Instant messaging has become common in our daily routine. So we have decided to offer it as part of Elementool to help you improve your communication with your team members. Especially if they are located someplace else.
To start a new conversation using the Instant Messenger, please follow these steps:
• Click on the ‘number of users’ online link at the top of the page to display who is currently logged in to the account.
• Click on the name of the user to start an Instant Message session.
• The Messenger window will be displayed on your screen.
• Type your message and click on the keyboard Enter button to send it.
When someone starts a new conversation with you, you will see a red flag next to the ‘number of users’ link.
Follow these steps to join an instant message session:
• Click on the ‘number of users’ online link at the top of the page.
• The person who sent you the message will be marked on the user list.
• Click on the user’s name to open the messenger window.
• Type your reply in the text box and click on the keyboard Enter button to send it.
As you can see, Instant Messaging is easy and can make the communication with your team faster and more efficient.
In this clip I’m going to show you how to create an agile project schedule.
As you know, in agile development we take the project and divide it into mini projects called Sprints.
There are many advantages to using the agile method of sprints. A few major ones are:
• Agile development gives you better control over the project – when you run a project, there can be many factors that you need to control. Such as resources, tasks, clients, etc. The more variables there are, the greater the changes are that something will go wrong. Dividing the projects into sprints, gives you better control over the project process since the sprints are shorter and require you to worry about a limited number of factors.
• It makes it easy to keep the project on schedule – if your project is a few months, or a year long, it makes it harder to estimate the project’s schedule. Who can predict what might happen 6 months from now? When you divide the project into short sprints, you only need to schedule one or two sprints at a time. This means that the estimation period is much shorter and more accurate.
• Agile development also helps keeping your clients happy – this is something many people are unaware of. While you work on the project, your clients wait to see results. If the project is long and the clients don’t see results for a period of several months, they start to worry whether things go according to plan. They also sometimes forget why they ordered the project in the first place and might change their mind about it.
When you develop the project in sprints. Each sprint is a mini project. At the end of the sprint, you release it to the clients. This shows them that the project moves forward and keeps them in the loop. They are likely to get less nervous about the schedule and be more committed to it.
OK, now let me show you how you build an agile project schedule.
The first step is to divide the project into workable tasks and submit them to your Issue Tracking account as separate issues.
Then go to Scheduling and click on Edit Schedule to build the project schedule.
The first step is defining a project.
• Click on the Add button and choose the Project option.
• Type the project name.
• The project’s description and start and end date are optional. The system will automatically update the start and end date based on the schedule.
• Click Save.
Now that we have a project, the next step is to define the sprints.
The sprint length is determined based on the project’s length. For example, if the project is 12 months long, the sprints should be between 1-3 months each. On the other hand, the sprints should not be too short. They should be long enough to be considered as a small project.
Click on the + button next to the project’s name.
Choose the option Sprint.
Type the Sprint’s name.
The third step is to add the tasks that should be completed as part of the sprint.
These are the actual work that will be done as part of the sprint.
Click on the + button next to the sprint name and choose the option Issue to add an issue from the Issue Tracking account.
Select the account name and type the issue number. When done click on Save.
Repeat this until all the issues are added to the project.
The final step of building the agile project schedule is to define the estimated time for each issue in the sprint.
Use the Start and End date fields to define the schedule.
As you can see, the schedule of the first sprint is set.
You can repeat these steps to add additional projects and sprints to your project plan.
That’s all for now.
If you already have an Issue Tracking account, you can add Scheduling to your account for only $29.99/month by going to “Control Panel”, clicking on “Edit Accounts”, then clicking on “Manage Account List”, changing the Scheduling package to Premium and clicking on the Update button.
If you still don’t have an Elementool account, click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button below to open a free trial account.
Visibility is one of the main reasons why projects fail. It means that the project manager doesn’t have a full picture of the project’s progress at any given moment.
When you have full visibility, you’re able to stop bottle necks in your project’s progress. This allows you to make changes to the project plan and find ways to solve these bottle necks before it is too late.
I would like to introduce a new feature, The ‘Task Completion Date’ that will allow you to know at any given moment what the status of your project is, and when tasks are going to be completed, by integrating Elementool’s Issue Tracking and Scheduling.
As you remember from our previous clips, you can use Elementool’s Scheduling to define the project’s schedule and the start and end date of each issue that is assigned to the team members.
