Short approach guideline

1    Introduction
Project management is first of all human interactions that cannot be simply plug in a system. I don’t believe that one methodology can solve all issues in project management and drive project to success. Project is a collection of entities, actions, processes, phases, process result, process report, report, activities and a lot of other interactions. Methodologies are useful as guidelines to help manager to conduct project and avoid mistakes in organisation, communication, coordination, implementation, test and release. Methodologies have to be taken as they are: tools. Vendors will try to convince you about obvious reasons to use their methodology and predict fail if you don’t follow their advice. But who already tried to implement a methodology from the beginning till the end of a project knows that it doesn’t work.
A numerous number of elements have to be taken in evaluation before choosing a methodology, the size of project, the number of person, the purpose of a business, the time frame, the object of the software, the existing requirement, and many others including but one of the most important the budget allowed to methodology and project’s organisation. A professional project manager will use different part of methodologies at different stage of the project and will shift from one to another on the fall of events. This document is a quintessence of our experience.

2    Objective of the document
This document aims to describe a simple approach to hire and manage projects inside the Guriansoft companies. This is the concern of sales, project management, project planning, developers, testers, customers, consultants and company’s management. This approach should be applicable to all actors involved in processes.

All processes described in this document are supported by oneBeez our platform for business management, especially within the project management module.

Figure 1: Project management - Processes global view.

 
3    How do we hire a project?
Simple approach for project hiring

Figure 2: Project management - project hiring pocesses

3.1    Project hiring process: Identification
Above is a global schema of the processes to hire a project, whatever the projects is coming from a client, a partner or from an internal request. This process is composed of five main steps:

1. Project identification
2. Information collection
3. Analysis and specification
4. Resource matching
5. Project Communication

3.1.1    Project identification
     Who: this is the role of the sale and presale person to identify potential project at the customer place.
     How: In order to identify a potential project the sale person must have a good knowledge of Guriansoft offer. Offer means the technology we can use for project development but also and not exclusively the capacity of investigation on new technologies, the availability of the Guriansoft staff, the financial investment needed to hire a new project, etc.
     What: at this stage no specific document is needed for Guriansoft, except that a trace on some excel sheet will be welcome.

3.1.2    Information collection
If we have no information on the project we cannot make an offer for a fixed price project. If potential customer cannot give the needed information sale person should offer a time base project that is to say pure renting people base on time worked on project.
Information need:

• Scope of the project
• Project global specification
• Project technical architecture
• Project functional architecture
• Project detailed specification
• Project test plan
• Project test cases

Basically all of these documents are not needed for project estimation but this is what we need in an optimal situation. In case of documents are not completed or some are missing sale person must try to sell the development of such document by Guriansoft.

• Who: this is the role of the sale and presale person to collect information for potential project at the customer place.
• How: Direct query to customer asking available document that describe the potential project
• What: Any available document that describe the project.

3.1.3    Analysis and specification
Analysis and specification are a critical point in the process to hire a new project.
A project definition describes exactly the common understanding, its extent and nature, among the key people involved in a project. The definition provides a foundation upon which successful projects are built. In many cases a definition serves as a sort of contract between the parties participating in a project, clearly stating expectations for project time, resources, and results. The project definition is written by the project manager, on customer side, helped by the team members. Basically any project needs a project definition, even the smallest one.

Based on this we developed GPDef, our tool to design system requirements and detailed specifications: http://gpdef.com

• Who: Project manager on customer side, helped by team member. Consultant hire by customer to write system requirement and specifications. Customer with the help of GPDEF or a consultant.
• How: Using GPDEF or any other tool methodology available on the market.
• What: Documents has to cover following points to settle a project:

o   Project Information: Describe purpose, type and architecture. Define for which users your project is aimed.

o   Functional Description: Enter keywords describing your need, and then qualify them by giving more information, grouping then and setting attributes.

o   Project Organization: Answer a few important questions for good project accomplishment.

o   Menu Description: Define and describe your project's menus.

o   Risk Analyse: Describe potential and main risks of the project management.

o   Application Set-up: Give information about global setting for the future application. And tune setting proposed by the system.

o   Graphical User Interface: Describe how you see the graphical interface.

o   Sequence Description: Describe, when needed, function or group of functions that have to be run independently of the user interaction.

o   User Definition: Define users' roles.

o   Security: Define access restriction by user. Describe security environment for you newer application.

Without requirement and specification we cannot hire any project on a fixed price mode. Project without requirement and specification can be hire on time based project, customer and only customer has to accept and support risk of failure.Without requirement and specification we cannot hire any project on a fixed price mode. Project without requirement and specification can be hire on time based project, customer and only customer has to accept and support risk of failure.

