THIS IS ALMOST FULL SET OF QUESTIONS SENT FOR THE FIRST PERV PROJ PM WORKSHOP 2013.

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1 TIE-PROJ, Project management workshop questions, THIS IS ALMOST FULL SET OF QUESTIONS SENT FOR THE FIRST PERV PROJ PM WORKSHOP Tensu thinks these questions are good for GENERAL thinking. THIS IS: STUDENTS' QUESTIONS LISTED. A - Missä vaiheessa projektia on vielä järkevää vaihtaa projektille valittuja teknologiavalintoja, joista on koitunut paljon ylimääräistä työtä? Question: At what phase it is still reasonable to change technology? Answer: well... perhaps during the first sprint/iteration, in some cases even at the second, but not any more later. Naturally that depends the project and group. B- Kuinka saada projektissa samanarvoiset henkilöt tekemään töitä projektin eteen, jos ei pysty lahjomaan tai käskemään, kun ei ole tarpeeksi "nappuloita" käskemiseen? Q: How to get all groupmembers work for the project and in the project? A: Agree goals, write down to project plan how many hours each groupmember will (is ready to) spend for this project. Divide workload smartly. Manager/leader shows example / 9

2 C 2) What kind of incentives could be used to ensure that documentation and testing of code will be done well? Answer: peer documenting practices, weekly reviews on group meetings,... D 1. Miten motivoida ryhmää, jos kiinnostus alkaa lopahtaa? Q: How to motivate the group? A: Remember that sw eng project CAN be also FUN! Arrange group happenings (sauna party, gaming,...) after some big achievement or deadline. Smart leaders (or fools?) do small surprises ( jekku ) every now and then. ;-) That is called positive humour. E 3. How to prepare to a sudden change of scope by the client? A: very difficult to prepare, this should not happen. PREVENTION would be active contact with customer and keeping eyes and ears open on meetings. F 2. Miten suhtautua jatkuvasti vaihtuviin sekä epäselviin ohjelmistovaatimuksiin? Q: How to react to sudden changes (by customer)? A: Not all (stupid, impossible) changes need to be accepted, / 9

3 use your own consideration. Ask customer to write requirements/features down to paper, and to priority order. G 3. Mitä tehdä kun projekti ei tunnu edistyvän? Q: What if project seems not to proceed? A: On next weekly meeting (or special one) where the whole group is present, find out what is the status of the project now. What tasks are done, what needs to be done (status = tilannekuva). What are really the bottlenecks (no data from customer, groumembers busy, technical problems and difficulties,...)? If technical difficulties, gather together and SOLVE the problem (coding jam/night = talkootyörutistus, koodausilta). Use the groupforce! And remember that sometimes you may take a few days off from the project, e.g. do not work for the project at some weekend at all, just do something else just to relax. H How to execute well a meeting where some people are joining by computer? A: divide turns to speak to everybody, remote groupmember is just one. At least the voice is useally very clear. There are also some meeting software, for dividing screens etc. I Kuinka pieniksi osatehtäviksi tehtäväkokonaisuudet kannattaa pilkkoa ohjelmistotyössä? Projektipäällikkö ei kuitenkaan tule yksin ajatelleeksi kaikkia tehtäväkokonaisuuksien yksityiskohtia, / 9

4 joihin toteuttajat törmäävät työssään, jolloin on kätevää pitää osatehtävät melko laajoina. Toisaalta laajojen osatehtävien toteutukseen kuluvaa aikaa on vaikea arvioida. Q: How small pieces the tasks should be? A: General task list by project manager, after that discussion about those, re-fining tasks. Groupmember should ideally divide task to such small pieces, which could be done during one day. You may use e.g. a spreadsheet file as a task list, which is easy to update (e.g. divide a task into smaller parts during the project). TIE-PROJ, Project management workshop questions, A. Communication Kannattaako viestintä asikkaan ja projektiryhmän välillä hoitaa ryhmän osalta vain yhden yhteyshenkilön välityksellä? 1. Mitä tehdä jos asiakkaan kanssa kommunikointi on hidasta? - Asiakkaan kanssa kommunikointi varsinkin sähköpostitse on kankeaa ja välillä jopa asiakastapaamisen sopimisessakin voi kulua viikkokaupalla aikaa odotellessa vastausta asiakkaalta. Seuraava asiakastapaaminen kannattaisi / 9

