Jimali Software Engineering

All projects, like books, have a start, middle, and end. In Practical Project Initation, Wiegers focusses mainly on the start of a project, with the goal of starting the project on a firm footing. The basic premise is that a project that starts off on firm foundations is more likely to succeed that one that doesn't. In my karate training I'm regularly reminded that "strong basics lead to strong kata, and strong kata leads to strong kumite (sparring)". I have seen many students commence training and progress through the ranks until they come to a sudden, disheartening halt. In most cases this occurs because the student has not given themselves a strong foundation based on karate basics. The same applies to managing projects. Projects that start without a strong foundation invariably fail. Wiegers wants to help the reader prevent that occuring, and I think he has developed a good guide for doing so.

The book is a collection of articles that Wiegers has written and published over a number of years. Whilst each article stands alone, pulling them together in this book consolidates the information and lessons into one place allowing easier cross referencing and knowledge transfer. As with his other books, Wiegers writes in a style that is engaging and is easy to understand. Where appropriate, Wiegers states his personal preferences which are based on his experience. For example, in Chapter 10 where he discussing contigency buffers, Wiegers list two options that the project manager has for determining the contigency. The first is to pad every estimate, and the second is to allocate an overrun buffer at the end of a stage (or iteration or sprint or ...). He then explains his reasoning for recommending the second option over the first. The reasons given are clearly written and make a lot of sense.

The book covers many aspects of project initiation. Wiegers includes chapters on estimation, risk management, metrics, planning, budgeting, and completion criteria. Each one of these aspects is an important part of the project, but are often overlooked in the rush to get the project up and running. The book includes practice activities and work sheets to help you improve your project initiation skills.

The book is split into five parts:

1. Project management fundamentals;
2. Preparing for success;
3. Living with reality;
4. Measuring what happens;
5. Learning continuously;

Part 1 discusses the fundamentals of project management before describing some project management best practices. Although I've been trying to apply these best practices for some time, it's always good to see them in a different light. One of my personal bugbears is the definition of "complete" when talking about activities. I agree with Wiegers when he says "Don't let people 'round up' their task completion status; use explicit criteria to determine when an activity is truly completed" in Practice #19. I have found that when you use this practice you get far better results than not; but it's good to read that others have discovered the same thing. All up, Wiegers describes 21 best practices that project managers should use.

Part 2 of the book discusses setting the project up for success. From defining success criteria, to risk management, to knowing where the project is at, and planning for success, Wiegers takes an in depth look into these critical issues. Knowing where the project is headed, and when you've got there are two important parts of project management. Wiegers spends some time discussing these issues with the aim of producing realistic, customer focussed acceptance criteria that confirm the project has been completed. Being able to identify and minimise risk is another key aspect of setting up the acceptance criteria. Wiegers shows how to set up risk categories that are sensible and allow risks to be consistently categorised.

Part 3 discusses dealing with the reality that projects don't go as planned. Wiegers argues that project managers should be realistic in their promises, be prepared for a rainy day by including realistic overrun buffers, and using consistent estimating techniques to achieve realistic estimates. I agree with this stance entirely because I've learned from experience how much being unrealistic hurts. This section of the book is quite short; however it's importance far outweights its length

Part 4 discusses measuring the performance of the project. Wiegers introduces the concept of metrics, and argues that they should be considered during the initiation phase to ensure that they are implemented over the life of the project. The basis of the argument is that the sooner measurement commences, the sooner you'll be able to understand how the project is performing.

Part 5 discusses learning from past projects and the project as it progresses. Albert Einstein said "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". This section elaborates on this and describes methods that can be used to learn from past experiences. In particular, Wiegers discusses retrospectives which look at what happened on a project to identify what worked, what failed, and what could be improved.

What I liked:

• As usual Wiegers' books are well written and easy to understand;
• His list of 21 project management best practices;
• The practice activities and work sheets;

What I disliked:

There wasn't much to dislike about this book. The book covers a subject that can have a vast scope, so the only disappointment is that by necessity some of the sections were shorter than they could have been. The flip side of this is that those chapters could be books in their own right, and keeping them short give the reader something to sink their teeth into and encourages them to keep investigating.

Recommendation:

I think this is a very good book. I would recommend it to anyone who is involved in project initiation. I believe that project managers of all levels of experience will get something from this book, even if it is just a different view on the relative importance of the initiation activities. I intend to use it as a reference when initiating projects in an effort to start the project off on solid foundations. I don't think that the book sets out something that is too heavyweight, lthough I'm sure that there are plenty of people in the Agile community who would disagree. Regardless of whether you work on defence projects or web projects, I believe process driven and Agile projects will benefit from the practices outlined in this book.