PHPCon Poland : 10 warning signs in IT projects

Transcript

1. foolab.ca | @foolabca 10 warning signs in IT projects. PHPCon

   Poland – October 1st, 2016

2. 2 Some statistics • 70% of IT projects fail •

   66% of projects go over budget • 33% go over schedule • 17 % under deliver value

3. 3 Yann Larrivée • Consultant at FooLab • Project rescue

   & bring projects to success • Twitter: @ylarrivee • Email : yann@foolab.ca

4. 4 Presentation objectives • Identify project threats early • Reduce

   the number of failures • Reduce stress, anxiety, headaches • More time with your family

5. 5 Vocabulary • Objectives • Metrics • Success • Failure

6. 6 Objectives - Signs • Stakeholders don't agree on business

   objectives • Goals are not communicated • Goals are not understood • Poorly defined goals

7. 7 Objectives - Solutions Ask these questions: • What are

   we trying to accomplish? • Why are we doing this? • What are we trying to improve?

8. 8 Objectives - Solutions • Get stakeholders to agree and

   sign a contract • Kickoff meeting to explain the goals • Print the goals on a poster hang them in your office • Communicate them to all team members

9. 9 Deadline - Signs • Deadline too tight • Trying

   to make a project fit • Working overtime • Deadline is too far

10. 10 Deadline - Solutions • Use simple solutions & technologies

    you master • Negotiate the delivery date • Plan time for the unexpected • Prioritize features based on objectives • Negotiate deliverables based on objectives

11. 11 Progress - Signs • No demo within the first

    month • Missed demos • You don't even have demos

12. 12 Progress - Solutions • Weekly release and demo •

    Request developers to give development URL • Follow the GIT commits • Yellow-flag task at 50% of completion time • Red-flag task at 75% of completion

13. 13 Team Spirit - Signs • Pointing fingers • Poor

    or no collaboration • Negative attitude

14. 14 Team Spirit - Solutions • Break negative conversations •

    Change the focus to solutions • Meet team members with negative attitude • Remove bad team members • Get to know your team members

15. 15 Communication – Signs • No one ever reports problem

    • People provide excuses for the road blocks • People forward you to the documentation • Languages • Timezones

16. 16 Communication – Solutions • Find the root cause •

    Have someone bilingual • Re adjust your schedule • Talk one on one to get the real information • Pick up the phone!

17. 17 Focus – Signs • Methodologies & Architecture • Tools

    and framework • Adding cool features • Gold platting • Last minute changes

18. 18 Focus – Solutions • Plan time for R&D outside

    of your project • Focus Delivering value, not feature • How does it bring us closer to the objective?

19. 19 Documentation – Signs • 50 pages+ novel style documentation

    • No documentation • Poor technical and functional analysis

20. 20 Documentation – Solutions • Plan time for analysis •

    Centralize all documentation in source control • Keep it straight to the point • Write readable code

21. 21 Quality – Signs • The ghosts problem • Endless

    bugs list • No time for quality assurance • No time for performance testing

22. 22 Quality – Solutions • Have staging and product ready

    env. • Determine mission critical components • Write test for mission critical components • How many users at peak hours • Have QA before each demo

23. 23 Metrics - Signs • No way to measure the

    expected outcome

24. 24 Metrics – Solutions • Level of business success •

    Level of quality • Level of performance

25. 25 Presentation take-away • A project fails one day at

    a time • How does it bring us closer to the objective? • Plan for the unexpected • Don't underestimate the power of beer.

26. 26 Questions? Twitter: @ylarrivee E-mail: yann@foolab.ca Website: foolab.ca You see

    many of these warning signs in your project? Get advice from an unbiased external source.