3.1.4    Resource matching
This is the first project drafting from resources point of view. What king of human resources shall we need for this project are they available for the targeted period?

• Who: Project manager at Guriansoft to communicate with the sales forces.
• How: During a project review meeting, in order to prepare the project hiring.
• What: Requested human resources profiles for this project.

3.1.5    Project communication
To get started with the project definition process, the project manager needs to understand and be able to communicate the following information to customers, management and prospective team members:

• Problem Statement - Describe the problem to be addressed and resolved.
• Project Name - Provide a concise and descriptive "Official Project Name."
• Project ID – Provide a unique ID for one project.
• Project Description - Provide a brief narrative including project context and background.
  - Project global specification
  - Project technical architecture
  - Project functional architecture
  - Project detailed specification
  - Project test plan and  test cases
• Project Objectives - Describe what will be achieved and what will be delivered to the customer.
• Scope - Provide a first draft of what will and will not be included in the project.
• Customer - Delineate specifically who is the customer.

Compiling this information creates the kernel of the project definition. Various characteristics and details unique to each project will determine the level of detail and effort required in the Project Definition document. The definition usually evolves as the project moves through its life cycle evolution as to be managed by project iterations.

• Who: The project manager at Guriansoft.
• How: Using our platform oneBeez, Project manager has to record all information and document he has about the potential project. Information is shared with all the team members according to access right set by the project manager.
• What: System requirement, project contract, minutes of interview with customer, detail specification, expected result document, output description document.

3.2    Project hiring process: Workload estimation and planning

 3.2.1    Workload estimation
The workload is a composite of the price of the project. Project manager has to accurately estimate the workload. Workload is communicated to sales as soon as possible in order to make an offer to customer.

• Who: The project manager at Guriansoft helped by the architect and senior developers.
• How: Workload is built by splitting work to be done in task and summarizing the workload of each tasks.
• What: All document from project contract that are available to design task and sub-task of a project.

 
3.2.2    Project Planning
Project planning has to be drafted in same time as the workload. First the drafting is to check if planning can fit with customer request in term of planning for milestones and deliveries. Second the drafting is to foresee about availability of needed resources.

• Who: The project manager has to draft the project planning. He can be seconded by a human resources manager if he needs to foresee assignment.
• How: Using a Gantt tool, as we have in oneBeez and assembling tasks and sub-tasks of projects and sub-projects.
• What: Detail of workload estimation that can be used to create tasks and sub-task for project and sub-projects.

 4    How do we manage a project?
Simple approach for project management

Figure 3: Project management processes

4.1    Definition
Project, as written above, is first of all human interaction moving together in order to obtain a result. To reach your goal, you need, first, to know it and to defined the way to do. As project is human interaction you need to manage this, so you need to communicate on stage, status, issues, change and progress. Information should be available for all actors according to access defined by project manager. On each stage or project step any actor should be able to report about status on concerned points.
Information concerned is:

• Project requirements
• Detail specification
• Expected results
• Output description
• Project planning
• Task description
• Task planning
• Project contract
• Assignment
• Daily log
• Progress
• Chat log
• Discussion minutes
• Activity report
• Minutes of project follow-up

Information has to be centralised and accessible in real-time according to access right for each actors of the project.

oneBeez project management module has been designed to support this king of project activities and follow-up.

4.2    Project implementation process
We can define four main steps in the project implementation process

• Project planning validation
• Resources assignment
• Project implementation and test process
• Project iteration

4.2.1    Project planning validation
Project plans have to be validated before starting the implementation. If a difference occurs with plan in the contract, project manager have to inform the client during a meeting. A minute have to be written to state the changes.

4.2.2    Resources assignment
Once project plans are validated, project manager have to assign tasks and planning to the team in charge of the project.

4.2.1    Project implementation and test
According to plan team performs implementation and test. Project follow-up is done by the project manager who shall report to client about progress and difficulties. While using oneBeez, any declared third party will be able to follow progress and discussion on the project.

4.2.1    Project iteration
All iterations have to be described in the contract. Any iteration must have a scope, some detail description and millstone. In oneBeez iteration is sub-project.
A request for change has to be proceeding has iteration and followed as a sub-project. In this case RFC has to be quoted and an addendum to the contract has to be signed.

4.3    Project validation process
We can define two main steps in the project validation process

• Project acceptance
• Project realise to production

4.3.1    Project acceptance
The easier way to draft a project acceptance document is to copy information from the project plan and make a validation of each task and acceptance of defined millstones. In this case

 4.3.2    Project realise to production
Once project acceptance is signed and infrastructure set to host the project installation can be done according to contract rules and project can go alive.

The full PDF is available upon simple request by email to contact@guriansoft.com