Project Management

How important is applying good project management practices in a project? In my opinion, it is very important, yet many companies place very little emphasis in this area. A good project manager can make a big difference in a team to help in guiding a team out of troubled water and improve team moral.

Here are some good and common sense project management practices from a recent article in ComputerWorld magazine:

1. Every hour of planning would save three hours of work.
   
2. Tailor a life-cycle development methodology to a project, team and
   organization culture.
   
3. Communicate often and early - the last thing you want to do is to have
   one kick-off meeting at the beginning of a project and then have another
   meeting later in the project trying to salvage it.
   
4. Use key words in subject of emails which will allow Outlook to filter
   project related emails easily
   
5. Indecision can kill a project, be persistent in driving to a closure.
   
6. If a technical problem is not solved in 8 hours, escalate it and get help.
   
7. Use Extreme Programming stand-up meeting practice to ensure problems are
   addressed and to reduce surprises.
   
8. Know when to say done. Remove as much uncertainty as possible toward the end
   of a project. Limit checkins.