Volume 8 - Number 9 -September 2010 Product versus Project is one of our classic themes for the CM Journal. Each year this topic takes on new meaning and increased importance as many organizations struggle to keep up with the challenges of the technology marketplace. Competition is certainly fierce, but the rewards are equally as exciting. Even in a difficult economy, many technology professionals are creating exciting new sophisticated solutions. The good news is that every successful endeavor needs the expertise of CM gurus to manage source code, automate application builds, package releases and streamline deployments. I have seen some companies stumble in this market and more than a few simply cease to exist as independent organizations. Even companies shutting their doors still needed systems and software to manage the transition. Almost all of these systems had to support large Web/SOA architectures, often with complex interfaces - once again needing a CM expert to handle the dependencies.
Choices have to be made, however, and approaching our work from a long term product perspective requires a different set of priorities compared to meeting the immediate, short term, challenges of a tight project deadline. There are times when you cannot be elegant and you just have to go with CM processes that are less than completely mature. Some of the purists will whine, but that is often exactly what you have to do in the real world. Still my release manage practices help teams to meet tight deadlines and develop great software. Rest assured that you have come to the right place to learn how to balance the long term and short term priorities.
We start off this month with our newest writer, Angela Moore, who tells us to Straddle the Fence while veteran Mario Moirera helps us set new records with Configuration Management (CM) Race Track. Leslie Sachs helps us understand the people side of this topic in Personality Matters, while I share my own trench level views in Behaviorally Speaking. We take a look back at Ben Weatherall's article on considering Big Picture or Little Picture. Andrew Madejczyk helps us to know where to focus our efforts. Brad Appleton, Robert Cowham and Steve Berczuk examine Product and Project SCM while Joe Farah reviews the Next Generation Project vs Product SCM using dashboards. Whether you have to tackle your CM work from a Product or Project perspective (or both)you have come to the right place for tips & advice on achieving success!
Bob Aiello
Editor in Chief
CM Crossroads
raiello@acm.org
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Configuration Management (CM) Race Track
by Mario Moreira
A race track is built to accommodate a certain class of race car. The race track provides a path in which a race car can travel around to start and finish a race. The track is built as a permanent facility designed with materials and formation to ensure the track is easily maintainable, and to enable that class of race car to travel in a reliable manner. It is also important to build the track in a way that allows the race cars to reach their peak performance. So what does this have to do with configuration management (CM)? The race track is a lot like a CM infrastructure needed by product team to support the building of product. The race car is a lot like the CM tasks that are executed to help the project race to the release finish line.
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Product vs. Project CM: Straddle the Fence
by Angela Moore
The question is, when applying Configuration Management (CM), do you take a short-term, make-the-deadline approach, or do you think about your project from a more long-term perspective?
SCENARIO A – The obstetrician provides prenatal care, treating the pregnant woman in order to support the development of her fetus. The project perspective in this case is the health of the mother as host. In tandem, the product (if you will) is the fetus, which relies on the systemic health and nutrition provided by its mother for its own health, development, and nurturing environment. Yes, there are many babies born to the world without excellent prenatal care, but are they the healthiest “products”? Lack of prenatal care is associated with a 40 percent increase in the risk of neonatal death overall and a doubling of the risk among women delivering at or after 36 weeks’ gestation.
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Personality Matters – Product versus Project
by Leslie Sachs
Personality accounts for a lot. You can tell a great deal about how someone is going to handle a situation by understanding their personality. In fact, if you get really good at this game you can predict what they are going to do. Some people just can’t manage to the see the big picture and that is often evident in how they approach their work from either a tactical project versus a strategic product perspective. If you want to be able to work with different personalities then need to understand what motivates them to act, or in some cases, fail to act.
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Behaviorally Speaking – Product or Project
by Bob Aiello
The CM Journal has featured this topic now for many years. I must admit that my own view of product versus project has changed significantly over time. There was a time when I simply said that both were necessary and I didn’t see any conflict with that. The truth is that there is a huge conflict and it can be very difficult to really just simply take one approach or another. I have personally seen some serious pitfalls when focusing on the long term product perspective over the short term project view. How do you make the right choices that help you stay in business while still growing your business? Read on if you want to strike the balance that will help you succeed.
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Big Picture or Little Picture – Where to Focus?
by Ben Weatherall
Years ago, back in my consulting days, I used to show a picture of a “Magic Eye” or stereogram. You know the ones I am talking about; you stare at them almost cross-eyed until a three dimensional picture emerges through all of the clutter. Mine said, “Profit!” and I have included two versions below:
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Product versus Project - Where to Focus Your Efforts
by Andrew T. Madejczyk
Friends, by now we’ve all heard the predictions heralding the return of prudence in spending, optimization, needs-versus-wants and the underlying theme of rethinking everything imaginable. Thus, the focus of our effort seems to have an interwoven connection to the care and due diligence we employ as we chart our efforts and manage our expenditures.
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CM: THE NEXT GENERATION - Project vs Product SCM Using Dashboards
by Joe Farah
A CM strategy must deal with product development from both a Product and from a Project perspective. The former deals with the state of a product, the requirements, features, problems, quality, etc. The latter deals with managing the tasks that will take the product through its many milestones. Dashboard technology can help to clarify the perspectives and simplify the management functions, especially from an information perspective.
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Product and Project SCM
by Brad Appleton, Robert Cowham, and Steve Berczuk
Products and Projects - before we get into any SCM discussions, we need to classify these beasts - what are their distinguishing marks?!
The Lean Development Mailing List had a pertinent discussion on this. Mary Poppendieck commented:
Products are development efforts that are (usually) funded incrementally. They start with a concept and end with a product launch. Along the way, they are funded incrementally as they progress through stages such as feasibility, test market, commercialization, etc. [...] Products are also expected to have a long and useful life over which timeframe they are generally expected to undergo constant improvement. Projects, on the other hand, due to their contract origins, tend to be fully funded at the beginning of the project. This front-end loaded funding tends to drive the people providing the funds to ask for scope and schedule plans, which are then treated as commitments - after all - the funds are committed, so they want to know what they will get for the money. In addition, on-going change after the "end" of a project is generally regarded as bad.
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