Project Management

You've had to explain and justify your job to Management, to Human Resources, and to everyone at your high school reunion. But now comes the ultimate test: Your child's assignment for the next show-and-tell is to describe what her mom or dad does for a living. You scramble for an easy way to explain—maybe for the first time—what you do at the office, but your software testing reference books just don't have enough pictures of cute animals to really do the trick. This book might be just what you're looking for.

Software projects are filled with productivity needs and deadline pressures. As a project manager, you may feel responsible for project deliverables yet highly dependent on others to complete their work. It's common to push, prod, and heavy-handedly coerce your team to go faster. Sometimes this has the desired effect. And even if it doesn't, you can at least claim you pushed as hard as you could. But is that really all that can be done? Eileen Strider suggests another tool at your disposal.

Do you think the assumptions you make about your software project are important? I do. One of the biggest sources of software project failure is hidden assumptions, especially about your requirements. These assumptions have a way of coming out of the woodwork–usually at the worst possible moment–to foil your projects. But there are ways to track down and expose assumptions.

Does trying to get developers to test their code feel like trying to get your children to clean their rooms? Some say yes. In this column, the author spins a tongue-in-cheek fable about room cleaning strategies. Your comments are invited.