Application Support and Service Desks

In a distributed environment, this topic is a tricky one. The efficiency gains of using a cost-friendly resource base in a distributed location during the development stage needs to be assessed against the long term impact on the ability to service/support the application post-implementation.

Without having an agreed partnership with a distributed vendor, there is no obligation to support the application once development is complete. In fact, even if you are partnering with a vendor, there is no obligation to support the application unless the support is agreed up front or is there as an option in the contract between oneself and the vendor.

If the goal is a solid application and good post-implementation support, then the application support and service desk deliverable is a key for all companies that engage with suppliers that use distributed vendors for solution delivery. Customers will need to ensure that they are getting the whole "product" from their supplier - which is not stage-focussed but geared around the actual lifespan of the application in an organisation.

This is, therefore, a critical success factor for the long term customer-supplier relationship and the success of the project post-implementation.

What has been your largest project management issue from your most successful project?

I would suggest that the most complex issue to manage in projects that I have managed, being part of as well as being the client is expectations management. It is something that a project manager must be cognisant of, but is an issie borne of delivery.

I feel that wihout effective delivery tools and methodologies, clear and concise communication is not possible with regards to the expectations of the project stakeholders. Ambiguity exists in so many places in projects. Project managers need to ensure that the client (and the delivery resources) understand the project and the detail that they are agreeing to at the various project sign-off stages.

Only a project manager who understands the project deliverables and has the trust of the client and the delivery team can hope to be able to manage their expectations.

The first way to resolve this issue is to really work with the teams in the project, understand the deliverables as more than just work packages and facilitate success in a project, not just manage the work pacakge and try to obtain sign-off.

The second way is to use the right tools to manage people's expectations and to strike a balance between cost (effort, duration, complexity) and clairty of requirements.

Question Details:--------------------
What has been your largest project management issue from your most successful project?Please share what you believe to be the largest project management issue (positive or negative) you faced during what you believe to be your most important (successful or unsuccessful) project and how you resolved it.

For what purpose do you use a Wiki within your organization?

Internally, we use our wiki everyday and are encouraged to do so as an international organization as it is light-weight and easy to use; whilst being available to the entire company. We tend to keep away from using it for storing project deliverables, but do use it for storing snippets of information about a project - the stakeholders, who's who internally, etc on a project as well as the FAQ's for development builds, releases and testing. For our project artefacts and deliverables, we are using our own bespoke Java applications alongside regular Microsoft products like Office and Project. From a company administration perspective, we use it to keep track of internal initiatives; people's professional experiences outside of our company and their skills (wiki's search capabilities help us find internal knowledgeable resources when we have questions); as well as internal function processes such as expense claims and HR, etc. PS - currently within our organization we use docuWiki.

Question Details:--------------------
For what purpose do you use a Wiki within your organization?How often and for what purpose do you use an internal company Wiki within your Software Development Organization? Do you use it to share knowledge, describe processes, document your developed Software, make plans and estimates, etc. Or do you use another system for such things? Also, which Wiki do you use?

Configuration Management Tools

The team has always used some form of issue tracking and configuration management tool - currently, we are using JIRA to track and manage features, releases, changes and bugs.

This tool has allowed the team to be able to refer back to releases or issues and confidently answer questions posed by the client. If used properly, it represents a key informational cog in the wheel of project and configuration management.

Like many information sources though, it is only as good as the information going into it. Therefore, it is vital to enforce mandatory data requirements to assist in efficient issue resolution.

All of the above are of heightened importance in a distributed project environment due to the ambiguity of informal requirement communication such as email and instant messaging.

Introduction

Hi,

This is the first post. I intend to periodically add articles or notes to this blog to help capture some thinking around the pains, reservations, risks, issues and challenges of distributed development projects as well as the joys, success stories, rewards and gone-wells that myself and the teams I work with have experienced.