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Managing Across the Globe: Clarify Each Handoff’s Meaning
December 7, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices
Managing Across the Globe: Clarify Each Handoff’s Meaning (#2 in the series Tips to Managing Across the Globe)
By Johanna Rothman
In general, I dislike milestones that say “Complete” without defining what complete means. I’ve noticed that even when I ask developers to unit test their code, some developers think that unit testing means their code compiles. And, I’ve noticed that when I used to ask testers to “bang on” a piece of software, they thought as long as they tested the obvious things, that was good enough. Since I expect a variety of testing, I can’t just say “Testing Complete” as a milestone with discussing the types of testing I’m expecting.
When I create a schedule with a global project team, I tend to list the milestone criteria along with the milestones. For example, when I say “Feature 1 Complete,” I’ll attach criteria that might look like this:
- Feature 1 code compiles without warning on all platforms
- Feature 1 unit tests checked in and run (If I’m managing a team who’s using test-driven development, I’ll omit this criterion)
- Feature 1 smoke test checked into smoke test area
- Feature 1 checked in and built. Smoke test runs successfully
It’s clear from this list that the project team (and I) won’t say that Feature 1 Complete is done unless all the code is checked in and works, as well has having some unit tests and smoke tests to verify the feature works.
If you’re managing a small, collocated team, you could talk to the developers and gain their agreement to criteria like these. But the larger the team, and the more geographically distributed the team, the more specific agreements you and the project team require to know the true project state.
This original article can be found at: http://www.jrothman.com/Papers/managing-across-globe.html
Johanna Rothman consults, speaks, and writes on managing high-technology product development. Johanna is the author of Manage It!’Your Guide to Modern Pragmatic Project Management’. She is the coauthor of the pragmatic Behind Closed Doors, Secrets of Great Management, and author of the highly acclaimed Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People. And, Johanna is a host and session leader at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference (http://www.ayeconference.com). You can see Johanna’s other writings at http://www.jrothman.com.
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