You can watch the clips called ‘How to Create Project Schedule’ on our blog for more details on how to build the project schedule.
The team members can submit the time that they spend on the tasks in Elementool’s scheduling and this enables you to see the development progress of each task.
I explained how to do that in a recent clip called ‘Track Time Spent on Tasks’.
Now I’m getting to the new feature that we just added:
When a user works on an issue, they can define the estimated completion date on the issue itself, by submitting the completion date in the Priority List section.
The Completion Date is also being displayed on the Scheduling Gantt chart.
When you look at the chart, you can see the issues that are part of the project, their start and end date, and the dark blue bar shows you the actual development progress of each issue. The border of the progress bar represents the estimated completion date of each issue.
By looking at Gantt chart, you can tell within seconds the development progress and the estimated completion date of each issue.
That gives you full visibility of your project development progress and allows you to know if things start to get off track, and make changes to the project to keep it on schedule.
Isn’t that cool?
If you already have an Issue Tracking account, you can add Scheduling to your account for only $29.99/month by going to “Control Panel”, clicking on “Edit Accounts”, then clicking on “Manage Account List”, changing the Scheduling package to Premium and clicking on the Update button.
If you still don’t have an Elementool account, click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button below to open a free trial account.
In this clip I’ll show you how you can use Elementool to track the time that team members spend on issues.
Tracking time enables you to view the progress of the project and make changes to the project plan if needed.
It is also useful for billing in case clients pay you by the hours you spent developing their projects.
To start using this feature, you should have the Issue Tracking and Scheduling services, because time tracking is done using the integration between Issue Tracking and Scheduling.
The first step is to submit the issues to the Issue Tracking account and assigned them to your team members.
I’m guessing you already know how to do that. If not, please see the Issue Tracking User Manual clip for instructions.
The next step is to assign the issues to a project or projects in the Scheduling service.
To do that, please follow these steps:
• Switch to Scheduling.
• Click on Edit Schedule
• Click on the Add button to add a project. You can assign issues to one or more projects.
• Now that the project is defined, click on the Add button to add the issues to the project.
After the issues have been added to the project, the team members can use the Scheduling section on the Issue form to submit the time that they spend on the issues.
To submit the time spent on an issue, please follow these steps:
• Open the issue
• Scroll down to the Scheduling section
• Submit the date and time that you spent working on the issue.
• Click on the Update
If we go back to Scheduling and look at the Gantt chart, we can see the project plan displayed in light blue and the actual time that the team spent on the issues in dark blue. This gives us a quick view of the project progress.
If you still don’t have an Elementool account, click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button below to open a free trial account.
Hi, it’s Allison again.
Today I would like to present two new features that we added to the reporting section:
• The option to define the view type of the Quick Reports.
• The option to automatically send a daily report by email.
The reports offer 5 view types:
• Normal – this is the standard report type that is display on your browser.
• Dynamic – The Dynamic view type enables you to make changes to the issues directly on the report. This allows you to update multiple issues in a single update instead of opening each issue separately.
• Print View – this is a printer friendly view of the report, that is useful in case you wish to print the report.
• Excel CSV and Excel HTML – these two view types enable you to export the report to an Excel file. Each offers a different Excel formatting option and you can choose the one that suits you the most.
We added an option to define the view type of each Quick Report. It saves you the trouble of defining how you would like the report to look like when running it.
Please follow these steps to change the view type of an existing report:
• Select the report from the Quick Report list.
• Click on Edit Selected Report.
• The Quick Report setup window will open.
• Click on the Step 3 button and the on the Step 4 button to go to the Step 4 page.
• On this page define the View Type and click on Save.
The Send Daily Report option enables you to send reports on a daily basis to other Elementool users or to external people who don’t use Elementool.
It is an easy way to send updates about tasks and issues that you have in your account.
For example: every morning you can send a report of all the open issues in your account, to inform people of the tasks that need to be taken care of.
To setup an automatic daily report, please follow these simple steps:
1. Go to the report page by clicking on Issue Report.
2. Select a report from the Quick Report list.
3. Click on Send Selected Report.
4. Define the recipients by selecting Elementool users or by typing email addresses of external people.
5. Check off the ‘Send report automatically daily’ check box.
6. Select the time when you would like to report to be sent daily.
7. Click on Send.
Very easy.
We plan to release more new features in the near future.
