plans Documentation plan Communication plan Reports and general documentation Progress reports System acceptance tests Outstanding bug list Procedures Risk and issue logs Project history Deliverables should go with each of the goals. Have 3-5 deliverables for each goal. When you are done, you will have established a great foundation for the clarity of your project. This exercise can take some time, but with practice, you should be able to whip this one out in 10 minutes as well, especially if you are intimate with an ongoing project. Samples  Objective [Client] is implementing a series of MOSS sites to support external public (Internet), internal employee (Intranet) and an external secure (password protected Internet) applications. This project will focus on the public-facing web site and will provide [Client] with architectural recommendations based on the current design being done by their design partner [Partner] and the internal Content Team. In addition, it will provide [Client] with a development plan and confidence they need to deploy a world class public Internet website. Goals 1.  [Consultant] will provide technical guidance and set project team expectations for the implementation of the MOSS Internet site based on provided features/functions within three weeks. 2.  [Consultant] will understand phase 2 secure password-protected Internet site design and provide recommendations.   Deliverables 1.1  Public Internet (unsecure) Architectural Recommendation Plan 1.2  Physical Site construction Work Breakdown Structure and plan (Time, cost and resources needed) 2.1  Two Factor authentication recommendation document   Objective [Client] is currently using an application developed by [Consultant] many years ago called "XXX". This application, although functional, does not meet their new updated business requirements and contains a few defects which [Client] has developed work-around processes. [Client] would like to have a "new and improved" system to support their membership management needs by expanding membership and subscription capabilities, provide accounting integration with internal (GL) and external (VeriSign) systems, and implement hooks to the current CRM solution. This effort will take place through a series of phases, beginning with envisioning. Goals 1. Through discussions with users, [Consultant] will discover current issues/bugs which need to be resolved which must meet the current functionality requirements within three weeks. 2. [Consultant] will gather requirements from the users about what is "needed" vs. "what they have" for enhancements and provide a high level document supporting their needs. 3. [Consultant] will meet with the team members through a series of meetings and help define the overall project plan to deliver a new and improved solution. Deliverables 1.1 Prioritized list of Current application issues/bugs that need to be resolved 1.2 Provide a resolution plan on the issues/bugs identified in the current application 1.3 Risk Assessment Document 2.1 Deliver a Requirements Document showing high-level [Client] needs for the new XXX application. · New feature functionality not in the application today · Existing functionality that will remain in the new functionality 2.2 Reporting Requirements Document 3.1 A Project Plan showing the deliverables and cost for the next (second) phase of this project. 3.2 A Statement of Work for the next (second) phase of this project. 3.3 An Estimate of any work that would need to follow the second phase.

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  • Organizational characteristics that impact the selection of Development Methodology concepts applied to a project

    Based on my experience, no one really follows a specific methodology exactly as it is formally designed. In fact, the key concepts of a few methodologies are usually combined to form a hybrid methodology for each project based on the current organizational makeup and the project need/requirements to be accomplished. Organizational characteristics that impact the selection of methodology concepts applied to a project. Prior subject knowledge pertaining to a project can be critical when deciding on what methodology or combination of methodologies to apply to a project. For example, if a project is very straight forward, and the development staff has experience in developing  that are similar, then the waterfall method could possibly be the best choice because little to no research is needed  in order to complete the project tasks and there is very little need for changes to occur.  On the other hand, if the development staff has limited subject knowledge or the requirements/specification of the project could possibly change as the project progresses then the use of spiral, iterative, incremental, agile, or any combination would be preferred. The previous methodologies used by an organization typically do not change much from project to project unless the needs of a project dictate differently. For example, if the waterfall method is the preferred development methodology then most projects will be developed by the waterfall method. Depending on the time allotted to a project each day can impact the selection of a development methodology. In one example, if the staff can only devote a few hours a day to a project then the incremental methodology might be ideal because modules can be added to the final project as they are developed. On the other hand, if daily time allocation is not an issue, then a multitude of methodologies could work well for a project. Project characteristics that impact the selection of methodology concepts applied to a project. The type of project being developed can often dictate the type of methodology used for the project. Based on my experience, projects that tend to have a lot of user interaction, follow a more iterative, incremental, or agile approach typically using a prototype that develops into a final project. These methodologies desire back and forth communication between users, clients, and developers to allow for requirements to change and functionality to be enhanced. Conversely, limited interaction applications or automated services can still sometimes get away with using the waterfall or transactional approach. The timeline of a project can also force an organization to prefer a particular methodology over the rest. For instance, if the project must be completed within 24 hours, then there is very little time for discussions back and forth between clients, users and the development team. In this scenario, the waterfall method would be perfect because the only interaction with the client occurs prior to a development project to outline the system requirements, and the development team can quickly move through the software development stages in order to complete the project within the deadline. If the team had more time, then the other methodologies could also be considered because there is more time for client and users to review the project and make changes as they see fit, and/or allow for more time to review the project in order to enhance the business performance and functionality. Sometimes the client and or user involvement can dictate the selection of methodologies applied to a project. One example of this is if a client is highly motivated to get a project completed and desires to play an active part in the development process then the agile development approach would work perfectly with this client because it allows for frequent interaction between clients, users and the development team. The inverse of this situation is a client that just wants to provide the project requirements and only wants to get involved when the project is to be delivered. In this case the waterfall method would work well because there is no room for changes and no back and forth between the users, clients or the development team.

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  • Tool to track time estimations vs, actual time

    - by mb1
    Following these two questions: How to respond when asked for Estimate, What's the best project management software for small team I am looking for a tool that combines project management with the ability to plan all tasks for a project, give time estimates and afterwards track actual time spent on items and have comparison between estimate and actual time. I am going to try TargetProcess since I see it has time tracking capabilities. Anyone have a tool they use?

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  • How to Implement Project Type "Copy", "Move", "Rename", and "Delete"

