This talk is about the typical indicators of projects that surpass a certain volume. Key alements are the definition of Scope and the elements of controlling, the essential stages of a large project and how to keep the process agile

1. Memi Beltrame
Scope & co.
Management of medium
and large size projects
phpday, may 15th 2010 Corropoli
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

2. Who am I?
● PM / Interaction designer at Liip in Zurich
● Working on the web since 1997
● 10 years of php
● Degree in cinematography
● Film & foto enthusiast
● Pet project: artypedia.org
● Twitter: bratwurstkomet
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

3. What is
a large
project ?
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

4. Typical indicators
Trivial Non-trivial
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

5. Typical indicators
Trivial Non-trivial
Size Complexity
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

6. Typical indicators
Trivial Non-trivial
Size Complexity
● Easy to measure
● Obviuous
● Impressive!
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

7. Typical indicators
Trivial Non-trivial
Size Complexity
● Easy to measure ● Hard to evaluate
● Obviuous ● Vague, hidden
● Impressive! ● Interesting...
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

8. Typical indicators
Size
● Money involved
● Size of team needed
● Duration of project and development
● Size of customer's company
● Amount of Data used for the project
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

9. Typical indicators
Complexity
● Types of systems involved
● The customer's organizational structure
● Workfows
● Data structure & quality
● Legacy
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

10. Complexity is underrated.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

11. A too familiar scenario
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

12. A too familiar scenario
Credit: www.projectcartoon.com
http://bes.tw/zaq
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

13. Now that you have
mvc framework
Agile methods
Unit & functional tests
Contineous integration
Code reviews
Coding standards
Valid markup
...
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

14. Now that you have
mvc framework XYZ
Agile methods
Unit & Functional Tests
Why do
Contineous Integration
Code reviews projects
Coding standards
Valid markup still fail?
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

15. Why projects fail:
Running out of time
Use shortcuts & hacks
Negligence on both sides
You work more than planned
You lose money.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

16. How
Why projects fail:
Running out of time
Use shortcuts & hacks
Negligence on both sides
You work more than planned
You lose money.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

17. What can you do to keep software
projects from failing?
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

18. The standard Project Structure
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

19. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

20. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Delay because important infos are missing
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

21. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope
Important dev-time is already consumed
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

22. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
☹
dev
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope Develop
Unrealistic expectations:
Developers motivation drops.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

23. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
☹
dev ++dev
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope Develop
Putting more devs on a late project
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

24. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
☹ --$
dev ++dev
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope Develop
This is the day you run out of budget
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

25. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
☹ --$
dev ++dev
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope Develop
On delivery you go and ask for more time
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

26. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
☹ --$
☹
dev ++dev cust
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope Develop Deploy
Now the customer is worried & frustrated
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

27. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
☹ --$
☹ !☹!
dev ++dev cust cust
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope Develop Deploy
Deadline missed, customer pissed.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

28. The standard Project Structure SUCKS
Not ready „ready“
☹ --$
☹ !☹! X
dev ++dev cust cust --cust
Offer
Evaluate Develop Deploy
Evaluate scope Develop Deploy Debug
Low quality on a late project.
Wave goodbye.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

29. The standard Project Structure
Problem #1
It doesn't scale
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

30. The standard Project Structure
Problem #2
It isn't agile
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

31. The standard Project Structure
Problem #1
It doesn't scale
--$
Evaluate Develop Deploy
If this happens in a small project you might get away with it.
On a large project it might put your company at risk.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

32. The standard Project Structure
Problem #2
It isn't agile.
Customers need a defned project they
can sell internally to a superior instance
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

33. An Alternative Project Structure
Offer scope eval Offer
Phase 1 First Evaluate Scope & prepare offer
Pre-project contact
Phase 2
Project Development iterations
Debriefng
Phase 3 Deployment iterations Post
Roll out Warranty warranty
End of warranty
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

34. An Alternative Project Structure
Phase 1
Pre-project Initiate First contact
Plan Evaluate Scope
Phase 2
Project Execute & Control Develop
Phase 3
Roll out Close Deployment
Debriefng
Warranty
Post warranty
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