Stay tuned!
Hi, I’m Allison, and I’d like to tell you about new options that we added to the Field Dependency feature. This is a very helpful feature that allows you to quickly locate and select relevant information when filling out a form.
The Field Dependency feature enables the creation of relationships between fields in such a way that a dependant field’s value list is determined based on a value selected in the source list.
For instance, let’s say that you have two fields on a form: State and City. The State field lists all 50 states in the U.S., and the City field lists the 10 largest cities in each of those states. Currently, without using Field Dependency, the State field list shows all 50 states and the City field displays a long list of 500 cities in those states. So if a user wants to choose their city from that list, they need to scan through all 500 to find the one they want.
However, by using the Field Dependency feature, the process becomes much easier. It allows the person to first select their state in the State field. At that point, the Dependency rule automatically filters the city list so that the City field only displays the 10 cities from the selected state. This means that the user can simply select the appropriate city from the list of 10 rather than poring through a long list of 500.
To access the Field Dependency feature, you should go to Control Panel, click on Edit Issue Form and then click on ‘Edit Dependencies’.
Click on Add New Rule to add a new rule.
In Step 1, select the source field that triggers the Dependency rule.
In our example it was the State field.
In Step 2, select the target field that is being changed based on the rule.
In our example it was the City field.
In Step 3, define the rules.
For example:
Select State = New York.
Select cities in New York State.
Click on the Add button to save the rule.
You can repeat these steps to create additional rules for these fields.
When you’re done, click on the Save button to save the rule.
We added two new options to the Field Dependency feature:
• The ability to make a field required based on the value of a certain field.
• The ability to hide fields based on the value of a certain field.
Let me explain how these new options work:
The first option enables you to make fields required based on a value of another field.
For example:
I would like to make the City field required when selecting a State value to make sure that when a person fills out the form and selects a State, they also select the city.
To define the city as a required field, move it to the Required Fields list on the Dependency setup form.
The second option is to hide fields based on a Dependency rule.
For example:
I have a field on the form called Country with a list of country names.
When a person selects a State, they should not select Country. To prevent the person from selecting the Country, I hide the Country field when a state is selected.
To define this rule drag the Country field to the Hidden Fields list.
As you can see, the Field Dependency feature makes filling out and submitting forms much easier and far less time-consuming.
We want to talk to you about personal time management. This subject is a little bit of a detour from our more specific project management program. But we believe that time management is an issue that affects everyone, and it’s important that you know how to deal with it.
Your ability to maximize your team and your own productivity by maximizing your time and how you use it will greatly influence the results you get. That’s why we’re going to help you improve your time management by sharing some simple strategies that you can implement immediately. They’re easy, and you’re going to start seeing amazing results right away.
The best methods for upping productivity are based on two key objectives: The first objective is to capture all the things that need to be done – now, later, someday, big, little, or in between – into a logical and trusted system that’s outside of your head and off your mind. The second objective is to discipline yourself to make front-end decisions about all the inputs that you let into your life, so that you’ll always have a plan for next actions that can be implemented at any moment.
Most people these days will tell you that they have too much to do and not enough time to get it done. We’ve enhanced our quality of life in so many ways, yet, ironically, we nearly kill ourselves with stress by taking on more work than we have the resources to deal with.
That’s why time management is so important, because it’s really a kind of stress management. Have you ever wondered why you can’t seem to shut down your brain at night when you’re trying to fall asleep? Why are so many thoughts running through your mind all the time? That’s stress. Now let me explain how stress is created. It’s not just the big problems that create stress. All of the little unresolved tasks that we have to deal with sit at the back of our heads, subconsciously creating tension. As soon as you attach a “should” or “need to” to a task, it becomes incomplete. Decisions that you still need to make about whether or not you’re going to do something are already incomplete. If you put your mind’s attention on something that needs to be done, and then don’t complete it because it’s low on the priority list, your mind will have already created an open process that keeps running in the back of your mind, and is going to keep bothering you to complete the task. Worse of all, it takes up your energy and prevents you from having a clear focus on your more important tasks.
It’s kind of like your Windows Task Manager. When you open Task Manager, you see that there are a lot of processes running in the background – processes that you didn’t even know existed. Many of them don’t do anything for days, but there they are consuming your computer memory and causing it to run slowly. But if you shut down the processes that you don’t use, then it frees up the memory and your computer will run faster.
