Focusing your online publishing business case

Posted on by Andrew Grimes
Generating a solid business case and maintaining it throughout a project’s life-cycle is no mean feat. Daily challenges – such as getting the most from a limited budget, operating within tight deadlines and dealing with the competing demands and priorities of multiple stakeholders – can result in goal posts moving, scope creeping and deadlines slipping. And while the team are spinning the various plates, it is all too easy to get caught up in the detail and loose sight of the reason(s) they are being spun in the first place. Enter stage-right: The Business Case.

Diagram showing risks/cost and benefits in balance

The business case in PRINCE2 terms is a document that defines the justification for undertaking a project. It describes the benefits a project is intended to deliver against the costs and risks which will need to be taken along the way. A strong business case is one where the envisioned benefits outweigh the costs and risks. Continue reading →

Seven attributes of effective project management

Posted on by Andrew Grimes
Delivering web publishing projects requires the careful coordination of a range of skill sets. There are the developers, who focus on technical challenges; the designers, information architects and QA testers, who primarily focus on addressing end-users’ needs; and of course there is the client team, whose prime focus is on business benefits. Meanwhile, the Project Manager’s focus is on the project team itself and how its members can best work together to deliver against all of these interests. But what does a Project Manager really do? Diagram: 7 project management attributes Here are my top seven attributes of effective project management: the things we PMs ought to be doing to keep everything on track …

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Software Estimation and the Cone of Uncertainty

Posted on by Liam Sheerin
It is notoriously difficult to estimate how long something will take to do. Take, for example, travel. A car journey to London from Brighton should be easy to estimate based on the distance divided by a reasonable average speed. But what is a reasonable average speed? Traffic should also be considered if the estimate is to be accurate and, for the same reason, roadworks. There are other considerations that would affect the estimate but what is obvious from this small set is that it is not possible to guarantee an estimate’s accuracy at this stage. If we take the example further, and look at how such an estimate would change over the duration of the journey, we can see that the only time the estimate can be guaranteed as 100% accurate is once the journey is complete – when the estimate is an actual. The situation is no different in software development and the accuracy of the estimation of software tasks also increases over time. This change in accuracy over time often referred to as the ‘Cone of Uncertainty’.
Cone of Uncertainty

Cone of Uncertainty

The Cone of Uncertainty shows how an estimate will start with a high degree of uncertainty – either over-estimated or under-estimated – which then improves over time as more is known about the task(s). The diagram shows several common stages within a project and shows how accuracy will be increased as the project progresses. If, therefore, it is not possible to guarantee the accuracy of an estimate, then another approach is required. Continue reading →