linaro-project-management team mailing list archive

[Jamie Bennett <jamie.bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 25 Nov 2010, at 15:39, James Westby wrote:

> [ Copying Ian who has also been looking at this ]
> 
> On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:49:55 +0000, Jamie Bennett <jamie.bennett@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> I'd like to propose that we choose a small project to test out the theory that
>> traditional project management tools can work with big open source projects.
>> Given the short one-month cycles that the Infrastructure currently operate I
>> suggest that we pilot this here. Can we select a project from the next 
>> stake-holder meeting outcome and work to produce valid Gantt information [1],
>> use regular monitoring and produce feedback? I am willing to take the overhead
>> on setting everything up, leading the monitoring effort and provide the 
>> analysis at the end.
>> 
>> Specifically I'd like to do the following:
>> 
>> * Use OpenProj [2] to setup the initial structure.
>> * Work with the implementor(s) to define the requirements and gather timing
>>   data at the beginning or the project.
>> * Regularly monitor the project against the requirements and timing data.
>> * Regularly produce a professional report on the progress of the project.
>> * Produce a post-mortem to determine if we would like to carry this on, with
>>   or without improvements, to a further pilot project(s).
>> 
>> How does this sound to everyone else?
> 
> I agree that Infrastructure would be a good place to pilot
> this. However, I want us to be clearer on what the goals are before we
> run an experiment.
> 
> What are you trying to achieve by making these changes?
> 
> It's pretty clear there are going to be tradeoffs here, but we need to
> know what to monitor to ensure that we can make an evaluation based on
> all the information.

The idea of this pilot is to try to use traditional tools and methods to monitor
our projects. For this we need a little more up-front from the engineer, usually
around estimation and specification. After that, the only thing the engineer has
to do is keep the PM up-to-date on the project.

So the steps above in the original email constitutes the loose plan, the success 
criteria is if the pilot proves to be an improvement to our tracking efforts, 
allows up to produce better reports, especially to non-technical management and 
does not disrupt the engineering effort too much. I can write up a proper 
proposal tomorrow to explain the exact requirements, implementation and goals of
this pilot. I'll send a link when its ready.

> Thanks,
> 
> James


Regards,
Jamie.