All these open processes create stress. So how do we handle all these processes and how do we minimize stress? The key is to clear the open processes from our mind by having something else managing them.
Usually the reason something is on your mind is because you want the situation to be different than what it currently is. The problem is, you haven’t yet worked out exactly what the intended outcome is, you haven’t decided what the next physical step is, and you haven’t put reminders of the outcome and the action required into a system you trust.
And until you do all that, your brain will refuse to put the matter to rest. You can try to fool the people around you by acting like everything’s okay, but you can’t fool your mind. Only it knows whether or not you’ve come to the conclusions you need. Until you clarify your thoughts, make the decisions, and store the data in a system you can trust, your brain will keep nagging you about the next step and adding to your stress.
You should start by clearing your schedule of all the most urgent projects. Try writing down the project or task that is weighing most heavily on your mind right at this moment. What’s bothering you most, or causing the most distraction? Maybe it’s something that truly interests you or that you’re really passionate about. The point is to identify whatever is consuming you most.
Once you have figured that out, describe your intended successful outcome for this situation in a single, written sentence. What would need to happen for you to be able to check this project off your list? That sentence might be “Handle the situation with Client X” or “Implement a new investment strategy,” or any number of other things. Next, write down the first physical action required to move the situation forward. If you had nothing to do, where would you go right now? What visible action would you take? Does it give you a sense of control and motivation to act? It should. And it’s through this kind of organization and decisive action that you will pursue and reach your goals.
That brings us to the question of how you process this information. First of all, you need to determine what the item is and what you’re going to do about it. For example, maybe you have letters from the bank or the government. Or maybe you received an email from a supervisor about a new company policy.
Ask yourself: Is this item actionable, yes or no? If no action is needed, then you have three options. One, it’s trash – so throw it away. Two, no action is necessary now, but you might need to do something later on, so you mark this item for later reassessment. Three, the item is potentially useful information that you might need later on, so you can classify it as a reference item and file it away.
If it is actionable, then something has to be done. So, ask yourself: What project or outcome have I committed to? And also, what’s the next action required? Determining the next action is a critical step for anything you’ve collected. The next action is the next physical activity that has to be done in order to move the current situation to completion.
Once you’ve decided on the next action, you have three options. Option One: Do it. If that action will take under two minutes, you should do it then and there. Option Two: Delegate it. If you aren’t the right person to do the job, assign it to the appropriate person or entity. Option Three: Defer it. If the action is going to take more than two minutes, and you are in fact the right person to do it, then you can track it for later on a Next Actions list.
We at Elementool have been happy to share our secrets about how to practice good project management. But we also recognize that there is more to your job than just the technical process of managing projects.
Right. That’s why we’d like to take a moment to talk about the process of learning and the process of change. These are big ideas that affect the way you perform as a project manager, so they’re really worth exploring on their own.
When you’re managing a project, you are always adapting to new changes as they come along. On a larger scale, you also frequently have to make changes in the way that you and your team function on a regular basis – and you may find that some people on your team resist those changes, no matter how logically you explain the benefits of that change.
Even if you force them to implement changes, if they don’t truly accept the importance of the change, it’s likely that they’ll resist and eventually go back to their old habits. Making lasting changes can take a lot of time and persistence, and it requires genuine commitment on the part of your team.
This program itself is going to bring changes to your work and your life as you implement the ideas we’ve been talking about. You’re learning new techniques and methods that will create changes in the way you run your projects.
But change can be difficult, and we know that the idea of making so many changes may seem overwhelming. It might even be tempting to think, ‘Well, my current system works fairly well, so I don’t really have to make changes.’ Or maybe you’re thinking, ‘I’d like to make changes, but I’m just too busy working on all these projects to actually do it.’
But don’t let yourself get bogged down in that kind of thinking. Learning new things and making changes can be a positive force in your life.
Part of the trick is just understanding how we learn and change. It’s helpful to know how our minds take on these vital processes.
Take the learning curve. When we imagine a learning curve, we usually think of an image that shows a slow beginning as we attempt to learn, followed by a steep acceleration in success, then finally a plateau at the performance level that we are trying to reach. This leads us to expect rapid changes. This happens often, where people start learning something new, assuming the learning process will move fast, as the curve suggests. But then, when things don’t progress at the rate they expected, they feel a little stuck. As a result, they get discouraged and give up.