5 varmaan sopia tapaamisen lopuksi, jolloin tältä vältytään. A: it is good to have just one groupmember to contact the customer (and not changing contact person every time). You should write down customer's secondary (back-up) contact person to Project Plan. And find out early if customer is having long holidays or is travelling during the project. Q: Slow communication (reply) by the customer? A: Communicate early, if possible. Customer is always busy, in urgent matters do not hesitate to call. At the end of a meeting it is worth planning and fixing the date for the next meeting. B. Work division among groupmembers 1) What would be the best way to allocate tasks for the team when dealing with previously unknown technologies? 1) Kuinka tasapainottaa tehtäviä, kun ryhmässä on eritasoista osaamista? Q: What about different skills inside the group? A: That is natural, just allocate tasks according own free will first, and then divide the rest evenly. If you see that the expert has a great burden, keep a meeting for taking less important tasks to others. 2) Miten jakaa työt tasaisesti eri henkilöiden välille? / 9

6 Q: How to divide work evenly? A: In project plan everybody promises how many hours (s)he will put weekly (in average) for this project. It may be e.g hours. It is OK if someone with an own company, small children and 10 other courses is promising just only 7 weekly working hours for this project. Group keeps internal working hours log (e.g. a spreadsheet tab) for every groupmember, and weekly/total hours are visible at the project highlights. 3. Miten projektin työnjako teknisellä osuudella on paras tehdä. Onko työnjakoa ohjelmoijille hyvä tehdä esim front/backend jaotuksella? Onko yleisesti hyväksi todettuja tapoja? Q: How about the division of tasks to technical experts? A: Difficult to say... some logical division would certainly be one of the first choices. 1. What is the best way of sharing different work phases and work loads to different sprints? Different ways to set up meetings for multiple people with different timetables? A: Try e.g. Foodle = C. Work size and/or hours estimation / 9

7 Miten aikatauluttaa projektissa tulevat työt, jos ei tiedä kuinka kauan niissä menee vasta-alkajalla tai ammattilaisella? Q: How to estimate required working hours? A: First estimations would be more or less quesses. During project, estimations would be better. Every groupmember would estimate him/herself the whole project, or parts of it, or all individual tasks. Then group discusses and calculates some average or median value. Why not using planning poker? 3) Miten määrittää, mitä ehditään tehdä tietyssä ajassa ettei tule liikaa tai vastaavasti liian vähän tekemistä kyseiselle aikavälille? Q: How to know not to promise too much or too little (in one sprint)? A: Don't worry, when you have made a dozen of projects with the same persons, you have quite a good sense or rule of thumb about work estimates. Before that... you have to start by educated guesses. If you are Nth year student, you may try academic guesses. 2. Projektin taskien ja lopullisen työmäärän arviointi on hankalaa. Keinoja työmäärän arvioimiseksi? Esim planning poker jne. Q: How to estimate schedule and workload? A: As said before, estimate either top-down or bottom-up, as a whole group and everybody him/herself / 9

8 Oletetaan, että asiakkaan kanssa tehdään sopimus projektisuunnitelman ensimmäisen version pohjalta. Ottaen huomioon ohjelmistotyön suuren epävarmuusasteen mm. työmäärien arvioissa, miten projektin kesto saadaan osumaan jo ensimmäisessä projektisuunnitelman versiossa tarpeeksi lähelle todellista, ettei taloudellinen tuotto projektista mene miinukselle aikataulun venymisen takia? Lyhyemmin ilmaistuna: Miten kannattaa arvioida työmääriä projektin _alussa_? Q: About estimating everything right on the first time. A: It is worth trying, but only experience quarantees accuracy. But not necessarily in all cases... refine estimations during the project. Good customer understands that, too. You are lucky that you need not to consider any economics of your project in this course. D. Tools Pitäisikö projektinhallinta hoitaa erillisellä työkalulla vai voiko sen hoitaa ryhmän erikseen määrittelemillä tavoilla(sähköposti,google drive, dropbox, etc.)? 1. Recommendation of good project management tools for the following: draw work breakdown structure, backlog, sprint planning, meeting notes, reporting work hours weekly and cumulative, etc / 9

9 A spreadsheet (file / tab) is good enough for - task list / backlog / work division - working hours logging - bug database - test diary. TIE-PROJ, Project management workshop questions, THIS IS ALMOST FULL SET OF QUESTIONS SENT FOR THE FIRST PERV PROJ PM WORKSHOP Tensu thinks these questions are good for GENERAL thinking. THIS IS: STUDENTS' QUESTIONS LISTED. Not all questions were sent in time, and not all questions were in English. But the Finnish questions have been translated to English, after the original text / 9