Project Management Nightmares For Startups By Rahul Sudame
-
Upload
faichi-solutions -
Category
Small Business & Entrepreneurship
-
view
945 -
download
2
description
Transcript of Project Management Nightmares For Startups By Rahul Sudame
Project Management Nightmares for Startups
- By Rahul Sudame, CSM, PMP
Director of Engineering, Faichi Solutions
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 2
Agenda
• Startup Environments
• Challenges
• What worked
• What Didn’t work
• Our Learnings
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 3
Services Startups
• Small organizations providing services to globally distributed customers
• Projects through contacts
• Customer-driven processes (if at all!)
• Big customer’s dominance
• Funding / Growth challenges
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 4
I want to develop a social networking platform for focus
groups!
I want to develop a free video
conferencing portal!
I want to develop an app to record the proceedings of a
surgery!
I want to develop a portal for pet-owners!
Product Ideas
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 5
Product Startups
• One liner product ideas!
• Ever evolving thoughts.
• Will this idea fly?
• What about funding?
• Multiple vendors bidding in the proposal stage.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 6
How much will it cost?
• What’s the scope?
• Which estimation techniques (FP, SP, UCP) to use?
• What is the confidence level is estimates?
• Which Project Management methodology (Agile/SDLC) will work here?
• Engagement model (Fix Price/T&M)?
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 7
When can we launch it?
• Functional Specification Document (FSD)? You are kidding!
• Product Backlog? What’s this?
• Change request? Its going to pivot daily!
• How to estimate efforts for ever-evolving scope?
• How to decide launch date with fluid scope?
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 8
Waterfall may not work here
Requirements Gathering
Design
Development
Testing
Launch & Maintain
Documentation, Signoffs, Handoff
Documentation, Signoffs, Handoff
Documentation, Signoffs, Handoff
Documentation, Signoffs, Handoff
Business Analyst Architect Developer Tester Tech Support
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 9
Lets try Agile!
Time
VisibilityIterative Development
All-At-Once Development
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 10
Building Product Backlog
• Project Manager Playing role of PO/BA.
• Converting thoughts into user stories.
• Recording user stories in PM tool, along with customer prioritization.
• Wireframes / Prototypes instead of detailed specifications.
Product Owner
789101112
1234
56
13
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 11
Usability / User Experience
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 12
Wireframes / Mockups
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 13
Iterations not ‘Sprints’
Iteration
Potentially
Shippable Product
PM / PO Demo
PM / ScrumMaster
The Team
789101112
1234
56
13
No Changes(in Duration or Deliverable)
Commitment
Daily ScrumMeeting
Retrospective
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 14
Inspect & Adapt
1 week iteration.
Demo to customers every week.
Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.
Finalize next week’s plan based on customer’s business dynamics.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 15
PM Challenges in Startups
• Lack of defined processes
• Constraints – Resources, Tools/Infrastructure, Budget, Timelines
• Changing business dynamics
• Uncertainties – Change in plans/focus, Resource sharing
• Pressure of sustenance and growth
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
QualityManagement
CostManagement
CommunicationManagement
TimeManagement
Human ResourceManagement
ProcurementManagement
RiskManagement
IntegrationManagement
ScopeManagement
Minimalistic Project Management
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 17
What didn’t work?
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 18
Agile Process Hype Cycle
Gartner Hype Cycle
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 19
• Significant changes in requirements, during/after development.
• Change in requirement might result in design change.
• Time to market vs. Change in scope.
• No formal Change Control mechanism.
• Impact to timelines.
Floating Requirements
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 20
Wireframes
• May not match actual customer expectations.
• Un-spelled expectations not captured.
• Implementation differing the wireframes.
• No formal Functional Specification Document.
• No defined / ‘Frozen’ scope.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 21
Challenges
• Funding constraints.
• Funding or Business pressure resulting in change of directions.
• Trust and collaboration between both the organizations.
• Inflation of scope / Ineffective change management.