That’s why you need to understand that the actual learning curve looks a bit different. Imagine looking at the traditional learning curve through a magnifying glass. What you’ll see is a much more staggered and complex process. You make some improvement as you learn the new skill, followed by a slight decline, leading to a plateau that is higher than the point where you started. The skill improvement, decline, and plateau might vary from one step to the next, but this process will continue gradually upward until you have finally mastered the new skill.
So what is the reason for this process? Well, when we have a skill, we perform it using the habitual part of our brain. That skill becomes a habit, and the subconscious brain is in charge of executing the task. This means that we are able to perform the task without even thinking about it. An example of this that almost everyone can relate to is driving a car. Once you have learned to drive and become experienced, you don’t even think about it anymore. The action is performed almost subconsciously, allowing you to do other things while you drive, like talking to the other passengers in the car, singing along to the radio, or thinking about the day ahead.
When we learn a new skill, we take in new information that allows us to do things that we couldn’t do previously. This is represented by the increase in the learning curve. But, in the beginning, we absolutely must be focused on the task. As we’re learning the new skill, we need to use our conscious cognitive brain – that’s the part that does the thinking. We have to be aware of everything going on around us, and we have to think before taking any kind of action, no matter how small.
If you think back to when you first learned to drive, you’ll probably remember how focused you were on every little aspect of the process. You may have even been a little scared, worrying about getting the sequence just right. Pressing the gas pedal, keeping the steering wheel straight, watching the road signs as you drove along, and making sure to hit the brakes in time. The last thing you wanted to do was turn on the radio or have a conversation with the person next to you because your cognitive brain was too busy focusing on the act of driving.
Even after you’ve become comfortable driving, you’ve probably had the experience of driving in an unfamiliar area. Suddenly you find that you have to shut off distractions like the radio so that you can put your conscious mind on the task of concentrating on turning lanes and street signs as you try to orient yourself in the new environment.
That’s how the learning process works. New information improves our situation by helping us to accomplish things that we couldn’t have done before. This is the rise in the learning curve. But the learning process also requires us to think about and practice the new skill, causing a slight decline in our learning curve. Then, after we have spent some time practicing, the new skill becomes a habit in our subconscious mind and we can do it without thinking. At that point we reach a plateau, which is higher than the place we were before we began the learning process.
This process of learning a new skill might sound difficult, but studies have found that, on average, it only takes 30 days to acquire a new habit. NASA discovered a good example of this many years ago when it used an experimental training program to help astronauts deal with the disorienting effects of space travel. The astronauts in the experiment wore glasses that turned everything upside down, and they wore those glasses day and night for 30 days straight. Then, a totally unexpected phenomenon occurred. After Day 30, the brain re-programmed itself and flipped everything right side up again! They did the experiment again with a few changes, asking some astronauts to take the glasses off on Day 14 and put them back on again on Day 15. But those who had removed the classes had to start over again. Their brains only flipped the image after 30 consecutive days.
That just goes to show that 30 is the magic number when it comes to learning a new habit. The habit comes through practice and repetition, so you must repeat the new behavior each day for 30 days for it to get locked into your brain. After 30 days of regular practice, you’ll find that the new skill has become a part of you.
This applies to the skills and practices that you’re learning from Elementool. Focus on one thing that you’ve learned in this program and do it every day for 30 days. Once you’re sure that it’s become a habit, take another lesson and practice it for 30 days. Repeat the process with each new lesson that you learn. The truth is, you can’t learn everything in one day. Concentrate instead on moving one step at a time and engaging in a lot of repetition. Make it your goal to turn new skills into good habits.
For example, you’re going to learn several different topics in this program: requirements management, estimating, scheduling, and so on. Don’t try to implement everything at once. Pick a subject, like an estimating technique, and use this technique for 30 days for every task that your team runs. Once you feel that you got it, and you start seeing good results out of this change, pick another topic, like a scheduling technique, and use it for 30 days. Then move on to the next subject.
We’re not saying it’s always easy. Look, we’ve all made that New Year’s resolution that we were so excited about, so determined to keep, only to backslide weeks – maybe even days – later. It’s human nature. We’re biologically programmed to resist change. It’s called homeostasis, and it’s actually a pretty good mechanism for protecting us and helping to keep our lives stable. But sometimes it also works against us when we’re trying to make a positive change. That’s why people have such a hard time getting rid of bad habits.
