Applied Software Project Management

Do Everything Out in the Open

It is a very frustrating situation for a project manager when he makes a decision or takes an action, and then finds that a colleague or senior manager disagrees with him for seemingly no reason at all. Many times, these disagreements arise from a lack of communication . If everyone in your organization has constant access to everything that you and your team produce, the mystery behind why you make your decisions goes away. People may still disagree with you, but at least they will be disagreeing with your ideas and not simply because they felt like they were kept out of the loop.

It's not possible to tell everyone everything all of the time. But if it is known to the organization that a project manager is sharing his project information, and all of his colleagues know where they can find that information, they are much less likely to feel like information is being hidden from them.

Whether you are interacting with your team or with your organization's management, it is important that everything that you do is transparent. This means that when you create a document, hold a meeting of interest to others, or make an important project decision, you should share all of the information produced and used with everyone involved.

Publish Your Work Products

All work products should be kept in a public repository. This could be a shared folder or directory, a version control system, a Wiki or other sort of web interface, a knowledge base, or some other system for ...