Agile MindStorm - Ideas, Actions, Results !!!

As i am studying for the PMP exam, i will try to post something interesting that i've read from the books during my preparation hopefully it will be usefull and for you also

Common project management mistakes

• Focusing on filling percent complete
• Holding type status meetings and constantly checking on team members
• Asking to reduce estimates by 5-10%
• Thinking a bar chart (Gantt) is a project management plan
• Not attempting to get finalized requirements
• Not getting commitments of team members
• Not having a reward system
• Not measuring against the project management plan, or creating metrics
• Not spending time finding and eliminating root causes of problems and deviations
• Not implementing corrective actions
• Not reevaluating (cost, schedule, scope, effectiveness)
• Not realizing the project can affect the reputation of team members

Yipeee, i am allowed to hold PMP exam!!! My application was reviewed and confirmed. It wasn't so easy to gather up all the experience i had during recent years :)

So i passed the first step (time for celebration :))
I believe that a lot of hard work is waiting for me during preparation, but i am ready !!!

i found a very interesting resource - Lumosity, which states that - "Lumosity is a fast, fun and effective way to take care of your brain." :) Sounds really cool.

This stuff is design by scientists, so i think it is worth trying :) My current BPI (whatever it means) is 958. Let's see if it improves after playing these games ... :)
At least I hope it will :))

A lot of people nowadays go crazy about positive thinking, but sometimes there is a feeling that most of them expect good things just start to happen one nice day… It sounds really weird, but some of my friends act like this.

In my world, it should be obvious that any positive thinking needs to have a firm foundation - precise goals of its own, practical plans and resources. Only such toolbox allows you to expect that your dreams and desires will come true.

Agree?

I've recently released a project with my team and would like to share some statistics which might be usefull to others during estimates.

Brief project description :

• 3 senior developers
• 1 junior developer
• 1 junior analist
• 1 senior tester
• Time spent for development - 211 calendar days
• Time spent for analysis - 30 calendar days
• 4 logically related components
• 12 main functional requirements
• 27 main use cases
• Tester was involved 80 calendar days before the relase

Results :

• We met the deadline
• 362 issues (tasks, bugs, improvements) were registred in the project management software
• Average issue resolution time decreased from 9 days to 4 days (statistics were calculated for each month)
• We had 12 blocking issues, 64 critical issues and 238 major issues. Others were either minor or trivial
• ~50% of issues were BUGS !!!
• 45 of 48 test cases passed
• 3 test cases blocked

Conclusion :

• There was a high risk that we are going to miss the deadline, because tester was involved too late.
• Response from tester: "I would like to get at least two more weeks to make sure that everything is ok."

Testing is very important !!! Involve testers into your projects ASAP, don't put your projects at risk.