    - by Geertjan
    You've followed the NetBeans Project Type Tutorial and now you'd like to let the user copy, move, rename, and delete the projects conforming to your project type. When they right-click a project, they should see the relevant menu items and those menu items should provide dialogs for user interaction, followed by event handling code to deal with the current operation. Right now, at the end of the tutorial, the "Copy" and "Delete" menu items are present but disabled, while the "Move" and "Rename" menu items are absent: The NetBeans Project API provides a built-in mechanism out of the box that you can leverage for project-level "Copy", "Move", "Rename", and "Delete" actions. All the functionality is there for you to use, while all that you need to do is a bit of enablement and configuration, which is described below. To get started, read the following from the NetBeans Project API: http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/ActionProvider.html http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/CopyOperationImplementation.html http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/MoveOrRenameOperationImplementation.html http://bits.netbeans.org/dev/javadoc/org-netbeans-modules-projectapi/org/netbeans/spi/project/DeleteOperationImplementation.html Now, let's do some work. For each of the menu items we're interested in, we need to do the following: Provide enablement and invocation handling in an ActionProvider implementation. Provide appropriate OperationImplementation classes. Add the new classes to the Project Lookup. Make the Actions visible on the Project Node. Run the application and verify the Actions work as you'd like. Here we go: Create an ActionProvider. Here you specify the Actions that should be supported, the conditions under which they should be enabled, and what should happen when they're invoked, using lots of default code that lets you reuse the functionality provided by the NetBeans Project API: class CustomerActionProvider implements ActionProvider { @Override public String[] getSupportedActions() { return new String[]{ ActionProvider.COMMAND_RENAME, ActionProvider.COMMAND_MOVE, ActionProvider.COMMAND_COPY, ActionProvider.COMMAND_DELETE }; } @Override public void invokeAction(String string, Lookup lkp) throws IllegalArgumentException { if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_RENAME)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultRenameOperation( CustomerProject.this, ""); } if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_MOVE)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultMoveOperation( CustomerProject.this); } if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_COPY)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultCopyOperation( CustomerProject.this); } if (string.equalsIgnoreCase(ActionProvider.COMMAND_DELETE)) { DefaultProjectOperations.performDefaultDeleteOperation( CustomerProject.this); } } @Override public boolean isActionEnabled(String command, Lookup lookup) throws IllegalArgumentException { if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_RENAME))) { return true; } else if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_MOVE))) { return true; } else if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_COPY))) { return true; } else if ((command.equals(ActionProvider.COMMAND_DELETE))) { return true; } return false; } } Importantly, to round off this step, add "new CustomerActionProvider()" to the "getLookup" method of the project. If you were to run the application right now, all the Actions we're interested in would be enabled (if they are visible, as described in step 4 below) but when you invoke any of them you'd get an error message because each of the DefaultProjectOperations above looks in the Lookup of the Project for the presence of an implementation of a class for handling the operation. That's what we're going to do in the next step. Provide Implementations of Project Operations. For each of our operations, the NetBeans Project API lets you implement classes to handle the operation. The dialogs for interacting with the project are provided by the NetBeans project system, but what happens with the folders and files during the operation can be influenced via the operations. Below are the simplest possible implementations, i.e., here we assume we want nothing special to happen. Each of the below needs to be in the Lookup of the Project in order for the operation invocation to succeed. private final class CustomerProjectMoveOrRenameOperation implements MoveOrRenameOperationImplementation { @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyRenaming() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyRenamed(String nueName) throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyMoving() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyMoved(Project original, File originalPath, String nueName) throws IOException { } } private final class CustomerProjectCopyOperation implements CopyOperationImplementation { @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyCopying() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyCopied(Project prjct, File file, String string) throws IOException { } } private final class CustomerProjectDeleteOperation implements DeleteOperationImplementation { @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyDeleting() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyDeleted() throws IOException { } } Also make sure to put the above methods into the Project Lookup. Check the Lookup of the Project. The "getLookup()" method of the project should now include the classes you created above, as shown in bold below: @Override public Lookup getLookup() { if (lkp == null) { lkp = Lookups.fixed(new Object[]{ this, new Info(), new CustomerProjectLogicalView(this), new CustomerCustomizerProvider(this), new CustomerActionProvider(), new CustomerProjectMoveOrRenameOperation(), new CustomerProjectCopyOperation(), new CustomerProjectDeleteOperation(), new ReportsSubprojectProvider(this), }); } return lkp; } Make Actions Visible on the Project Node. The NetBeans Project API gives you a number of CommonProjectActions, including for the actions we're dealing with. Make sure the items in bold below are in the "getActions" method of the project node: @Override public Action[] getActions(boolean arg0) { return new Action[]{ CommonProjectActions.newFileAction(), CommonProjectActions.copyProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.moveProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.renameProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.deleteProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.customizeProjectAction(), CommonProjectActions.closeProjectAction() }; } Run the Application. When you run the application, you should see this: Let's now try out the various actions: Copy. When you invoke the Copy action, you'll see the dialog below. Provide a new project name and location and then the copy action is performed when the Copy button is clicked below: The message you see above, in red, might not be relevant to your project type. When you right-click the application and choose Branding, you can find the string in the Resource Bundles tab, as shown below: However, note that the message will be shown in red, no matter what the text is, hence you can really only put something like a warning message there. If you have no text at all, it will also look odd.If the project has subprojects, the copy operation will not automatically copy the subprojects. Take a look here and here for similar more complex scenarios. Move. When you invoke the Move action, the dialog below is shown: Rename. The Rename Project dialog below is shown when you invoke the Rename action: I tried it and both the display name and the folder on disk are changed. Delete. When you invoke the Delete action, you'll see this dialog: The checkbox is not checkable, in the default scenario, and when the dialog above is confirmed, the project is simply closed, i.e., the node hierarchy is removed from the application. However, if you truly want to let the user delete the project on disk, pass the Project to the DeleteOperationImplementation and then add the children of the Project you want to delete to the getDataFiles method: private final class CustomerProjectDeleteOperation implements DeleteOperationImplementation { private final CustomerProject project; private CustomerProjectDeleteOperation(CustomerProject project) { this.project = project; } @Override public List<FileObject> getDataFiles() { List<FileObject> files = new ArrayList<FileObject>(); FileObject[] projectChildren = project.getProjectDirectory().getChildren(); for (FileObject fileObject : projectChildren) { addFile(project.getProjectDirectory(), fileObject.getNameExt(), files); } return files; } private void addFile(FileObject projectDirectory, String fileName, List<FileObject> result) { FileObject file = projectDirectory.getFileObject(fileName); if (file != null) { result.add(file); } } @Override public List<FileObject> getMetadataFiles() { return new ArrayList<FileObject>(); } @Override public void notifyDeleting() throws IOException { } @Override public void notifyDeleted() throws IOException { } } Now the user will be able to check the checkbox, causing the method above to be called in the DeleteOperationImplementation: Hope this answers some questions or at least gets the discussion started. Before asking questions about this topic, please take the steps above and only then attempt to apply them to your own scenario. Useful implementations to look at: http://kickjava.com/src/org/netbeans/modules/j2ee/clientproject/AppClientProjectOperations.java.htm https://kenai.com/projects/nbandroid/sources/mercurial/content/project/src/org/netbeans/modules/android/project/AndroidProjectOperations.java