The question is, then: How do we overcome homeostasis when we want to make a good change? First, you need to understand how it works. Expect resistance to change from yourself and from the people around you. Second, be willing to negotiate the resistance to change. When you feel that resistance, don’t fight it, but don’t back off. Instead, accept and negotiate. Be prepared to take one step back for every two steps forward.
Third, find people who will help you get through the process. Find people on your team that will join you for the ride, so that you can support each other, share your experiences, and get advice. The fourth step is to create the change process through routine activities. By integrating these activities into your daily work, it will become much easier for you to practice the new skills that you’re learning.
There are three main factors that might speed up or slow down this change process: The change agent, the culture, and the people. The change agent can simply be described as the person who starts the change process – this can be anyone, and a lack of power on their part is no excuse for not taking the initiative.
The culture refers to the environment that the change is taking place in, and it can have a major impact on the speed of the innovation-decision process. If the culture is supportive of new ideas and change, and everyone is prepared to help with the change effort, then the process will be much faster and easier. Ideally, the culture will also allow for time to learn and adjust to change, understanding that failures often happen on the way to success. And the culture must let people know that it is okay to fail. Unfortunately there is often limited time available to spend learning new processes that would actually increase efficiency – but the fact is that change can’t happen without patience and an investment of time.
The people involved in the change process are also a significant factor in its success, and every person reacts differently to change. Some will accept it right away, but most are slow to change. They often cause problems in this process because people tend to make decisions based on emotions, then justify them with facts. It’s not that people resist the change itself so much; it’s that they resist being changed. Most people handle change much better if they are actually involved in the process and feel some sense of control over it.
Given these factors, you should always introduce new ideas gradually, accepting that it’s a learn-as-you-go process. We suggest that you start slow, be patient, and allow plenty of time for changes to take place. Don’t just throw out the way you currently do everything and replace it with a whole new process. A better strategy is to implement gradual, experimental changes to see if the new ideas are actually able to improve the current process.
And be sure to celebrate the small successes along the way. It’s a good way of encouraging the team to continue with the change process.
Whatever you do, don’t try to do everything yourself, even though it may be very tempting to you go-getter types. And you know who you are. (looks at Allison)
Guilty as charged.
Instead, you should bring on as many people as possible to help out. This ensures that everyone feels a sense of ownership over the change process. When people know that their contribution is an important part of the effort, they start to feel like this thing is theirs, and they want to keep it going strong.
Through every step of the change process, you will be interacting with people, so that means you need to communicate. Everyone will want to know what’s in it for them. Help them understand how the change will be useful in solving their particular problems.
Now that you’ve learned a bit more about the process of learning, we hope you’re ready to take on a lot of exciting new changes.
Just remember: Be patient, be persistent, and you’ll be fine.
In this clip I’m going to introduce you to Elementool full issue form customization.
Everyone who develops projects has specific needs and processes for running the software development. That’s why it is important to choose an Issue Tracking that gives you the flexibility and customization to allow you to fit it to your unique needs.
Elementool’s Issue Tracking offers you full customization of the issue form.
This includes defining the positions of the fields on the issue form and using different field types, as well as the option to add unlimited fields to the system.
Now let’s go into a bit more detail about each option:
First, you should login to the account as an administrator.
Click on Control Panel.
Click on Edit Issue Form.
Click on Edit Fields.
The Issue form is divided into field containers.
Each field container can contain fields.
As you can see, there are different types of field containers.
Some enable you to display large and wide text fields.
Some enable you to display short fields.
You can change the position of the fields by dragging and dropping them around the form in the different containers.
Elementool Issue Tracking offers a selection of 15 different field types.
For example: Text field, dropdown, date, URL, etc.
The tool box on the left top corner of the Edit Issue Form page displays the different field types that you can choose from.
To add a field to the issue form, simply click on it on the toolbox, hold down the mouse button, and drag it to the form to the position where you would like it to be displayed.
Very simple, right?
As I mentioned before, Elementool Issue Tracking allows you to use an unlimited number of fields on the form. This means that you can add as many fields as you wish.
Isn’t that awesome?
That’s it for now, but
I’ll be back soon with more great tips.
Requirements Management is one of the most critical stages in the success of projects.
71% of software projects fail because of errors and oversights made during the requirements phase.
