The project manager must be deliberate and sometimes heroic to achieve coherence in the team so that there is effective performance management, feels Dr R Srinivasan

"Computers rely for their functioning on reason but projects defy logic because of human caprice" - Tony Collins

THIS week I will continue with the role expected of Project Manager for achieving successful software development. The advent of internet and intranet has opened up a new era not only in areas like conducting business but also in software development. Now the software projects are undertaken and executed over the Internet, with part of the team in the offshore development centre and the rest in the customer's site, separated by thousands of miles. The META Group predicts that by 2003-04, market leaders will integrate disparate measurement information into Web-enabled systems for Managers and the cross sectional teams. This will pave the way for establishing project home pages/project portals so that members of the team transact information connected with the project over the Net, leading to the new concept of Enterprise level Project Management, a challenge to the Project Managers. This will of course be in addition to pressure from customers due to competition, coping up with managing and motivating team members, possible shorter business cycles, emergence of new technologies, aligning with implementation of standard processes at different functions in the project. Under their SPEX Evaluation dated July 15, 2001, the MRETA Group announced a research module on IT Management covering the management of full Application Development Cycle, integration of related processes, software configuration management with release and revision controls, integration with change management, reporting and decision support, integrated application building and repeatable processes, and web enablement.

Whether it is Enterprise level management or locally in an organization, the Project Manager must have a good control in every segment of the development life cycle, viz. starting with understanding the concept from SRS, requirement analysis, software architecture, detailed design, coding and debugging, testing, QA, software configuration management, release management and maintenance plan. Management of a large software project is qualitatively different from managing small ones, because of the sheer number of minds involved. The Project Manager must be deliberate and sometimes heroic to achieve coherence in the team so that there will be effective performance management. The aim is that every member puts in his/her best because performance problem is never the result of someone failing to do a job correctly. When people with different skills and backgrounds must co-operate, effective communication is a challenge. The software development organization must have a policy of shared performance goals, an effective method of discussing these goals and the best efforts to bridge the communication gaps.

This is where the input of the Project Manager also comes in - he/she must employ a method for visibility into the performance process. He/she should be part of the senior level management of the organization to suggest methods for refining, communicating and deploying performance targets and incentives to the team members. Many organizations in our country adopt this already, such that the Project Manager of every project in the organization comes up with his/her views and recommendations leading to a normalization procedure to maintain uniformity in the organization.

On their part, the team members must realize that they are part of the success of the project and ultimately that of the organization. The Project Manager/organization should stress that the quality of performance of every individual will have a direct impact on the bottom line. This automatically calls for a good performance measurement system that is not based on "One size fits all" principle so that individual performances can be assessed and reported. In such a scheme, it may happen that a smart guy in the team will withhold the knowledge to show his supremacy in performance over others. But actually such a person will be a readblock. The Project Manager should also see that a particular team member should not be given inordinate value. William Brown calls this as "truck factor" , saying that when a truck hits that team member the project is in big trouble.

Let me conclude this part with the quotation from Brook's book on 'The Mythical Man-month': "Software products are both complex and fiercely competitive in schedule. Any product that is sufficiently big or urgent requires the effort of many minds and must be conceptually coherent to the single mind of the user and at the same time designed by many minds". He clearly means that the aim is to achieve conceptual integrity. Software development stalwarts like McConnell and Grady Booch stress upon social interaction among team members. William Brown says that the political aspects of cliques and hierarchies make up the dynamic fabric in most software development organizations, making it one of the most valuable aspects of a software development Project Manager to master and control.

(The author is Chief Technology Officer, Internet Component Management Group, Bangalore and can be contacted at: r.srinivasan@iCMGworld.com)