Project Management

Software projects in all areas are notorious for the high rate of failure. Developing software is an expensive, difficult and time consuming activity; and what's worse, it is rarely understood by upper management and executive sponsors.

It has been proven time and again that there is no single recipe for achieving success in software development. A project manager has to balance between the interests and needs of two very different groups:

• Developers and QA Engineers: even though plenty of people can write code and will do it for a living, good software requires good engineers which are few and far between. Good developers are essential to delivering a successful, bug-free and maintainable product; they also tend to have a view of the world that is radically different from that of sales and support personnel. Most developers communication and teamwork skills are not on par with what's needed in today's competitive climate.
• Customers and Management: they are always focused on business value and on service, and rightly so. This is in stark contrast with the average developer goal (to deliver a good product, not necessarily a good customer experience). Customers and management are rarely able to express their needs in the clear, fact-filled and engineering-oriented style that developers can use as input.

This "impedance mismatch" places a great strain on project managers and customer engagement managers. These people must sit at once in both worlds: they must understand development and coding - otherwise they won't get the respect and understanding that makes all the difference between "5 coders" and "a coherent team of 5 software engineers". A project manager has to understand technology, because whether clients like it or not, technology restrictions and decisions have key impact on any contemporary project's price, time for delivery, feature set, performance and maintainability.

Yet, project / engagement managers must speak the language of the customer. At all times they have to understand they are getting paid to deliver business value and overall customer satisfaction. This is true even for shrink-wrap software development companies, but doubly so in the world of consulting and custom development.

Delera Systems senior consultants offer unprecedented experience as outsourced project managers. They have in-depth understanding of practically all key enteprise development technologies today (with an especial emphasis on the Microsoft .NET platform, C++ for low-level development, SQL Server and Oracle for RDBMS solutions). Delera also has extensive experience with all kinds of customers - from small startups with single-digit staff numbers, to government and international organizations. We always look beyond the initial requirements (and, as developers say, "beyond the code") to understand the actual needs of the customer, and deliver real value through constant communication, partnership and close supervision of technical efforts. When we manage a project for a client - whether we use Delera programmers, client's own technical staff or outsourced coding - we always look towards delivering a complete solution, not just a particular piece of software.

We have managed projects with all kinds of process methodology - starting with the chaotic "just sit down and code" and ending with rigorously formalized development processes, using complex modeling tools and adhering to CMM 5 or specific ISO 9001 guidelines. Over time, our own experience has taught us that best results are achieved through a middle-of-the-road approach. Thus, we have our own lightweight methodoly: we apply specifications, quality assurance, source control and configuration management and change control. Yet, we do not attempt to micromanage every aspect of development; creativity is important to programmers and should be encouraged, provided that the overall direction is controlled closely and extensive client communication is part of the work cycle.

• Case study: Card management system for leading consumer credit firm