![]() The reasoning for such a project is described in a business case document, and it usually includes numbers that are supposed to prove why the project makes sense. Or a business may decide to overhaul its IT infrastructure because it’s old and unstable. Maybe a company is loosing customers and decides to launch a project to improve customer retention. My article how to set deadlines also talks about calculating buffer.Ī business case is a written statement which explains why a project was initiated. Buffer is also called contingency, and the concept can also be applied to the project budget. ![]() That’s why the project manager decides to give his team two more weeks, just in case! The two weeks are the buffer.Ī buffer is the additional time you factor into your project plan to ensure a project isn’t delayed when some of the sub-tasks get delayed. If all goes well, his team of 5 engineers should be able to complete the design within 3 months, given that they work on it two days per week.īut what if one of his team falls ill? What if there’s a computer outage? 3 months for completing the design may be quite optimistic. In an engineering project for example, it may be hard for the PM to estimate how long the design of a new machine will take. There is a lot of uncertainty in every project, especially when it comes to estimating how long a certain task will take. ![]() Basically you freeze the status of those documents so that you can always refer back later to what was initially discussed and agreed. In an actual project, the way you create a baseline is by making a copy of the project plan, the scope documents and the budget calculation and store it under at a place where it cannot be modified anymore (for example as a PDF). The point is you can only make a meaningful call about these questions if you have something to measure against. Are we using our resources (time and money) in an efficient way?.This initial agreement is called the baseline, and it is used to measure the performance of a project. When you plan a new project, there’s an agreement of what shall be accomplished, the schedule, how much budget is required and other things. Here’s an example of an actual backlog: excerpt from a backlogĪs you can probably guess, a backlog is a “living” document which is constantly updated depending on the project’s status. It’s a list of features or technical tasks that have to be carried out in order to reach a project’s goal or to complete a release. The term backlog is used in the agile development process. The customer can request additional features that were forgotten in the initial specification ( “I need an additional button here.”).He can say “ oh, actually this feature is more important to me than that one. The customer can re-prioritize his requirements during the development of the software.Why is this a good thing? In a nutshell, the agile process lowers the risk of the customer not being satisfied with the end product. The agile approach is more flexible and allows the customer to regularly give feedback and thus influence the outcome. ![]() the software) is built in multiple cycles, with the customer regularly testing, while the software is being built.Ĭontrast this with a more fixed approach, where the customer first lists all his requirements, the developer then goes on to implement everything until the last bit is realized, and the customer is being presented the end product. ![]() Our definitions of the most common project management terms will prepare you for the next project meeting.Īgile or (agile development) is a modern approach to software development, where the product (i.e. Project management has its own terminology and abbreviations, making your entry into the field pretty hard. ![]()
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