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Best practices for project management from http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20060814/technologylife03.shtml G P Sudhakar explains why project management skills are different from technical skills There are few billion dollar corporations in the Indian IT industry. Our IT services firms are moving up in the value chain. Their services have moved from manpower supply to providing offshore product development and maintenance facilities. Many Indian IT companies have championed product maintenance, design, coding, support and testing. Few became successful in product development. How many have championed in project management area? Did we reach maturity level in project management? Where do we stand in project management area in the IT world? Do we have successful project management methodologies in our organisations? What is the awareness of team members and other stakeholders about project management? These questions need careful thinking. We have concentrated on coding and product supporting areas and have championed it. We are one of the recognisable countries in the world in offshore support and maintenance area. Project management area is not focussed upon by many Indian IT software houses. We are concentrating only on the deliverables. Also what we are looking at is did we deliver on time, within the budget and as per quality. We are ignoring how we delivered it? Here project management comes into the picture. Identification of stakeholders Changes in requirements are very common in projects in our industry. The offshore project manager should identify the stakeholders and try to communicate with them. He should find out their needs, wants and expectations. If this step is clear, there are going to be a few changes to the requirements. Sometimes the offshore team is not having access to the end users who are the main stakeholders in the project. This is another reason for changes to requirements. Project organisation structure What is the project organisation structure? What is the role of the project manager? Does he need the technical skills along with team members? Let us think a few moments about these questions. The answer to the last question is “No”. According to PMI (Project Management Institute), USA’s A Guide to PMBOK (Project Management Body Of Knowledge), the project manager need not have the technical skills like his team members. The project manager in the construction industry should be able to work as a project manager in the IT industry or in the pharmaceutical sector. What the manager needs is project management and general management skills in addition to communication, negotiation, leadership and decision-making skills. Is this happening in the Indian IT industry? While recruiting project managers a lot of importance is given to his technical skills like C++ and Java instead of the actual project management skills. Project managers in the US change industries from IT to construction and vice versa, which is rarely happening in India. Also in the Indian IT industry the best performing programmer is getting the progression as a project leader or a manager. Because he is good in programming, he is being promoted. He may not be good in project management because it requires entirely different skill sets. Project management should be treated as a separate stream. The project organisation structure is very important in making a project success or failure. In some organisations the project manager has the responsibility of managing the project and also the technical expertise of the deliverable. If the team size is more than six, it is better to make the project manager concentrate on project management and people management, the tech lead should provide technical expertise to the project. It is happening in product development companies like IBM, Siemens and Interwoven. Very few software services companies are having this kind of project organisation. If the team size is large, the project manager will not have the time to concentrate on technical issues.
Let him focus on people and project issues and provide a tech lead for technical matters
Many IT services firms do not even have separate tech leads for their projects. Either the project manger or the project leader is responsible for technicalities of the project. If the team size is large, the project manager will not have the time to concentrate on the technical issues, he will be busy with people issues. Let him concentrate on people and project issues and provide a tech lead for technical skills purpose. This really helps the process in delivering the product. Project management methodologies Project Management Institute (PMI), US has a well-defined Guide to PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge). It is the ANSI standard for Project Management. PRINCE 2 (PRojects IN Controlled Environment) is the project management methodology from UK. PMI, US has certifications for individuals such as CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) and PMP (Project Management Professional). It is also coming up with a new certification for Program Management. PMI, US has a product called OPM3 (Organisational Project Management Maturity Model). Using OPM3, organisations can measure their capability in project management. People management One area of improvement is sensitivity towards team members. There should be a proper reward and recognition system in the project. Salary and perks are not motivators for the employees. The work and responsibilities are the real motivators for them. Awards like ‘team member of the month’ hurts instead of improving team performance. Avoiding long working hours leads to stability in employees and reduces the attrition rate. These are some of the best practices followed in top international organisations. If we also follow these best practices in our industry, we are going to produce many more billion dollar corporations in the Indian IT industry. G P Sudhakar, PMP, is a UK based IT & management consultant.
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