In the following clips we will show you all you need to know about requirements management to help you prevent project failure and delays.
These are a few of the topics that are covered in the clips:
– How to collect requirements from stakeholders
– How to create user stories and interviews
– How to document the requirements using requirements management software
– How to handle the change requests submitted by stakeholders during the development process
– Tips on how to avoid scope creep and how to make sure everything stays within your control
And much more… You don’t want to miss it!
Hello, my name is Allison, and I would like to welcome you to the project management training program. Thank you for signing up – you will definitely be glad that you did. In fact, not only do I want to thank you, but I really want to congratulate you because you’re now embarking on a new program that is going to help you get to the next level professionally.
Hi, I’m Bob and I want to welcome you aboard as well. Allison and I are going to be teaching you the ropes, guiding you step by step through this amazing new program, and we’ll be telling you a lot of great insider secrets as we go. You’re going to see exactly how easy it is to get started using these tools right away. And once you begin utilizing this program, you’ll find that it makes your work a lot easier, and, as a result, it makes your life a lot better.
What we want to talk about first today is Requirements Management, because that is where every project should begin. Not a lot of people realize this, but up to 71% of all software projects fail because of errors and oversights made during the requirements phase. In fact, I can give you an example from my own life that may sound familiar to some of you: Last month I planned my little girl’s 6th birthday party. I decided it would have a princess theme, so I bought a pink cake and sparkly decorations and princess-themed favors. It looked perfect, if I do say so myself. But when my daughter came downstairs and saw everything, she was sad. She loves animals and she had wanted a zoo theme for her birthday. What was my mistake? Not finding out what my “client” wanted ahead of time.
Just like you need to be attentive to the needs of your family at home, you have to focus on your clients’ needs at work. And, frankly, one of the things that I love about this program is that it makes my work easier so that I actually have more time to spend at home. Requirements management in particular is all about helping you to do your job more efficiently. I’ve been serving as a Project Manager for years and I can tell you from personal experience that one of the most common problems for people in my field is the failure to document and understand the client’s needs, which is Requirements Management 101.
Failure to figure out what the requirements are upfront means trouble. The project vision and scope aren’t clearly defined, requirements aren’t prioritized, developers encounter ambiguities and missing information when coding and start guessing what the client wants. The result is often an unhappy client.
Some studies have shown that for each dollar invested in finding and fixing errors during the requirements phase, you can save as much as $200 later on to correct that same problem after implementation. Think how much you save by catching problems early on! So requirements management is the first, and maybe the most important step in successfully completing a project. Yet many people overlook it completely.
The major benefit of requirements management is that it defines the project and provides a framework that enables the tracking and completing of the project’s progress and objectives.
When you implement requirements management, you see the advantages right away. It helps control project schedule and costs, improves communication between members of your team, allows for faster development, reduces unnecessary rework during the late stages of development, and ultimately increases customer satisfaction. I won’t name any names, but the days before I was in charge, I worked under a few project managers who were lousy at requirements management and it made for a miserable working experience. There was conflict among team members, deadlines weren’t met, and the end product was often all wrong.
Simply put, requirements management makes your job easier and it makes your client happier. And, fortunately, you are about to learn a very easy-to-use formula that is going to help you with that aspect of project management.
In the requirements management section of the program here, we are going to take you through step-by-step and teach you everything you need to know. It’s very simple and we’re going to break it down for you so that you can be using it immediately and start seeing great results right away.
We’ll be covering three main areas in this section: requirements elicitation, requirements documentation, and the change control process. In requirements elicitation, we will teach you how to collect requirements from stakeholders, and we’ll show you how to create user stories and interviews. For requirements documentation, we will explain how you document the requirements using requirements management software and you will learn how to create SRS (or Software Requirement Specification). Then we’ll get to the change control process, where we show you how to handle the change requests submitted by stakeholders during the development process. We will also give you tips on how to avoid scope creep and how to make sure everything stays within your control.
Be aware that the requirements phase isn’t a linear process. There are a number of steps, and you may need to repeat some of them, adding and editing more information along the way.
The first step is Initialization, where you gather requirements from the start-up documents, starting with the information that is available to you. This includes defined project goals and objectives, the identification of stakeholders and users, and identified major constraints and benefits. For this process, it is extremely helpful to use requirements management software, which will give you all the tools you need for listing requirements. You will want to use different categories, such as product and project name, security, environmental, and so forth. You will also want to specify the requirement type as mandatory or optional, and prioritize it as critical, high, medium, or low.
