Hello!I am Ivanna ZayetsI work at InternetDevels. You can contact me at:ivana.zayets@gmail.com

PM’s Essentials

1. Be honest and tell truth. It is profitable

2. Understand the expectations3. Choose the framework4. Take time for planning5. Understand the customer’s

fears6. Learn to improvise and

persuade

Do not underestimate the project to be in time

with the deadlines.

1.Be honest

and tell truth. It is profitable

Customers share positive

experiences with only 3 people.

While the negative ones are shared

with 10 to 20 other people.

You could provide your customer with underrated development time

But sooner or later when you're not on par with the timescope...

… or don’t make promised things…

… he will leave and believe you no more.

Instead of over optimistic, we can be realistic

This estimation is a draft and if something has to be added it can be changed.

This functionality is quite difficult so we need more time to investigate the issue and adjust the scope properly.

This task includes a lot of communication with the team and the Dev Lead, deployment on staging and live site, testing, fixing/re-fixing and stabilization/re-stabilization. That's why so many hours have been put into this estimation.

Sometimes, when we don’t want to lose a customer, we start panicking

2. Understand the expectations

And make promises we cannot fulfill.

How does it happen?

If you continue cooperating with us /approve this implementation /etc, you’ll get here for sure ...

...or even there!

What do we have at the end?

Expectations Reality

VS

Honesty is the best policy!

I have to be honest with you. In your case, it’s better ***. However, our devs can ***. Moreover…. That's what we're able to provide you with.

SDLC (software development life cycle):

- Spiral - Waterfall- V-model

- Agile- ...

3.Choose the

methodology

The Development Methodology should match the aim and characteristic of the project

How to choose the right way?

... emphasize the practical part on each of the development

methodology.

Time ReportFrom the beginning of the month we used:XXX hours

If the technical task is rough/draught and there are no strict requirements we can change some view of the page or functionality that will not influence the general concept of the site a lot. In this case, we analyze the situation from the business point of view.

Why is it so important to take enough time for planning the

sprint/tasks/epics/site building etc?

4.Take time for

planning

We are currently refining the backlog for Sprint One.We are adding docs into Confluence and filling them with the necessary information. Dev Lead has already restructured the sprint due to new updates in the document XXX.

Partial reason for this was that the sprint was

reviewed by Senior Manager and we

decided to improve the structure. The planning is very important for us as it provides a higher quality of service and

expected product.

SAMPLE

� Learn the needs and demands at the start of the project. Don't start the project until you've got the answers to all of your questions.

� Bring him back with:- ”Do I understand you right?”;- “For my own understanding…”;- “What you are truly saying ... , is that

correct?”;- “Help me to understand, please.”;� Focus on the issues. The rest is

unimportant to them.

Doesn't interrupt the process, waits till the deadline arrives and doesn't answer the questions till then. Starts leaving comments on the task after it has been closed a long time ago.

� What do you think about these suggestions?

� Could you please let us know your thoughts, how should we move forward? Are there any additional research you want us to conduct?

� All requests, suggestions, concerns are welcome.

� Could you please let us know of your thoughts on this post?

� Tell me what’s your opinion on this matter, please.

When we want to get the feedback:

LETTER SAMPLE

I have already asked you about the feedback including the work done, because we want to be on the same page and provide you with the expected product. That’s why the moment we start working on the new sprint, means you approve all the work, which has been done up this point. Are you good with that? Otherwise, please, check the deployed tasks here *link* and give us your feedback.

Besides, if you wish, we can appoint the review meeting at the end of the Sprint #. During this Demo, we will show the work we have accomplished over the Sprint #. It will include:

- The work we completed

- Key decisions that were made during the sprint

- Demo of the work itself

What do you think about this? Would you like to have the Demo at the end of the Sprint?

� Tell the rules. The customer needs to confirm that he agrees with them.

� While a sprint is running, its tasks cannot be changed or added.

Interrupts the development process, adds new tasks and frequently reminds to resolve them. Makes the change requests on and on.

LETTER SAMPLE

If you wish to change something that was implemented during previous Sprints but we have started working on the new one already, we need to implement the change request either during the next Sprint or do that instead of the other tasks approved for the present Sprint. After sprint is started - it is impossible to update tasks and change its scope until sprint is finished, because any changes to active sprint would break all the planning and destabilize all of the project's flow thus dramatically increasing all the risks and budgets.

If business goals are suddenly changed - you may cancel sprint and set new priorities, after that team will be able to plan new sprint and perform it.

Bad PM:Doesn’t find out what the customer wants to implement in the future

Good PM:Is informed about future plans for the project

- It is very important for us to know the future plans of the project. Are we going to start the next stage of the project as soon as the first stage is done? It's just we need to make a workload plan for developers, QA and Dev Lead. Please, inform us about your intentions...so all members of the team would be available should you decide to continue the development. - My thinking was, that I would start promoting the site and gathering feedback. Some of the feedback would be actual bugs, for which I would need relatively quick attention. Other types of feedback would be improvement requests, which can wait for a later set of sprints, probably after 2-3 months.

LETTER SAMPLE

If everything was done properly, the customer will be glad. But sometimes we need to tell about business advantages which follow after a successful functionality implementation. For example, if the customer is afraid to lose some money for unimportant thing, explain him possible advantages for his business.

5.Understand the

customer’s fears (business and

money)

Don’t be shy to find that out!

- Is there anything (in particular) that’s holding you back?

- Is there anything that disturbs you in our suggestion?

And then crush that fear!

- *** (money)- We always try implementing everything in a way the development costs less in

terms of time, money, emotional stress, and effort and brings maximum ROI (Return of Investments) to business. Once it is ready for shipping, you'll have it and then we'll start another development cycle...

- I want to reduce the time for QA...- QA is important in bugs identification, including the unpredicted ones, because a

well-timed fix would help us to decrease the development time and understand the problem better. This may also reduce the time it would take to make all other fixes in the future.

DIALOGS SAMPLES

6.Learn to

improvise and persuade

Let’s watch the Video:

http://videopay.net/video/saGEsG6PEeaStZNAGpT1tw

Thanks!Any questions?

You can find me at:ivana.zayets@gmail.com