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  • Best techniques for estimation

    - by viswanathan
    What are the possible techniques to arrive at a good estimate? We use Delphi estimation technique for estimating tasks. What are the other better ways to do so? Also what would be the do's and dont's while giving an estimate.

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  • Handling inconcistent resource availability in Project 2007

    - by Lachlan McDonald
    Afternoon all, I have four resources; a project manager, and three developers. The project manager can work anywhere from 9 to 5pm each day, but only for a total of 10 hours per week. It doesn't matter when he works, as long as he isn't over-allocated 10 hours per week. The developers on the other hand can only work up to 2 hours per day, for a total of 10 hours per week. If they work more than 2 hours in a day, they are over-allocated. How do I best configure Project to handle this kind of scheduling requirement?

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  • Print Microsoft Project chart as giant PDF

    - by Eric
    Hi, I have Adobe's PDF creator installed and I'm using Microsoft Project 2007... I want to print my gantt chart as one giant single-page PDF. (Currently it's set to print on letter sized paper, and it's six pages in a 3x2 layout.) I can't figure out where or how to make those settings. The PDF page setup doesn't seem to be right, nor "page setup" in Project. Help :-)

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  • How do I (tactfully) tell my project manager or lead developer that the project's codebase needs serious work?

    - by Adam Maras
    I just joined a (relatively) small development team that's been working on a project for several months, if not a year. As with most developer joining a project, I spent my first couple of days reviewing the project's codebase. The project (a medium- to large-sized ASP.NET WebForms internal line of business application) is, for lack of a more descriptive term, a disaster. There are three immediately noticeable problems with the coding standards: The standard is very loose. It describes more of what not to do (don't use Hungarian notation, etc..) than what to do. The standard isn't always followed. There are inconsistencies with the code formatting everywhere. The standard doesn't follow Microsoft's style guidelines. In my opinion, there's no value in deviating from the guidelines that were set forth by the developer of the framework and the largest contributor to the language specification. As for point 3, perhaps it bothers me more because I've taken the time to get my MCPD with a focus on web applications (specifically, ASP.NET). I'm also the only Microsoft Certified Professional on the team. Because of what I learned in all of my schooling, self-teaching, and on-the-job learning (including my preparation for the certification exams) I've also spotted several instances in the project's code where things are simply not done in the best way. I've only been on this team for a week, but I see so many issues with their codebase that I imagine I'll be spending more time fighting with what's already written to do things in "their way" than I would if I were working on a project that, for example, followed more widely accepted coding standards, architecture patterns, and best practices. This brings me to my question: Should I (and if so, how do I) propose to my project manager and team lead that the project needs to be majorly renovated? I don't want to walk into their office, waving my MCTS and MCPD certificates around, saying that their project's codebase is crap. But I also don't want to have to stay silent and have to write kludgey code atop their kludgey code, because I actually want to write quality software and I want the end product to be stable and easily maintainable.

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