Johanna warns us that there is “no such thing as percent complete” when it comes to tracking status on a project. Your managers and customers want to know percent complete – and there is a way to report it. Project planning and scheduling involves walking this fine line.
Product Management / Project Management
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Scheduling Product Releases
When you define a product roadmap, you also define the release dates for your product. Change happens. Your market changes, your customers change, your requirements change. Unpredictable events happen. Your competitors release a new killer feature, your developers have an epiphany (or run into a roadblock). Should you change your release schedule?
Agile / Product Management / ROI / Software development
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Agile Development and Software Maintenance Costs
Over 90% of the cost of software development is software maintenance (cite). This alarming trend was predicted as early as 1972. McKinsey suggests that CIOs should spend no more than 40-60% on maintenance. Gartner’s IT Spending and Demand Survey (2002) reports that CIOs are spending 80% of their budgets on maintenance (p12 of presentation). Agile development can help reverse this trend.
Agile / Product Management / ROI / Software development
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Product Life Cycle and the ROI of Agile Development
The product life cycle is a description of the presence or behavior of a product in the marketplace over time. The framework for description is a function of the sales volume of the product versus time. Over time, products are created and introduced, and sales grow, peak and decline. The product life cycle uses phases to describe these different periods in the life of a product. Understanding the product life cycle is also key to calculating the ROI of agile development.
Software development / Usability / UX
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8 Stages of Corporate Usability Awareness
Jakob Nielsen identifies 8 levels of adoption of usability by corporations. He calls them the stages of corporate usability maturity. There is definitely a continuum of adoption and appreciation for usability in companies today. By understanding the eight levels we can determine how best to increase the commitment to usability on our projects.
Flashback
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Flashback: A Year Ago This Week on Tyner Blain [2006-02-24]
A look back at the best from a year ago
Communication / Consulting / Presentation / Project Management
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Project Dashboard Icons
We create project dashboards all the time to show status, or to give upper management an update. Dashboards and scorecards are great for giving us a “quick view” into the health of a project – they give us a way to drill down. Many of us use the colors red / yellow / green, with a stoplight metaphor. The problem is that some of us are colorblind. Johanna Rothman gives us a GREAT tip.
Product Management / Software development / Usability / UX
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User Centered Design and Bridging The Canyon of Pain
There is such a thing as too much choice. For new users, too much choice (or control) is too much. For experienced users, too little choice is a problem. Ease of use usually comes from reduced control – but users don’t stay “new” for long. There’s a “canyon of pain” to quote Kathy Sierra in that transition from “new” to “experienced.” We call them “competent” users and we have to help them cross the canyon of pain.
Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements Models
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Business Requirements, Project Scope, and Coupling
Robin Goldsmith wrote an interesting article for RQNG about business requirements – what he calls “REAL” requirements. Gathering the right requirements demands more than just effective listening skills, you have to focus on the right problem. Robin brings up a theme we’ve discussed here in the past, and again in today’s article.