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We’re Soldiers!

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

We are at war and all of you are soldiers defending our dignity"... so

wrote my boss once, in one of his inspiring notes years ago, when the entire

project team was struggling to meet the project deadline. This was true then, it

is true now, and it will remain true in the future as well. The dynamics of

software project management are similar to that of a real-life battlefield and

some of the strategies from defense can be implemented to ensure successful

project delivery.

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Satyakam

Dash
"The

Afghan war was an example of how seamless communication between air

and ground troops can impact on the effectiveness of real-time

combat"

Generally speaking, software today is a troubled technology plagued by

project failures, cost-overruns, schedule-overruns and poor quality levels. Even

bigger corporations have problems in meeting the published commitments or

releasing trouble-free software. However, not all experience software

catastrophes. Some have managed the delivery process well enough to achieve

better results than others. The reason for their success is strong project

management and strict process compliance–mantras which originated in military

organizations and spread all over.

Here are some common processes between software project management and

real-life war, which deliver ultimate success.

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Seamless communication



Knowledge of the enemy’s exact location provides the basis for military

action. Precise location of enemy targets is necessary for precision-guided

ammunitions. Amid the swift pace of modern battle, effective communication about

the status of the fight and reliable, real-time command and control are

indispensable to success. The Afghan war is an example of how the seamless

communication flow between air and ground troops improves the effectiveness of

combat.

Communication management is defined as a process for generation, collection

and dissemination of project information. These days a lot of projects are

executed remotely, which makes communication a critical success factor for the

projects. There are different levels of communication, which goes on in a

project. But they can be majorly grouped into two categories… intra-project

communication and external communication. Intra-project communication is the

one, which goes on within the project team–from project manager till the

developer layer.

External communication is between the project manager and the client. Both

these types of communication should be in sync to ensure successful project

delivery. It is very important that the expectation of the client reaches each

and every team member and there is a continuous reality check, which goes on. It

is estimated that around 70% of the customers who outsource their IT portfolio

feel that the vendor did not understand their requirement. To a major part blame

it on communication. Take a clue from defense and prepare a communication

strategy. The strategy should be transparent enough to be clearly understood by

customer, project manager and project team. Project review meetings within the

team and with the customer are great tools of communication strategy.

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Change management



During the current war in Iraq, one can see how Allied forces changed their

action to move quickly toward Baghdad instead of completing the combat in

southern Iraq. The reasons being–their supply lines were stretched and a new

threat of suicide attacks had emerged. They changed their action swiftly and

with accuracy. In the battleground, there’ll always be changes to the combat

operation depending on the scenario. The bottomline is–the change should be

manageable.

Change management is a reality for software projects. Change management

influences factors to make the change beneficial to the overall project

objective. Changes must be expected and planned for. The very identification of

a change is the crucial piece of change management. An impact analysis needs to

be carried out to judge the extent of change and it’s commercial implications.

Changes are costly and can be disastrous if not managed properly. Organizations

with good processes on change management will always be profitable for each

project and will ensure greater customer satisfaction. The three different

components of change management are change control system, configuration

management and planning readjustment.

Focussed leadership



The victory of the Allied forces over Germany during the IInd World War,

owes its success to the great leadership of Dwight D Eisenhower. Eisenhower was

a master strategist, who had the ability to lead great campaigns with a

brilliant strategic plan.

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Eisenhower was a consistent advocate of clarity in strategic planning,

priorities, objectives, or phases. His famous strategy of "Germany

First" in the Second World War gave Americans the victory they needed.

These days’ software services are delivered and managed as programs for

each customer. Strategic leadership is definitely expected from the mangers who

manage such programs. A clear objective and direction is of utmost essence. The

program team must have the right staffing mix to make delivery coherent. Another

aspect of IT leadership is to ensure strict compliance to processes. People

follow the path of least resistance. If one doesn’t create enough focus and

monitoring mechanism on the processes, people will follow their own methods,

putting the entire project delivery in jeopardy.

Capturing the lessons learnt



There is a common maxim. Military defeat is an army’s best teacher, as it

eliminates, bad processes and leaders, fixes deficiencies and promotes reforms.

Vietnam war is a great example of how a bad combat can teach you so much. After

the Gulf war win then president George Bush (Sr) declared–"Thank god we

have kicked the Vietnam Syndrome for once and all". The United States Army

improved so much after the Vietnam War that all it’s next decisive battles

were short and with minimal casualties.

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In software development each project throws out some learning for the project

team and for the organization as a whole.

These can be classified into technical learning and management learning.

Generally, technical learning is what the team learns on the product and it’s

environment. Technical learning is quite straightforward and can be quickly

applied to the future projects. However, management learning is more translucent

and difficult to replicate, as it is derived out of things, which are difficult

to control, e.g. human behavior, process adaptability, environment conditions

etc..... However, despite these obvious issues, lessons learnt at the end of

each project must be run through and captured for future reference. The reason

being they help in throwing enough parameters for the organization to revisit it’s

policies, benchmarks and future sizing initiatives.

Use of technology



US defense IT spending is likely in the range of 80% of the world total. US

defense department spends close to $50 billion on R&D alone. It is estimated

that around 20% of this amount is spent on technological innovation. One can

appreciate the magnitude of what US and allied forces achieved in Iraq and

Afghanistan, where it was proved that a balanced US force of all arms, properly

equipped with modern technology and supported and competently led, could defeat

"any number" of anything else.

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From the project management point of view, technology will bring in precision

and speed of execution. Tools will improve the turnaround time in each phase.

Rational is one such company whose tools today can reduce project execution time

considerably. There are designer tools to improve productivity. IDEs (Integrated

Development Environments) and components will reduce the development effort

during coding phase. Testing tools will bring in accuracy to the software

product. However, adaptation of technology cannot happen overnight. The

orientation has to be planned for and needs organization-level initiative. An

organization has to view them as investments, not costs.

These processes between war strategies and project delivery strategies are

not new. But the challenges lie in their implementation. If executed on the

lines of war, a tech project will have higher probabilities of success and

increased customer satisfaction.

Satyakam

Dash




The author is project manager at Satyam
Computer Services

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