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RAPID PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: AN OVERVIEW OF KALMAN SAFFRAN ASSOCIATES, INC. (KSA) PROJECT ESTIMATING, PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

Over the years, KSA has studied many of the project planning and control techniques put forward by large and successful companies. The practical project experience that we have gained in the high tech community has been incorporated with many of these tools resulting in a KSA Project Management and Control System which is a true hybrid, ensuring on-time and within-budget project completion.

PROJECT PLANNING

Most projects fail due to poor planning. A common pitfall is mixing planning with execution. It is often tempting to begin work on a project prior to fully completing the planning process. Development teams then have to begin over and over again in order to include tasks omitted from the last iteration of the plan, which causes schedule slips and precious time (as well as salary and other resource dollars) being wasted. This, in turn, very often leads to scaled-back functionality. Thus, the end result of poor planning is being late to market with a product which is, if the truth be told, less than your customers require.

At KSA, project planning is a thoroughly-understood, well-documented process. Our expertise in the application of this process is of utmost value to our clients' development programs. We insist that our architects and project managers strictly adhere to the project planning process, which assures on-time, on-budget delivery of your product, optimal utilization of your internal resources, minimal impact on your other ongoing development efforts, etc.

KSA uses the Management By Objectives (MBO) technique, as described in "Project Planning Procedures" (below). Each MBO objective is precisely defined and prioritized so that a framework exists enabling decisions to be made which keep the effort focused on matters of consequence. The tasks required to meet each objective are then derived, effort estimates are allocated, completion dates are scheduled and personnel are assigned.

Our project managers are all senior technical people, well-versed in our project management techniques, able to grasp the overall development strategy associated with delivering your product, attentive to the details of your effort, able to exercise independent judgement to optimize their resources, certain to take an objective view of the realities of situations so as not to be deceived by false hopes or taken by surprise by unexpected reports. In short, our process yields consistent, high quality results, and simplifies management by producing realistic schedules which have been agreed to by the project team. A minimum number of surprises and minimal downstream adjustment, if any, is always the result.

PROJECT PLANNING PROCEDURES

These KSA procedures are a step by step approach to gathering and analyzing requisite project planning information. As such, the steps must be completed in sequence, without any omissions.

  1. Establish and prioritize project objectives.
  2. Define project deliverables and associated test and acceptance criteria. The acceptance will be a formal sign-off by the client for each deliverable.
  3. Structure the project to follow the necessary steps for a structured development process
  4. Divide the project into short, manageable phases.
  5. Determine the baseline of existing work and the development environment from which the project will start.
  6. Identify KSA and client responsibilities.
  7. Document all assumptions.
  8. Determine the tasks which must be completed to meet each objective. No one task may exceed two calendar weeks of effort.
  9. Include design review tasks using KSA or client design review methodology. Schedule time to incorporate sug- gestions from the review.
  10. Define the consultant skills and the experience needed for each task.
  11. Select appropriate KSA staff from available personnel that meet skill and experience requirements. A report by IBM shows that the productivity of experienced programmers can vary by as much as 25 to one. At KSA we always select staff members who are somewhat over-qualified for the tasks at hand to assure that they will be able to handle any eventuality, be highly productive, and not need to learn on the job.
  12. The project manager will make a top down estimate of the effort and compensate for any additional resources required for each task based on experience from similar projects.
  13. The engineer assigned to each task will estimate the effort and additional resources needed for task completion from the bottom up. The engineer must thoroughly analyze each sub-task that must be completed in order to complete the main task.
  14. The bottom-up estimate will then be modified, if necessary. The project manager's knowledge of the track record of the consultant when predicting durations is used and any differences are reconciled.
  15. The KSA project manager will then enter the tasks, milestones (objectives), dependent relationships, and effort estimates into a computerized project scheduling system.
  16. After reviewing resource loading the project manager may allocate additional personnel or other resources to cover periods of high demand.
  17. After reviewing tasks and resources that lie on the critical path the manager may reallocate resources to minimize project duration.
  18. The project plan is then documented in Program Evaluation and Review technique (PERT) with Critical Path Method (CPM) format, Gantt format Management by Objectives (MBO) format. It is then presented to the client.

PROJECT ESTIMATING

The objective of project estimating is to arrive at a relatively narrow range of expected events, (dollars, people, time, other resources) to complete a given project. As one seeks more and more precision in the estimate, the effort required rises dramatically, with the cost soon outweighing the benefit of refined numbers.

Estimating a project is futile until a detailed project plan is in place. For this reason KSA divides all projects into at least two stages. The first phase entails collecting the facts and creating the project plan for later execution. Our methodology for developing the project plan is outlined above under "Project Planning Procedures". At the completion of Phase One the project will have been sufficiently analyzed to arrive at realistic estimates.

We have confidence in our project estimates because we are thorough in understanding the tasks which must be done and because we know the individual capabilities of our staff.

We constantly refine our estimating ability by reviewing each project as it matures and analyzing any differences between estimated and actual costs and schedules.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Task and effort estimates then form the basis for computerized PERT/CPM scheduling. Any loading adjustments that may later be necessary due to changes in resources or schedule dates can then be easily made.

Each project member submits a weekly status report to KSA management in a standard format. Progress is tracked regarding objectives, expected progress in the coming week, problems, recommendations, and time spent. In addition the project manager will meet with the project team on a frequent basis. The manager will also meet periodically with the client to ensure that the client remains completely up to date.

As each task is completed there is a formal sign-off using a "KSA Task Completion Form".

Changes in scope are recorded on the KSA "Project Scope Change" control, which documents agreement between KSA and the client.

We will be pleased to assist your product development efforts. For more information: Contact Us