Virtual Project Management: Software Solutions for Today and the Future

From the Publisher: This book explores the technical-management issues involved in moving to a revolutionary new way of building complex software intensive systems faster and cheaper by employing the power of distributed operations. Author Paul McMahon examines implementation issues that cut deep inside present day collocated engineering organizations and recommends practical and affordable actions that can be taken to aid organizations seeking increased productivity through distributed operations. Who the book is for? This book was written for busy project leaders and project engineers (first and second level engineering managers, senior project engineers, and project managers) who know the fundamentals of project management, but don't yet know the underlying root causes of—nor the solutions to—many of the difficult issues being faced today on virtual collaborative projects. It will be useful to anyone interested in understanding the impacts on software-intensive projects when multiple organizations and/or multiple sites are involved. The author assumes you are familiar with traditional software management issues faced on large-scale projects. Specifically, what problems will this book help the reader solve? Through this book you will gain insight into how virtual collaborative projects differ from traditional collocated projects. You will learn about a fundamental dilemma faced by project leaders on almost all collaborative efforts. You will understand: *A major cause of remote tasking miscommunication and an effective and easy-to-implement technique to remedy it *Critical rules to avoid the most common pitfalls applying virtual communication technologies (e-mail, teleconferencing) *Advantages and disadvantages of varying approaches to work split *A technique to allow sites at different process maturity levels to operate effectively together *A method to reduce the cost of project-unique process tailoring for virtual collaborative efforts *A strategy to handle site-unique infrastructure issues *An 8-step plan to systematically set up and execute a virtual collaborative project avoiding 11 common pitfalls *A method to construct a practical product-oriented "virtual" culture based on real project experience which includes templates, forms, criteria, warning signs, checklists, and rules. Organization of this book This book is organized into seven sections (introduction, overview, traditional collocated environments, tales, 8 step plan, conclusion, and appendices). The introduction characterizes the types of projects where the issues that are the subject of this book were first observed. Other topics include fundamental effects of virtual collaboration on productivity, why you should care about virtual projects, and specifically how this book can help you.Few busy project leaders have the time to wade through the details in a book of this size. With this in mind, an overview section is included. It was the last section of the book to be written, and it presents in summary form the key points that are most important for virtual project leaders to know. This includes the identification of 11 common virtual project pitfalls, and 14 recommendations. The overview is based on an 8 step practical and affordable plan that can be used as a framework in either setting up and executing a new virtual project, or in instituting improvements to a project that has drifted off course. — Chapter 1 focuses on critical characteristics underlying how work actually gets accomplished in traditional collocated engineering environments. This chapter is based on the premise that to fully comprehend the changes taking place in advanced distributed operations today requires first a deeper understanding of our past collocated successes. — The next five chapters examine the changes taking place on virtual projects through a series of tales based on real project experiences. These experiences occurred—for the most part—between 1994 and 2000. Observations, analysis and insights are included, along with recommended solutions to common pitfalls. — Chapter 7 synthesizes the results of the previous chapters, and provides greater depth on the 8-step plan discussed in the overview. — In Chapter 8—the conclusion—we return to productivity, reminding the reader of the goals discussed in the introduction. Key points are summarized and a discussion on what the reader should do next to get a new virtual project going, or to initiate focused improvements to an on-going one. A number of appendices are provided with supporting information. Thirty-four (34) specific virtual project insights and fifty (50) specific solutions are highlighted within Chapters 1 through 8 and summarized in Appendix L. We recommend that busy leaders also read the Frequently Asked Questions provided in Appendix J. — While this is not a methodology book, its recommendations are consistent with current system and software thinking. The solutions offered are supported by references to published works by recognized experts in related fields. — If you are facing a software-intensive project that involves multiple organizations and/or multiple sites—and indications are that more and more companies will be doing so in the future-then this book can help you get your project moving in the right direction avoiding many of the most common pitfalls encountered by others.