Step 2 involves interviewing the key players to gather more information, drilling down for needs that were not expressed in the initial documents, and clarifying existing requests by establishing important information such as priority level. List and prioritize the stakeholders that you plan to interview based on the importance of information that they can give you for writing the requirements. Keep in mind that there are different levels of interviews. You can interview individual people or a group. You can even do a workshop that involves different teams. You can also just observe how people do their work and build the requirements list based on an analysis of their process. For the interviewers, offer recommendations of books that advise on how to ask questions.
The third step is analysis, which involves collecting the information gathered so far, putting it together, and looking for conflicts or missing details. During this stage, the project manager collects the data that he gathered in the interview phase and starts putting the pieces together. First, he should start with the high level picture and determine what the final solution should look like. Then, he can start breaking down each high level requirement into smaller ones, connecting them, assigning them priority, and determining their level of importance to the project. The project manager should be sure to evaluate the risk factor for each requirement at this time.
Step 4 is Documentation, the point at which you put everything together, clearly written and organized, in a detailed and comprehensive requirements document. The document should place all requirements together in a clear flow from high level down to the lower level. These requirements should be as specific as possible, including classifications such as mandatory, required, and so on. The requirements should be measurable and achievable, so that you can determine if they have been achieved. They should also be results-oriented. Define the expected result of each feature. It is easier to build the requirements in a tree structure, dividing them into categories and sub-categories. Each requirement item should have a title and description, with the description written in a story format.
This is the initial stage of the project, in which people may commit to certain activities and resources. As you probably well know, people have a tendency to forget their commitments or change their minds, so that’s why it is important to document any commitments and responsibilities that have been assigned to different people. You’ll find that this will help prevent confusion and miscommunication in the future. If possible, attach meeting summaries, files, and even signed agreements to the requirements to provide additional proof of decisions that have been made during this phase. It can also be quite helpful to attach graphs, workflow charts, or any other supportive documents that can provide additional information and make the requirement description clearer. You should also document activities that the client is committed to do, such as training, testing, and making their resources available. If you anticipate any misunderstanding along the way, document items that will not be included in the project but might be requested by the client in the future.
Step 5, Review, is about getting agreement from all the stakeholders and setting expectations from the different people involved. All stakeholders should get the written requirements definitions and provide feedback. This will give them a chance to verify that their wants and needs are properly addressed in the document. They’ll be able to see how all the components fit together, providing them with an overall picture. This stage can be done by conducting a meeting with all stakeholders and going over the requirements list, though that method works best if there are a fairly small number of participants in the process. For larger projects involving a number of teams and individuals, it’s better to distribute the documents to everybody and then collect feedback from each team. The teams can have their own internal meetings to discuss the document, then forward their feedback to the project manager.
The sixth step is Baselining, which means setting the requirements as the basis for the development process. Once approved, the requirements should be locked and used as the starting point of the project. If you perform similar types of projects, such as web site building, you can use the first requirements baseline as a template for future projects. Keep in mind that the locked document can be used as a legal tool in the future, in case there are any disagreements with the client regarding the project objective and results. The approved version should be distributed to all interested parties. All approval changes need to be made to this version and tracked using version control.
Verification and Validation is Step 7. Here you monitor the requirements through the project life cycle to make sure that the project is developed according to what they define. During this phase, the project manager ensures that each requirement is addressed and completed as planned. Use a test cases management system to run tests based on the requirements. It’s a very good idea to link the requirements with the tests and bugs that have been found during the testing phase. It’s best to define a priority level to each requirement and build the work plan that makes sure that all high level mandatory requirements are completed before the project is over. Throughout the project process, the project manager should track the completion level of each requirement to make sure that the project objectives are achieved.
The eighth and final step is Change Control. Most projects change after the baseline phase, so you need to control the changes and the affects that they have on other requirements, project phases, budget, and schedule.
The requirements phase obviously involves a lot of information gathering and tracking, but you’ll find that our program makes it a snap. Of course, your active participation in this process is key. We’re very excited to be showing you this new program, and we know you will love it. If you’re anything like me, you are really happy when a program comes along that raises your game. You’re already giving 100% and doing great things, but we’re going to show you how easy it is to get to the next level. Come on, let’s get started!
