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"We remain committed to timely and practical solutions that fulfill
expectations. Each step of the way matching the delivery of service to the culture of the client."
Source : Certellus LLC
Key Factors for Achieving Successful Projects
Successful Projects is also known as :
Delivering Successful Projects,
Managing Successful Projects,
Most Successful Projects,
Successful Development Projects,
Successful Group Projects,
Successful Knowledge Management Projects,
Successful Project Management,
Successful Project Manager,
Successful Project Plan,
Successful Software Projects,
Successful Project Planning,
Key Factors,
Competitive Management,
Identify Key Factors,
Important Key Factors,
Industry Key Factors,
Key Business Factors,
Key Business Indicators,
Key Competitive Factors,
Key Factors,
Key Factors Success,
Key Market Factors,
Key Market Indicators,
Key Performance Criteria,
Key Performance Factors,
Key Performance Measure,
Key Planning Factors.
Building communicating & cooperating teams to achieve successful projects
No matter how unique a project may be, it is always the top concerns for both the software services
providers and the clients to have project quality, be on time and within budget. It is a good chance that
the customer will be satisfied if these fundamental goals are met. Successful project are fostered
through mutual trust and cooperation between the outsourcer and the client. We believe that the
following factors should be in mind for a software outsourcing vendor to achieve a successful project.
- Proven (formal) methodology - A mature methodology is the No.1 factor in project success. It
provides a realistic picture of the project and resources committed to it. Credible outsourcers
should have mature methods that have been adapted to their development culture. In addition, the
development methodologies should have sufficient flexibility (Waterfall, RUP, Agile) in order to
adequately meet varying project demands.
- Highly skilled Project Manager (PM) - In order to ensure that the project goals will be met,
project manager selection is critical. The person should have the right skills and experience to
allow them to be successful; this is essential to having a successful implementation of the software
solution. PMs must be:
- dedicated and committed
- possess proficient technical knowledge
- clearly understand project goals
- have relevant business knowledge
- have leadership skills for schedule management, cost management, resources management,
and communication (internal and external) management
- have the ability to generate enthusiasm of the whole team for the project.
The special project management tools like VSTS, EPM and TFS must be made available for PMs to
better track and control the project and the performance for the whole team during the development
lifecycle.
- Clearly defined goals - Now it is time to get the project under way, the first and most important
step in this phase is to communicate a clear understanding of the requirement and what the client
expected. Except for the PM's rich experience, various requirement questionnaires and Q & A list
are also helpful to get a clear picture of the client's requirements.
- Thorough analysis & Detailed project planning - Quickly planned projects may save time and
money at beginning, but in the end, the results will be poor, more expensive and time consuming.
Adjustments and corrections will become necessary in order to make the software operate
properly. The PM and Software Architect (SA) should use their collective knowledge and
experience to come up with durable analysis and estimates that reflect the true effort required.
World class service providers provide project planning documents that both the vendor and client
use to communicate with and to evaluate project progress each step on the way towards project
completion. These documents should include (at minimum) statement of works or proposal,
project timeline, work amount and project development plan that describes the human resources
plan, communication plan, risk management plan and change management plan .
- Proper training - This is an important part for effective team work. It establishes a cohesive team
that has the same goals (targets) and has the capability of avoiding unnecessary problems that may
arise during the lifecycle. Effective training involve the business knowledge training, requirement
training, process methods orientation, goal setting and quality training, programming conventions
and speciality areas that are instrumental to project success.
- Thorough testing -Service providers should be utilizing appropriate software tools to insure
adequate test coverage (and ultimately adequate product proving/error detection capabilities). It is
strongly suggested that testware created by the outsourcer become a part of the software delivery
in order for the client to understand the adequacy of testing and to serve as a baseline for
validation once installed locally.
- Frequent & honest two-way communication - Frequent and open communication is essential
for successful project implementation. This includes both internal communication amongst the
team members (solution approaches, problems detected & settlement...) and the external
communication between the service provider team and the client for clarification/question
resolution, artifact transference (client to servicer and servicer to client), status reporting,
implementation coordination and schedule status confirmation. The service provider must be
fluent in the native language of the client in both written and verbal forms. Communication
methods should utilize varies forms, each having a unique way of exposing potential gaps in
understanding. These include team meetings, face-to-face meeting, e-mail, phone communication,
and instant messenger, and video/text conferencing.
Effective collaboration gets twice the result with half the effort. On the client's side, well prepared
requirement and timely feedback to the outsourcer's performance are also critical for project success.
- Define the software requirement in detail - Incomplete, inaccurate and unstable requirement is
one of the common causes of project failure. Make sure that the requirements are well defined
which deliver accurate, clear, concise specifications and corrections are made early in the project's
lifespan.
- Open and timely feedback - Frequent and timely feedbacks to project progress, deliveries and
questions are also helpful to resolve any problems that arise during the project cooperation.
About Shinetech
Shinetech Software Inc. is a professional offshore software development service provider established in
Beijing China in Aug, 2001. It has already successfully completed over 100 projects for customers of
the overseas market, like US, Canada, Australia, UK, Finland, Ireland and some other European
countries. It has reached a collaboration agreement with Certellus LLC for sales promotion and market
penetration in US.
For more information about Shinetech, please refer to www.shinetechchina.com
?2007 Shinetech Software Inc.
Distributed through joint collaboration with Certellus LLC, Winter Springs, FL USA