April 2007 – Leading Answers

April 23, 2007Agile Project Management, Risk Management

The Top Five Software Project Risks

I recently posted an entry on a risk assessment tool you can download and use. Risk management (or more precisely risk avoidance) is a critical topic, but one that is often dull to read about and therefore neglected. One of the few useful and entertaining books on the subject is “Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects” by Tom Demarco, Timothy Lister, authors of the ever popular “Peopleware”. This post provides a useful summary of their top 5 software project risks. While not an agile focussed book, I find it interesting that of the top five software project risks identified in Waltzing with Bears, all have suggested solutions rooted in agile methods. Demarco and Lister rate the top five […]

April 18, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Estimating, Metrics, Planning

A Burn-Rate Based Estimation Tool

In my last post I suggested spending less time worrying about project metrics and more time on stakeholder concerns, so I thought a tool to simplify project tracking might be useful. Having completed project estimating with the team, it is often necessary to convert effort estimates into cost estimates based on likely utilizations and then track actual hours billed against these projections. Today’s download is a simple burn-rate estimation tool that produces S-Curve graphs and let you track actual spend against burn-rate projections and planned budgets. You can download the spreadsheet here: Download estimation_and_budget_tracking.xls

April 14, 2007Agile Project Management, Leadership, Planning, Teams

Lighter Grip and More Awareness: Lessons in collaboration from Boeing

Control vs Communication When you first learn to ride a bike it is normal to grip the handlebars really tightly and look at your hands or feet as you concentrate hard on the new “riding” task and try not to fall off. The problem with looking at your hands or feet while cycling is that you will not see the rock or pothole in the road ahead until it is too late and so, despite your best efforts, you will fall off. It is actually safer to relax, loosen your grip on the handlebars a little, and look further up the road to spot obstacles in plenty of time to avoid them. The same goes for project management, when we […]

April 9, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Events

Update on Introducing Agile Article

My recent posts on “Introducing Agile methods to Organizations: Mistakes to Avoid” (part 1, part 2, part 3) have been picked up by InfoQ for a mini-book. While this is great positive feedback for me, it is good news for you as readers too, as I will also post links to the new expanded version here so you can get access to the extra material. Mini-books are available free electronically and sold in paper form through Amazon. They are short (60-80 pages maximum) and intended to serve a tech savvy audience with a concise, yet in-depth coverage of a subject. I plan to work on this in May and June and will keep you posted as to how it goes […]

April 4, 2007October 3, 2026Agile Project Management, Risk Management

A Consistent Project Risk Assessment Tool

This post introduces a useful risk assessment tool you can download and use on your projects. While I created the spreadsheet formatting and presentation, the risk categories, questions and scores come from IEEE analysis of actual software project risks, so they have a reputable source. The Risk Assessment ChallengeA problem with risk assessments is that risks are often relative to the observer. What might seem like an acceptable risk to you might be unacceptable to me. For many organizations it is difficult to get an objective view of their project risks across a portfolio of projects because different project managers have different risk thresholds. What a “Gung-ho” project manager rates as a “Medium Risk” project might actually be “Very High […]