OK a quick blog post,  however I have to say I’m a little frustrated how good discipline is often thrown out the window when it comes down to running technology projects.  Maybe because its because I work in the Digital world, which often as its fair share of people with good ideas but lack of ability to deliver those ideas or see the course through.  A little harsh as most groups of people will have different levels of talents and the best team needs a spread of these talents.  However good uncluttered, regimented discipline is required to close down a project.  Today we are blessed with more tools than ever to manage projects and project closure.  Atlassian being the best of all to enable planning, rescheduling on the fly and above to have a clear view on what we still have to do to close something down.  Above all there are some really simple rules that we should always follow;-

• Manage lists of tasks
• Schedules those tasks
• Keep scheduling those tasks
• Make sure everything is ready and organised before that tasks is scheduled to start
• Make sure people know what they are doing before they start
• Track progress
• Keep agile and replan to ensure we are efficiently getting around those tasks with the hours we have remaining
• Aim to close don’t leave areas open
• Keep information to the highest of quality. Remember shit in means shit out.
• And above stay on top of it.  We are managers you need to be on top of it all, don’t step away, stay close to the data and stay close to the rhythm and flow of the project.

Atlassian’s Greenhopper planning boards with good burndown charts enable us to do this on a daily basis but we must work with them and make them work for us.  This involves finally conducting your team, removing barriers, creating workarounds.  Its all about timing and ensure we can get from a to b in that window of time.

Anyway back to the lists.