The Management Strategy Depends on the Stage of the Project

Depending on the stage of the project, different aspects are emphasized. During the sales and initiation phase, the competencies and experience of several key people are stressed, and relations and trust are built. During the analysis stage, the work is mainly done “on paper” and in a virtual way. It’s still important to demonstrate knowledge and experience; a handful of people are involved. Then, when the development starts, we move to a phase when the client cares about concrete outcomes, we focus on numbers, performance, velocity. Depending on the selected methodology, the client is more or less involved in giving feedback and creating some final solution. Relations with the key analysts are less important than the outcomes of the development work. The closer we get to the stage of UAT, the more we focus on the discussions related to what is in the scope and what isn’t. Individuals don’t matter (that much) anymore, the client can see the software that was delivered and directs his entire attention to “polishing,” which means ensuring that nothing is missing. Thus, it’s a period when both businesses look at the completeness of the delivered solution and how possible fixes will affect the final release date. Then the solution is deployed into production and there is time for stabilizing the system, the businesses start talking about SLA, the number of bugs in time, bug category, fixing times, etc. Nobody talks about the pace of development, the company’s competences, the number of people on the project. The client is only interested in quick fixing of the bugs, and even better that there are no bugs whatsoever or that their number does not exceed a certain limit. So, depending on the stage of the project, both the client is interested in monitoring other aspects of the project, and we also need to emphasize the right things and avoid talking about some other (for the sake of the project and of the client), while some are just ignored altogether.