35. 2 Key Processes:
Evaluating Scope
Controlling
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

36. Scope
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

37. The project management triangle
Scope
Efficiency
Time Cost
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

38. Common Defniton of Scope:
Scope Requirements specifed to
achieve the end result.
Efficiency
Time Cost
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

39. Scope
is treated as equivalent to
Specifcations
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

40. Scope
is treated as equivalent to
Specifcations
On Time, On Budget, On Specs
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

41. Scope ≠ Specs
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

42. Scope ≠ Specs
Scope
On Time, On Budget, On Specs
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

43. A project plan based on the
customer's specifcations will fail.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

44. Why?
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

45. Specifcations refect a feature-list
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

46. Specifcations refect a feature-list
Scope refects the
production process
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

47. The Scope of a project covers every
● Feature ● Process
● System ● Investigation
● API ● Administration
● Department ● Negotiation
● Third Party
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

48. Anticipate Scope
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

49. De Facto Anticipated
Scope Scope
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

50. De Facto Scope
Anticipated Scope
≈ Probability of Failure
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

51. The probability of a project's failure
increses the more the
anticipated scope fails to match
the de facto scope.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

52. The long list of
underestimated & neglected items
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

53. Offering
● Don't offer to ft a budget
● Don't offer to ft a time frame
But most important:
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

54. Offering
● Don't offer to ft a budget
● Don't offer to ft a time frame
But most important:
Don't lower your offer just
to beat the competition
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

55. People
● Find out who is in charge. The board? Your contact?
● Know the project's priority for your
customer and all involved entities?
rd
● Brief 3 parties. How ft are the other companies involved?
● Be aware of your resources.
● Take into account existing projects.
● Know your escalation paths.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

56. Process
● Know your customer's processes
● Think through dependencies What elements are critical?
● Plan time for UX/Prototyping/Design
Technical reviews, handovers
● Plan enough time for quality assessment
● PM: In a large project it is a full time job
● Plan enough time for roll-out & closing
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

57. Technology
● Plan enough time for API negotiaton
● Find out about Environment.
Load Balancing, Master/Slave model
● Plan time for data modelling
● Make a data audit
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

58. Data audit
● Does the data exist?
● What is the form of the data? DB, XML, Excel...
● In what state is the data? Normalized? A mess?
● How much do you have to build from scratch?
● How much to refactor?
● How good is the data quality?
● What data-synchronisation processes are there?
● What is the amount of data in GigaBytes?
● Does the planned application cannibalize another?
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

59. In my experience
most project disasters are
data related
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

60. Knowing the scope of a project lets you:
● make projections
● identify risks
● make realistic budget
● make customers realize
- What they need vs. what they want
- What they can pay for
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

61. Controlling
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

62. Controlling
Ensuring project objectives are met.
Monitoring, correcting and measuring
progress.
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

63. Essesntial Tasks
#1 Know your numbers
#2 Keep scope
#3 Enforce deadlines
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

64. Know your numbers
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

65. At any time you must know:
● Your budget
● % of budget used
● % of work done
● When will you run out out of budget?
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

66. What does one hour of develper cost
your company?
Basic costs like
● Wages
● Insurance
● Infrastructure
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

67. What does one hour of develper cost
your company?
Basic costs like
● Wages
basic costs = loss limit
● Insurance
● Infrastructure
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

68. What is the post calculation rate?
Budget
Post calculation rate =
Hours spent
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

69. Example 1:
Your basic cost: 100 €
Post calculation rate: 145 €
Proft per hour: 45 €
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

70. Example 2:
Your basic cost: 100 €
Post calculation rate: 90 €
loss per hour: -10 €
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

71. Keep scope
● Stop and prevent feature creep
● Manage customer expectations
● Channel change requests
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

72. Enforce Deadlines
● Make the customer deliver!
● Sprint planning & reviews
● Insist on warranty period
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co

73. Thank you!
Memi Beltrame: Scope & co