Software Project Management For Dummies®

Chapter 19. Ten Ways to Make Any Software Project Better

In This Chapter

• Knowing which questions to ask

• Understanding the importance of project communication

• Creating project success

• Developing thorough project plans

• Being proactive in recognizing failure

• Documenting your way to success

• Being a thoughtful host for project meetings

• Improving your chances for project success

You've done your homework, read this book, received advice from other software project managers, and created a terrific software project plan. That's wonderful! Congratulations. Now let us help you make that terrific project plan even better. There may be just a few things that you can do to make your software project even more brilliant.

Asking the Right Questions

Universities and colleges should offer classes in how to ask questions. In fact, Asking Questions 101 should be a required course for all project managers because it is such an important skill and is so often underrated.

When you're gathering requirements for your project, you must ask questions of many people, particularly other software project managers.

You need to talk to project managers who have completed similar projects so that you can get their input on what lessons they learned from their projects. Many new project managers ask experienced project managers about mistakes made or lessons learned from previous projects, but don't forget to also ask what went well on the project so that you can modify those activities to fit your particular software project. ...