Project management is overrated. That is what many businesses new to software development think. They firmly believe that as long as we have an “idea” of what the end product will look like, we can’t fail. All that’s needed is to provide the features to the developer team. If you are a business stakeholder who still shares this school of thought this series of posts is for you. Through our real-life experience, we will try to make you consider project management to be an invaluable part of your software development project and the effects it will have on your business.
Let us place the context first. The Project Management Institute (PMI) provides a simple definition for project management: “Project management is the use of specific knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to deliver something of value to people”. In our case, what we provide are highly efficient Web applications.
Project Background
One of our first clients was a gaming company that wanted a dedicated team to revamp their backend. We were very thrilled to work on this project because the game we were to work on is one we have been playing a lot. In our discussions, with the company director, we advised him to equally add one of our project managers to his team. He refused, arguing that the project was small and all the requirements were already laid out. This single decision led to a lot of problems. We faced a lot of other issues but these were the most critical ones.
Problems Faced
1. Lack of Alignment:
The developers had a lot of features to work on but they were not prioritized. The client could not be present all the time to let them know which features were the most urgent or if the fancy technologies they would like to use could fit into the company’s budget. As a result, some of the game users left very harsh feedback because of a few bugs they discovered.
2. Lack of focus:
Some of the features provided were very huge. Such features need to be adequately broken into smaller tasks based on the team’s size and developers’ individual experience. Because it was not done, the development pace was very slow. Some developers took up some tasks which they were not fit for completing. As a result, there were a few missed deadlines along the way.
3. Lack of risk management:
When working on a project, we are always biased to think that nothing can ever go wrong. In this project, the unexpected happened. One of the core team developers got seriously ill and could not continue working on the project. The Ethical Devs team swiftly replaced her but it still had a negative impact on the project’s timeline because no risk had been taken into consideration during the planning phase.
The project needed to get back on track
After lots of hardship faced during the project’s execution, we had a strategic meeting with the client. During this meeting, we presented to him all the issues he was facing in the project and how they could have been avoided with proper project management. He finally accepted to add one of our project managers to the team. Here are the 2 key things he carried out to put back the project on track:
1. Meeting with the Company manager:
The aim of this meeting was to have comprehensive knowledge about the company’s objective and game players’ expectations. With that in mind, he could prioritize the different features and use the information we provided him about the different developers, to break down the features into tasks appropriate for everyone
2. Project Re-planning:
He PROPERLY planned the project. Tasks were assigned, a new schedule was drafted, and most importantly, a risk management plan was made. This had a huge impact on how the project progressed. You guessed it: No more missed deadlines!!
Happy End!!
After adding the project manager, the team members were much happier to work on the project. The client was equally happy because he had more insights into the project and the agreed deadlines were respected.
We hope that through this article we have made you understand how important project management is for the success of your custom software development project.
We at Ethical Devs take pride in producing quality software. We believe that project management is a must in order to make this possible. With us, your business ideas will be in the right hands.
Contact us so we can build the greatest products together!!
