CHAOS: A Recipe for Success - Software and Systems Engineering

Portability: Any project manager can attest to lateSunday evenings or “off hours” at home spent updating aproject plan. The tool must be able to run independent ofthe environment.Distribution of Data: Project management tools are amajor source of communication throughout the lifecycleRole of the Internetand the Cybernetic WorkerInternet technology changes everything. As a ubiquitouscommunications infrastructure, the Internet enablesenterprise-wide project management and the building ofvirtual project teams within a global, collaborative projectmanagement environment.Because the Internet is the only widely available platformfor accessing process and project information, it is a costeffective backbone for extending project planning andexecution to every corporate location using the TCP/IPcommon denominator. A number of project managers aretapping the power of the Internet, corporate Intranets andcorporate Extranets to provide all stakeholders withinstant access to project plans and status reports.However, project management on a global scale will notbe easy. Most project management techniques weredesigned for co-located project teams. Those techniquesmay prove ineffective in global, multi-site organizations.of a project to a variety of audiences. The tool mustcontain features/functions to support their differingcommunication requirements, from the high levelexecutive view to the more detailed level required by aproject manager. This can be accomplished throughreport facilities, online queries, Web access, e-mailnotification, and/or integration and interoperability withother tools providing these functions.Integrity: Project management tools must maintain theintegrity of the data/plan input into the tool. In essence,a project management tool is just a productivity aid.It does not “manage” a project or ensure its success; itsimply assists the project manager in planning andexecuting a project. The project plan, as the primaryoutput of a project management tool, is the bible of theproject. A project manager must be confident that thetool will not alter the content of a project plan.Rapid Response Time: Project management tools mustaccommodate resource movements, task/activityadditions, expansions or deletions, constant schedulechanges occurring throughout the lifecycle of a projectand rapidly reflect those changes to all participants,whether they are local or geographically dispersed.The Standish Group anticipates that tool vendors willplace more emphasis on enterprise-wide projectmanagement via Internet enablement, multiple nestedprojects support, and enterprise-wide collaborationfeatures. Interoperability will be a primary objective.Globally distributed software development projects mustcontend with different languages, cultures, time zones,work ethics, legal systems, and hardware and softwarerequirements. The development of large softwaresystems will require larger teams of people with differentknowledge and educational backgrounds to work togetherat multiple locations. This fact of life must somehow beweighed against CHAOS findings that project size andscope creep threaten project success.Coordinating and managing the work of geographicallydistributed high performance virtual project teams,providing global access to project plans and dynamicproject data, and internalizing the experience of pastprojects to make it usable for future projects arechallenges to be addressed.Despite the hurdles, The Standish Group’s research foundthat project management is one process cited by CIOs asmost adaptable to virtual environments. CIOs understandthat managing a virtual project workforce is nottechnology dependent. From e-mail to cell phones andpagers, communications abound. Again, people andprocesses are at the heart of project management, nottoolsand technology.CHAOS University ® participants engaged in building orsupporting virtual enterprises reported that the top threecyberworker issues are measuring productivity, managingcommunications and motivating isolated workers. Projectsize magnifies these human challenges. Building virtualteams with a minimum of face time, clearly defining work,measuring cybernetic worker productivity and managingemployee communications across time zones are majormanagement priorities.COPYRIGHT ©199911THE STANDISH GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC.