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Tips and Tools for Becoming an Integrated Project Manager – Part 1

23 May 2013 - POSTED by Deborah Corn

thought bubbles of integration and collaboration

Image from boxesandarrows.com

At the dawn of the millennium I was working at an “Interactive Ad Agency” in NYC. I was responsible for the Print Production and Traffic department, but some of that spilled into “interactive” since print campaigns had to include website information, and the websites had to be up when the print launched.

Interactive, at that point, was defined as the creation of websites and banner ads. The process was a great mystery to most of us.

It didn’t help that the really weird people involved in creating things were sitting in dark rooms with headphones on, didn’t really talk to anyone, and were doing something called “coding” which looked like no fun whatsoever.

At this agency, and for many years through many jobs at many agencies after, you had the Print people, and the Interactive people. In many ways they operated as two individual agencies. In some cases, the divide was so vast that the Interactive side had its own agency name and location. This created a lot of issues in branding consistency for clients, and also generated an overall “us vs. them” feeling within the agency, and especially within the creative department.

As the realm of Interactive grew, it became evident in many agencies that there needed to be one central source for project information since the line that divided Print and Interactive was being crossed with greater frequency. Some relinquished this role to print traffic, and some created new positions on the interactive side called project managers. Traffic would either work directly with the interactive team for scheduling, supplying campaign elements, and in some cases release banner ads to post, or directly with the interactive project manager who was essentially traffic and production on the other side.

Over the last ten years as we have seen advertising evolve to an integrated approach, we have also seen the traditional traffic and production roles morph to an agency’s needs, and more often than not those roles are also described as integrated or contain a knowledge requirement for both areas in the job description, despite what they are called. While entry-level employees have the luxury of either graduating from a school that offered integrated/digital design and project management programs or being trained on the job, there is still a large contingency of print-centric traffic and production people out there who haven’t been so fortunate. My goal with these posts is to change that.

I have been asked how to make the transition to “integrated” traffic, production, or project manager a zillion times. I’ve trained employees and helped people along the way, but I haven’t formally tackled the subject in writing because all the pieces weren’t in place, until now. When AtTask approached me to do some blogging for them, I knew this was the perfect platform to answer the “how” question since rule number one regardless if you are print, digital, or integrated is knowing where your project is … and AtTask helps us do that!

In this first post, I wanted to give a little background and whet your knowledge appetite for the information that will follow in this series. Regarding rule number one, now is the time to look and see if your current project management system is set up (or can be set up) to incorporate integrated projects and all the team members that would be needed. The goal is to have an at-a-glance overview of where the print and digital projects need to intersect, collaborate and finally combine.

Next time we will officially start the journey to becoming “integrated” by addressing schedules. Your homework is to start thinking about who controls the assets (images, retouched images, copy, logos etc.) for print and digital projects, what drives print and digital project deadlines (ad insertion, mail drop/website launch, app creation etc.), and who owns them, i.e., one account person or several for integrated projects. Think of these as the corner pieces of the integrated project puzzle, and, once they are in place, you can start working inwards to see the big picture.

Speaking of the big picture, it is actually much easier now to integrate than it has been in the past. Print knowledge has become the real commodity. With the proper tools (like AtTask) in place, and some tips from me and the other integrated project managers out there, you will be updating your title in no time at all!

Deborah Corn is the Intergalactic Ambassador to The Printerverse at PrintMediaCentr, an industry speaker and blogger, and a contract Print Production and Integrated Project Manager at PrintProQuo providing 24 years of experience in print production and advertising agency management. She is the founder and cultivator of Print Production Professionals Group on LinkedIn, and host of the weekly #printchat on Twitter. Deborah also works behind the scenes with printers, suppliers and industry organizations helping with their cross media marketing and social media endeavors.

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6 Ingredients of Effective Demand Management

22 May 2013 - POSTED by Marcus Varner

Most PMO’s and IT departments are all about supply. Demand? Not so much.

The disconnect between IT departments or PMO’s and the rest of their organizations is infamous. Whereas the rest of a company seems to live and die by such business driving objectives as revenue and profit, IT organizations often seem like they live in a separate house, concerned more with delivery, often feeling like they’re undeservedly at the mercy of the whims of their business-focused counterparts.

Out of Balance

IT expert and writer Michael Gentle at CIO.com explains the problem this way:

“IT is unduly focused on the supply side of the equation, or the how… to the detriment of the demand side, or the what.”

IT teams are often the ones who suffer most from the by-products of this phenomenon. A PMO manager at a Florida hospital recently recalled:

“Demand planning was just killing us, and we had a larger than average attrition rate that was very bothersome and a lot of team members who just felt we weren’t looking forward enough and just a general feeling of being overwhelmed.”

Frustration. Ineffectiveness. Missed deadlines. And a company falling short of its business objectives. These are the symptoms of an IT department’s failure to balance supply and demand.

If a lack of balance between supply and demand is the root of this problem, then balance is the key to solving it—demand management.

The Ingredients of Effective Demand Management

Although the concept usually goes unnoticed in IT organizations, it isn’t as complicated as you might think. In fact, it is as simple in concept as our description above: controlling demand to match resources and vice versa, constantly keeping that see-saw balanced.

And always at the center of it all, deciding how much is just right, weeding out the dross, is your business objectives. To put this in more practical terms, we broke it down into six ingredients that, when used together, create effective demand management:

1. Ability to capture demand

You can’t control demand unless you know how much demand you’re getting. This means not just the number of projects in your queue, but potential resource requirements on each of those projects.

If all of your work management is taking place in one system, this will be relatively easy. You’ve already got a database collecting data on the intake of new requests and the magnitude of those potential projects. It’s just a matter of pulling a report that lets you see these all at once.

But if you’re taking requests from every direction—via email, chat, a homegrown ticketing system, etc.—this is going to be a bit tougher. If you’re in this situation, you’ve probably found yourself having to admit that you don’t know exactly what your team is working on at any given time. Honestly, this is going to make it difficult to gauge what your demand is.

2. Clearly defined business objectives

As stated above, business objectives are the linchpin in this whole balancing act. They are the means by which you measure the value of projects. They’re the scale you use to weigh projects against each other when trying to determine how much demand to allow.

To work the way you need them to, business objectives can’t be confined to the executive board room; they have to be applicable down to the project manager level. Project managers and their teams should know exactly what the objectives mean.

3. Clearly defined criteria for acceptance

Business objectives need to be translated into criteria for the acceptance or rejection of requests. The clearer and the more applicable these criteria are, the lower your and your requestors’ frustration will be. Most importantly, it prevents you from having to reinvent the wheel every time a new request comes down the pipe.

So spell out your acceptance criteria. Make them strict enough to adequately control demand, and make sure everyone knows what they are. If possible, build these criteria into your work management system and automate them.

4. Quantifiable cost and benefit data

One criterion every PMO must have among their acceptance criteria is cost-benefit data. How much is a project expected to cost? How much will it make? Like any business decision, the decision to accept a new project must include a discussion of how that project will increase company profits, either by decreasing expenses or increasing revenues.

Not every requestor will be comfortable with this notion, especially those who are used to using more qualitative reasons. But hold your ground. Demand management requires tough love, and, in this case, that means pushing back on requestors and forcing them to get the cost-benefit data to prove that their request is in the best interest of the company and not just a pet project. If they can’t provide quantifiable cost-benefit data, their request was not the kind you should be investing resources in. And you’ve successfully limited your demand.

5. Visibility of resources at team and individual level

So you’re controlling your inflow of requests. Metaphorically speaking, you’ve carefully placed on the demand side of your scale the appropriate amount of projects, nothing extemporaneous. Now you need to take a look at your resources to ensure that your supply can match your demand.

You need to know where your team’s man hours are going and where they’ve been committed for the coming weeks. This needs to be visible at the team and individual level. Having this visibility will raise all the right questions:

“Do I need more resources?”
“How can I shift Resource A to help Resource B satisfy this demand?”
“I can’t satisfy this demand and my resources are fixed. How can I make my criteria tougher to push back demand?”

6. Ability to see effects of unplanned work on current projects

Having worked in a PMO or IT department, you’ve surely learned by now that even the best-laid plans can be interrupted by the occasional curve ball out of left field. This unplanned demand is often driven by actual crises (Ex: “Our site server just crashed!”). But, just as often, it’s urgency is more imagined than real (Ex: “I need a new nameplate for my desk! Pronto! With unicorns carved into it!”). Not to worry. The process you’ve put in place will weed out the good from the ugly.

This process is easier, however, if you have tools that will show the effects of dropping ad hoc requests into your work queue. Some of the best work management solutions feature capacity planners that forecast how timelines and resources will have to shift and budgets may be affected by an unplanned request. Combining these tools with strong acceptance criteria can be especially powerful in controlling unplanned demand.

In conclusion, demand management is a fine art—that’s why so few succeed at it. You need visibility to pull off this balancing act. But with the right tool and a little teamwork between management and IT, an organization can transform its IT team from a fish out of water to a well-honed engine for business success.

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Navigating the Churn of Healthcare Project and Work Management

21 May 2013 - POSTED by Mike Meikle

Conflicting Priorities and Limited Resources are Brewing up a Big Storm in Healthcare.

Just a brief introduction, I’m Mike and I’ll be your guide as we navigate the roiling seas of conflicting healthcare priorities. A quick search on Google can provide all the information you care to have on my career, as well as some crummy pictures. But, as an overview, I provide security and project management consulting services in healthcare and have for the last fifteen years. I speak frequently on healthcare education and security topics and I have written many articles on healthcare and technology related issues that have run in multiple publications like CIO magazine, CNBC and American Medical News.

So, back to the healthcare priorities, what are they? Well, that’s part of the problem. There are so many priorities at the moment in the healthcare space, it’s almost impossible to get a clear direction. There is an alphabet soup of healthcare initiatives that are pressing down on the industry (HIPAA, HITECH, ARRA, ACA, HIE, HIX, ICD-10, Meaningful Use) that, like a tsunami, has engulfed all resources available in many organizations. By the way, if you would like for me to translate any of those acronyms and their healthcare impact, just ask in the comments below.

As a project manager and information security consultant in the healthcare industry, I’ve been exposed to both the projects on the business side of healthcare (telemedicine, outreach, EMR/EHR, PACS) as well as the security angle (HIPAA Final Rule, securing the business of healthcare). I truly understand the monumental task of project managers attempting to deliver solutions on time while balancing the significant security requirements on the other.

Healthcare providers already have an overwhelming workload when it comes to treating patients. Convincing them to sit down and write cogent business requirements, participate in project planning meetings, or have a cohesive project strategy is a tremendous challenge. You will find that effective communication skills and an eye for using the appropriate project management techniques will get you much farther than stubbornly sticking to a specific project methodology while you constantly tweak your PPM reports.

Simple Tools and Processes as well as Clear Communication.

What I aim to do within this space is to provide advice on how to effectively manage projects in this chaotic environment, summarize key trends in the industry and discuss security implications of all these initiatives and mandates. I will dispense some hopefully valuable advice on how to market and manage your projects while providing guidance on the HIPPA privacy and security restrictions of various initiatives.

In my next post, I am going to cover the upcoming turbulence in the healthcare market as a whole. Large hospitals are buying up smaller practices and smaller practices are rushing to make this happen. The manifold risks and uncertainties of operating under the Affordable Care Act are causing tremendous change in the industry. This will greatly impact the project management and security professions for which we will all need to be prepared.

Please sound off in the comments below if you have any questions! I look forward to being your resource for all things healthcare project management and security related.

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AtTask Thrilled to Be in the Gartner Cool Vendor Report

16 May 2013 - POSTED by Shelbi Gomez

Growing up, the majority of us aspire to be part of the “cool” crowd. We yearn to be liked and, perhaps, even a little popular. Popularity is weighed differently by each of us. Sometimes confirmation comes from being prom king, or queen, being invited to parties and events, or even voted “Most Likely to be Famous”.

Well, AtTask has officially been inducted into the “cool kids club” and we are not ashamed to admit that we are thrilled. AtTask was one of three vendors to be included in the “Cool Vendors in CRM Marketing Applications, 2013” report by Garter, Inc.

Gartner states, “This year’s Cool Vendors in marketing applications provide more robust people and project management and distributed marketing capabilities, and a data-driven cross-channel marketing platform.”

So what could be better? Well, cool companies like Tommy Hilfiger, Harry & David, Red Bull, Workday, and GoPro use AtTask for marketing teams to bring visibility, communication, and harmony to their marketing teams.

So what are you looking for in a “cool” Enterprise Work Management tool?

Download the full Gartner report.

Additional Resources:

Listen to how top marketers are solving communication and visibility problems
Read how other marketing customers are using the AtTask
Watch how AtTask can calm the chaos of marketing teams

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How Does Setting Expectations Help Managers Avoid Project Failure?

15 May 2013 - POSTED by Brett Merritt

Dilbert explains a chart of project expectations. Like floating in a life raft with 100 little holes poked in it, mismanaging team and stakeholder expectations on a project will lead to sinking before it ever has a chance to really get anywhere.

Those who manage work and projects on a daily basis know expectation management is a key part of the work process which often gets poorly communicated, brushed aside, or confused with requirements management. Why? There are a number of reasons: because there is a looming deadline, because it seems easier, because it’s not an official part of the process. Or, it could be because the project leader doesn’t know how to manage expectations so they just hope for the best. It’s exactly this thinking that dooms productive, collaborative and efficient work.

In “Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Project Management,” Gregory M. Horine writes that expectations are shaped by both reality and perception:

“In an ideal project, both the reality and perception of project objectives, performance, targeted results, and expected impact are aligned up-front among all stakeholders during project definition and planning, and then remain this way throughout the project. However, this ideal situation generally eludes us.”

How can we achieve the ideal situation? By aligning the reality and perception of expectations through six best practices:

1. Know the difference between expectations and requirements. Technically, every requirement is also an expectation. This is because stakeholders expect requirements will be met. However, most of the time expectations refer to the part of the deliverable such as design, user experience, reliability, and other subjective pieces that are hard to document and even harder to get a clear picture of from the stakeholders. Stakeholders like to measure the effectiveness of expectations by how they feel about them more than ticking a box that it was “done.” In short, the definition of requirements versus expectations is that requirements are objectively stated and clearly defined, and expectations are subjective and loosely understood. (In addition, it is critical to know the difference between the product and project expectations as well. That’s something we covered here.)

2. Have a kick off with stakeholders and discuss the expectations. It is important to take enough time to ask the right questions and get the right people to respond. The way to do this is to get buy in as early as possible from all parties at a kickoff meeting. Those involved can sign off—and be witnessed signing off—on what the product is (requirements) and how it works (expectations). If you do this, your job as a manager during execution will be more focused on delivery of requirements than detective work about unknown or unforeseen expectations.

It may even help to hold a separate meeting altogether for requirements. Once a frank discussion is had about the subjective elements of the product or project, you can talk about which expectations might be problematic, either to define or to meet. This will get you closer to alignment from stakeholders and you can feel better about the potential your project has to succeed.

3. Realize you will not meet every expectation. Stakeholders will always show up with their own distinct yet varied sets of expectations. Of course, many will be impossible to achieve in the timeline given with the resources at your disposal. This is common. One solution is to have a discussion that paints the reality of the various realistic and unrealistic requests. You may still be asked to go “above and beyond” but, with the potential problems of the unrealistic expectations documented clearly upfront, there will be no surprises. This is also a good exercise for confirming which stakeholder expectations carry greater influence and priority.

Once this is done, your job as a manager is to mold expectations as the project progresses. Doing this means finding out during approval stages what will satisfy stakeholders, not what will be perfect for them. Again, this will probably mean compromise but, as long as the implications of a stakeholder request are clear (lack of UI, pushed deadline, more money), you will find expectations being met through what is acceptable, leading to less objections about the same thing. You can always refer back to the “realistic versus unrealistic” discussion as back up, which is one of the benefits of getting everything done at the kick off in writing.

4. Have a defined project communication plan. This means frequent disclosure to all stakeholders. Assumptions will kill your team, your work, and your deadline. You know what they say about the word “assume.” Developing a communication plan that errs on the side of over-communication will be critical to the success of your project and work objectives. This is a plan that will set context for communicating with the team and stakeholders about both requirements and expectations. It will outline:

How reporting will be done
How often updates will be ready
How changes will be addressed
How disagreements will handled
Who has what role and when to talk to that person

The most important step of creating this communication plan, much like the kick off, is that it’s agreed to upfront.

With the above in order, you can be the right amount of good cop and bad cop to see your team’s work through to completion. Stick to the communication plan like glue. Over communicate the overarching “why this is important” so everyone understands how crucial their role really is.

“Your ability to manage the perceptions of each individual associated with the project is the key to managing expectations,” writes Horine.

5. Always expect change. Your project will change. Even when you’ve planned everything perfectly, it will change. Look and listen for cues that you have a frustrated or unaligned team member or stakeholder and set up a time to iron it out quickly.

Robert Bell, in a post titled “How to Proactively Manage Project Expectations,” writes that teams will probably need to compromise and make emergency changes along the way. Changes are fine as long as both the team and stakeholders know about it and sign off on it. He explains that when things are tough and a tight deadline is looming, everyone needs to know what’s happening and whether there will be any changes to the agreed upon requirements and expectations.

As a leader, develop the ability to see things from others’ perspectives. This will help you anticipate needs and concerns and showcases you as the flexible one. This is a skill that will allow you to adapt to best handle the situation at hand.

The most important takeaway is that making stakeholders a part of your work process will give you more time to focus on getting the work done on time rather than worrying about when they will throw the next wrench into your plan.

What are some of the ways you’ve managed expectations during projects?

To learn more about a way to easily incorporate stakeholders into your team’s work processes, click here.

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How Do SaaS Companies Figure Out What Features to Build?

14 May 2013 - POSTED by Kirk Eisele

There is a difference between building every feature and building the right feature. (Image: edocumentsciences.com)

Henry Ford is apocryphally quoted as saying: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.”

On the other hand, the legendary David Ogilvy said: “Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.”

Which approach is right? In reality, neither guy was as one-sided as their famous quotes imply. Just like advertising and car design decades before, the software industry struggles to balance inspired creativity while specifically meeting the established work needs and patterns of existing customers.

So how does a well-run software company figure out what to build? Every company will have unique challenges but most strong enterprise product groups follow a process similar to the one we follow here at AtTask. We collect as much information as we can, mix in new trends and inspiration with care, and aim for a balanced approach.

There are a ton of information sources available to us as a software company and we try to take advantage of them all. We group our sources into three main categories which we lean on to get great concepts to make our solution better.

Internal guidance. This represents all the things we can find out from our internal information. The corporate goals and strategy of the company fall into this area. So does feedback from our sales department about why we won or lost the deals they pursued. A less obvious but also valuable source is our ability to look at the actual usage patterns of AtTask by our customers. We can see which parts of the program get lots of use, which are middle of the road, and which parts are the little-visited backwaters.

Direct customer feedback. The second category is probably the one that comes to mind first. We are fortunate enough to have more than 1000 AtTask Research Community members who take part in surveys and send ideas to us. We get ideas continually all year and review them on a weekly basis. Additionally, we have daily phone calls with customers, weekly sync-ups with our consulting teams, and daily “heartbeats” with support to stay in touch with what our customers are reaching out to tell us.

External insights. All of us in product management are geeky enough to actually think it is fun to stay up to date on industry trends, hot companies that are launching, and new technologies that will shape the future. We constantly scan the landscape for inspiration and ideas. Additionally, we pack our bags and go visit customers to conduct contextual inquiries which means watching people work in our (or another) system, being careful not to influence them and learning as much as we can. We also have regular reviews with analyst firms like Forrester, Gartner, and IDC among others.

Once we have the suggestions, ideas, and information from these sources we:

Continually update a backlog of possible enhancements.
Gauge the level of effort required by development for each item.
Estimate how much development time is available.
Plan to do as much as we can of the highest priority items on the list.

The battle for which features get into the next round of development and what has to wait can be hard fought. It can really be agonizing to choose what has to be left out knowing that there are people with real needs behind each suggestion. The possible improvements for a complex application are limitless while development time and sanity are not. All companies like ours struggle to find the perfect balance for our customers.

It’s a never-ending struggle but as we continue to grow, it will remain an important pillar for improving our solution along the way.

To learn more about AtTask, click here.

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5 Ways To Become A Resource Management Ace

8 May 2013 - POSTED by Branden Bingham

The Ace card is the master card. “It seems a terrible thing to gamble with such big stakes … without having your master card in your hand.” —Henry L. Stimson

Resource Management is the master card for those whose job it is to manage teams and multiple projects that impact a company’s bottom line. This is sometimes referred to as ‘people planning’ but it really entails planning, managing, and assigning the right people, with the right skills, at the right time to the right projects. In today’s fast-paced, need-it-now, bigger-than-the-last-time world of business, a pair of twos just isn’t good enough. The point is, keeping people busy isn’t a problem. Keeping them on the right work is.

Successful resource management can be broken down into three critical disciplines:

Demand Management involves the work intake, demand forecasting, and estimation part of the process.
Capacity Management covers rolls and skills management, capacity planning, resource assignment, and alternative sourcing.
Time Management involves time tracking and analysis to better gauge estimates.

These three disciplines cannot operate independently. There is overlap in each one and, in order to be successful with resource management, you must give adequate attention to all three.

Here are five ways to make sure you stay on top of all three disciplines so you can be well on your way to a resource management winner.

1. Know and Prioritize the Work

It is important to inventory the work you know about and estimate the work you don’t.
There should be a grouping process for evaluating and prioritizing each type of request. What you don’t want to do is to apply the same level of rigor to every type of work.
In 2010, only 40% of organizations reported having a functioning enterprise resource allocation process.
Don’t ignore the benefits of automation. Create a mechanism to generate a complete view of demand.

2. Know Team Strengths and Limitations

In order to gain a complete overview of resource availability you need to know where resources are committed.
Understand the roles and skills of each individual to optimize assignments. Don’t view resources as “buckets” of time with equal capabilities. Individuals have particular strengths, i.e., what they are good at and can do quickly.
Don’t assume your team’s capacity won’t change over time. What they’re capable of now will likely increase.
Multi-tasking results in 66 % longer average project time so be mindful of current assignments when resourcing.
It’s also important to recognize that a 40-hour workweek does not consist of 40 hours. Allow time for ad-hoc, lights-on, and other types of work.

3. Right People, Right Job, Right Time

This one is key. Develop priorities early and categorize work based on alignment.
It’s important to not forecast resources in a vacuum. It will be tendency to turn to your superstars over and over again; those individuals you can count on to get the work done no matter what. Do not overuse them.
Negotiate job load to avoid burnout or risk losing those who you value most.
Have a process in place to supplement staff if necessary. When you take a reactive approach to augmenting staff it may be too late by the time you get around to doing something about it.
Maintaining some resource reserves is ideal for handling the inevitable constant change. Reserve capacity is a must when facing complex project or program situations.

4. Use Time Tracking Appropriately

Time tracking can be a touchy topic. Be prepared for the challenges that accompany time tracking implementation.
Be sure and keep it at an appropriate or comfortable level. The goal is to better understand where the resources availability is, not to play big brother.
Evaluate and select a tool to simplify time entry. No, post-it notes do not count.
You’ll want to make sure your tracking is accurate and complete so that when you analyze the data you can refine your estimates and use that information to drive improvements.
34% of projects in 2010 were in a queue or backlog, implying that projects are waiting for people, because people are over-allocated.

5. Plan For Change and Don’t Change Your Plan

Setup initial and ongoing change management processes and make sure to adhere to them. The temptation will be to let “just this one change” slip in. Stick to your guns.
Also, you don’t want to build a change management process that isn’t scalable.

Using these five best practices will undoubtedly improve your team’s efficiency. Which is a big deal considering 49% of enterprise teams put high priority on improving efficiency. Increased efficiency will drive innovation and 70% of enterprises claim increased innovation is their top priority.

Putting the right people on the right job at the right time is not a new concept but certainly one that deserves some attention. Resource management may not be as sexy as winning a hand in high stakes poker but remembering these important tips will make you an invaluable Ace your executive will keep up their sleeve.

To take your resource management skills to the next level check out AtTask Enterprise Work Cloud here.

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Developer Job Tips: Application Development vs Client Work

7 May 2013 - POSTED by Bryan Hinton

Client work v. company application development. What’s best for you? (Image: iconarchive.com)

Programming jobs come in many different shapes and sizes. At some companies, you’re the programmer guy, the IT guy, or the anything-remotely-related-to-computers guy. At other companies, you’re one of several dozen developers maintaining a single, thin layer of code within a huge system. In general, programming jobs fall into one of two camps:

Consulting work for clients
Application development for one company

The client work camp consists primarily of tiny to mid-sized companies that will do contract work for different customers. In the other camp you will see mid- to large-sized companies that have an application or suite of apps that they sell to others.

It’s important that you work in the right camp for you, unless you enjoy pulling your hair out every day. Each side has its own set of perks, but will also come with its own set of baggage. Here are the best and worst of each.

Application Development

The Best:

Depth – When you’re always working on the same product, you can (hopefully!) get around to fixing all the annoying things you see in the code. Optimization is emphasized, and you can go to sleep at night knowing that your code is solid.
Stability – It’s easy for a company that only manages one application to plan ahead and provide a road map for its developers. You can always get a sense of where the product is headed and what you’ll be working on in the coming year.
(Lack of) Customer Interaction – We always love our customers, or whoever is willing to pay us money for our work, but developers are typically not the best “people” people. Most companies that manage a big application will also have customer service departments to do all that work for you.

The Worst:

Bugs – Since you’re always working on the same application, the bugs don’t go away. Just because you’ve moved on to another project doesn’t mean you are no longer responsible for code you’ve written in the past. This can wear on you.
Legacy Code – You’re never the first one in the code, and the developers who were there before you never seem to do it quite the way you wanted them to. Finding bad code (and complaining about it) is a common occurrence.

Client Work

The Best:

Always New – Don’t like what you’re working on? No problem! You’ll be working on something completely different in no more than a few months, so just hang in there. There’s always another client with another project just around the corner.
Cowboy Coding – Since you can basically start from scratch with each new client (sometimes), that gives you a lot of leeway to try new things and do them your way. Experimenting with new technologies is much easier this way.
No Bugs! – Once the project is complete and the client signs off, you don’t have to touch any of that code again (not for free, anyway). Not that you want to write fickle code, but there isn’t nearly as much pressure on you to produce fully optimized work.

The Worst:

Customer Interaction – On the flipside of application development, developers will frequently talk to/work with the client directly. This can be very frustrating when you learn that they don’t know the first thing about computers and they don’t understand anything you’re saying to them.
Instability – If your company relies on contract work for clients, then it’s very difficult to see farther than six months away. This can lead to a lot of unneeded stress around the office.

At the end of the day, one camp is not superior to the other. But before you jump on the next job offer you get, make sure you know which camp is right for you.

To learn more about AtTask and if it’s the right company for you, click here.

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Change – What’chu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?

2 May 2013 - POSTED by Deanne Earle

Arnold from Diff'rent Strokes TV show The word ‘change’ has many meanings yet when it’s dropped in to conversations its point of reference is often unclear, mislabelled or completely misinterpreted. Think for a moment … The last time you heard someone mention change or managing change did you immediately understand exactly the type of change being discussed or did you think, “what’chu talkin’ ‘bout“?

Aside from the whole communication issue, change should come with this warning:

Have you properly defined your use of the word change in this conversation?

It’s critical in management of any sort, be it project, line, tactical or strategic, to make sure your audience understands the type of change that’s either in progress or is coming.

Because I’m blogging about business change from an IT project perspective I thought we’d start by identifying some typical change related terms and their definitions. These terms apply to every IT project I’ve ever heard about or been involved with and have seen first hand how clarity benefits everyone. First, let’s get the Oxford Online Dictionary’s definition of change, just so we’re clear where we’re starting: Change as a verb:

To make or become different, eg: a proposal to change the project scope
Take or use another instead of, eg: the sponsor decided to change the projects name

Change as a noun:

an act or process through which something becomes different, eg: the change from a local to a globally strategic project

Now let’s take a look at other common terms used that mean change:

Transition – the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another, eg: the project closedown included the transition of new system run processes across to daily IT operations.

Transformation – a marked change in form, nature or appearance, eg: the new Sponsor ensured the program underwent a radical transformation.

Change Management – the management of change and development within a business or similar organization. The controlled identification and implementation of required changes within an IT system or software, eg: the process, rigour and governance applied to a merger and acquisition or software or hardware upgrade.

Business process re-engineering (BPR) – the process of restructuring business-as-usual processes and methods. Particularly relevant when exploiting the capabilities expected from an IT project.

Do you use these terms in your projects? What other terms do you hear bandied about? In what context are they used and what do they really mean? I think ‘change’ is suffering from OOS (Occupational Overuse Syndrome). I also believe we as responsible professional Project Managers have an opportunity to take ownership and help an organisation simplify its use by bringing more clarity to change in our projects. Do you agree?

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