Putting the People Back into Software Development
IS Survivor has delivered a software project management reality check for organizations putting process before people. Externally devised best practices and processes are something of a bug bear because they don�t take into account the subtle nuances of how individuals in real-life IT teams work.
Summarizing IS Survivor: the best-run software projects - like companies - are those where management builds relationships with people rather than relying on workflows or project reporting tools to steer things or find out what�s going on.
One piece in IS Survivor in particular resonated with us:
“Project teams, like all organizations, are intensely human activities. For some unaccountable reason, many project management methodologies, business schools, and entire consulting practices ignore this simple, inescapable fact. They view the enterprise one dimensionally, as collections of processes, or cash flows, or value chains, knowable through reports, dashboards and scorecards.
Some project managers, IT managers, business managers and executives fall into this trap, mistaking reports for the state of the business. Presumably, when on vacation, they similarly mistake the map for the countryside.”
It’s true. There is a tendency for big vendors and consultants to apply their own processes and methodologies to their customers� projects, with the processes mandating what steps should be taken, and when, and the process delivered through application development or reporting tools. It’s no wonder so many software projects either run late or leave the customer feeling dissatisfied with the end results, because features they wanted don’t get delivered or don�t work.
Rather than plugging into process, organizations should try to understand and exploit their existing, but probably hidden, project biorhythms and make these their workflows and processes. And where it’s difficult to maintain personal relationships with staff — the kind IS Survivor believes are important — then metrics-based tools should be used that are capable of communicating to management what’s happening and that help team leaders proactively support developers in real-time.
The message? Software development is a people business. The reporting tools companies use to run software development projects should reflect this fact.
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