• Gaining end user adoption and early feedback.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 22
What worked?
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Agile Manifesto
Process and toolsIndividuals and
interactionsover
Following a planResponding to
changeover
Source: www.agilemanifesto.org
Comprehensive documentation
Working software over
Contract negotiation
Customer collaboration
over
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 24
Wireframes
• Wireframes / Mockups / HTML Prototypes in absence of detailed specs
• Helped in getting clarity on User Interface as well as functionality.
• Reference point for developers and testers.
• Helped in considering usability / user experience.
• Helped in verifying technical feasibility.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 25
Customer Collaboration
• Working with customer as partner.
• No vendor-client relationship.
• Adapting customer’s feedback.
• Supporting customer’s business priorities.
• Owning the success jointly!
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 26
Team Collaboration
• Developers and Testers co-located.
• Team directly working with customers.
• Tools for remote collaboration (e.g. webex, skype, video conferencing etc).
• Personal Kanban board.
• Johari window for group feedback.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 27
Value-based prioritization
• Minimal Marketable Feature (MMF)
• Defining features list for product beta-release, Go-live etc.
• Incorporating customer feedback after initial launch.
• Building product roadmap based on customer feedback, business criticality and technical debt.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 28
Tools
• Project Management Tool
– Excel / Jira / ZilicusPM / Google Docs
• Beta Testing– TestFlight / Simulators
• Automated / Performance Testing– Selenium / Jmeter
• Configuration Management Tool– Git
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 29
Technology Ownership
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 30
Collaboration Games
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 31
The Outcome!
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 32
Sentizens – Social Networking App
An innovative social networking platform designed exclusively for Senior citizens to share, collaborate, learn & avail variety of services with focus on holistic living. www.sentizens.com
Special features:
• Posting, Liking, Sharing, Join Groups• Event reminders as default setting • Configured Skype contacts • Clocks of different time zones • Store contacts and information • Relevant articles on health, finance etc.• Services in proximity • Option to increase Font size
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 33
Consoft – Video Conferencing Platform
Free public conference tool
• Available to all - Education, Government, Corporate & General Public • Be a Speaker or Moderator• Real time feedback from audience• Real time communication (audio and video) with audience • Reach all your Corporation offices in different countries• Include power point or video presentation control by Speaker
Free private conference tool
• Private conference call up to 4 computers • Make private calls or invite to join • Invite your contact
Pvt. Messaging• Able to send video message offline or online
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 34
Learnings
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 35
Learnings
• Define core subset of processes as per project needs
• Define your project management, tracking mechanism (Lean Startup, Scrum, Kanban, SDLC)
• Explore Open source tools: Asana, Basecamp, HipChat, Unfuddle, Bugzilla
• Validate ideas, thoughts, implementations with customers, end users
• Inspect & Adapt
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 36
Summary• Functional Specs / Product Backlog cannot be
replaced by just Wireframes!
• T&M Engagement vs. Fix bid for evolving projects.
• Strong customer collaboration results in great outcome.
• Early involvement of potential users significantly helps in verifying the business viability / user expectations.
• Build what the customer needs!
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 37
About Faichi Solutions
We are a technology company in Pune, India specializing in outsourced product engineering & setting up offshore development centers.
We hold expertise in technologies such as Drupal, Java, Mobile and UI/UX development.
Established in 2009, with a vision to transform the outsourced product engineering landscape through technical excellence and delivery model innovation.
Faichi Solutions has successfully delivered some of the most complex technology projects through partner collaboration & Agile processes.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 38
To read case studies of Faichi Solutions, please visit: www.faichi.com/success-stories
For more information please visit: www.faichi.com or mail us at [email protected]
USA India Faichi Solutions Inc Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 2023 Mandelay Pl 504, Accord IT Park, Baner Road, San Jose, CA 95138 Pune, Maharashtra – 411045 Tel: +1 (408) 769-4941 Tel: +91-20-65291435 ©2014 Faichi Solutions Pvt. Ltd.