Once an organization has decided to pursue a specific project, identifying a project manager is likely the next course of action. The project manager is heavily involved in the project initiation activities, in addition to steering the project during the rest of its duration. Part I provides some general background on the art and science of project management. Many of the topics addressed in these three chapters apply both to project initiation and to subsequent project activities.
Chapter 1, offers many bits of advice for the new software manager. Topics addressed include setting your priorities as a manager, enhancing your own skills, determining what "quality" means to your customers, providing recognition to team members, and setting improvement goals.
Chapter 2 presents 21 Project Management Good Practices that can help both experienced and novice project managers do a better job. Some of these tips are obvious, such as "Write a plan." Others, though, reflect the sort of insights that project managers typically acquire only through painful experience, such as "Don’t overschedule multitasking people." The 21 practices are grouped into five categories: laying the foundation for success, planning the project, estimating the work, tracking your progress, and learning for the future. Many of these practices are the subjects of subsequent chapters in this book. In particular, the practices for laying the foundation for success are essential activities when initiating any project.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do before launching a project is to make sure you are working on the correct project. That is, make sure you initiate the most appropriate projects to meet the organization’s business objectives. Every organization has a backlog of potential work, with multiple interest groups clamoring for attention. Busy software development and maintenance teams need to prioritize their work. Chapter 3, describes a spreadsheet tool that helped a Web development group prioritize a huge backlog of new project requests. The chapter suggests appropriate project prioritization drivers and describes how to weight the drivers, calibrate the model, and rate candidate projects to make sure you invest your limited resources for the maximum value.