Software R&D Project Mgt. Solution

The software industry is in an endless state of rapid change, largely affected by a plethora of products and the globalization of service offerings. The industry undertakes various types of projects and faces many challenges, including:

• Intense competition due to globalization
• Older legacy systems and infrastructure issues
• Adoption rate and timing in the face of market pressure
• SaaS product takeover
• Internal procurement or outsourcing
• Adequate software requires specific expertise
• Integration and interface issues
• Multiple software bug testing and resolution iterations
• Multiple complex user-level requirements
• Difficulty in attracting and retaining applied talent
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Evolving revenue recognition requirements/reporting for software companies

The software industry is highly complex and requires employees with both industry-specific skills and the necessary software development expertise. Finding relevant people whose proficiency and knowledge level matches the development project is not an easy task.

The software industry is one of the fastest growing and evolving industries. Influenced by domestic and international competition, it creates an environment in which companies go bankrupt as fast as they are created. Business owners, executives, middle managers, and other employees working in the field are under constant pressure to keep up. Project management professionals suffer from greater stress to ensure successful project execution.

Just knowing project management is not enough. Project managers must keep pace with this rapidly evolving industry, anticipating potential risk, quality, integration, financial and other factors that may hinder project success. These factors may apply to many industries, but due to the speed of technological change, coupled with increased competition to deliver projects on time, on budget, and with expected quality standards, managing projects in the software industry can feel like being in a pressure cooker.

When people working on software development projects have to deal with enormous pressure, they tend to protect themselves. The "myth of 90% complete"（https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/220690/project-control--themyth -of-90- complete）is common in the software industry. Projects are getting late every day, but project completion rates can go from 90% to 70% or even 50% in one day. This happens because the project data integrity is not well protected.

8Manage PM was born to solve the common project data integrity problem in the software industry. Its Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) tracks each project element related to the owners audit trail in real time. It also presents a single view of accurate plan execution information to everyone, which eliminates misunderstandings caused by multiple versions of the truth.

Project planning and execution are linked

If only one unfortunate thing happened, we could easily find it. If the wrong dependencies are built on the wrong dependencies, unnecessary confusion can arise, and accountability can be problematic.

In 8Manage PM, planning and execution go hand in hand. Current plans always reflect the latest status of project team deliverables and performance. You can always go back to the plan baseline or a previous snapshot version. But there is always one and only one current plan that everyone can share.

Requirements, communication and change collaborative management

It is difficult to convey complex requirements in a single communication. 8Manage PM provides the necessary framework for the delivery of complex requirements. It also automatically tracks the review and acceptance of requirements and provides a Reality Check feature to identify communication issues.

To effectively manage complex requirements, 8Manage PM automatically detects changes in requirements, no matter how small, 8Manage PM will remind people by linking them to different project stages, so that all project stakeholders are aware of the impact of the changes. In addition, 8Manage PM automatically tracks requirements, dependencies and indirect changes so that any potential impact can be predicted and assessed at the earliest possible time.

8Manage PM provides functionality to support searching, requesting, assigning and tracking resources across multiple sites, internal agencies, PMOs, projects and campaigns. It can automatically estimate expenses and prepare budgets, and track the actual situation according to the plan.

For human resource management, 8Manage PM automatically detects skill set gaps and overburden. It funnels data (e.g. skillset gaps, time spent, and results of deliverables) from the lowest activities to the highest portfolios or internal agencies.

8Manage PM also supports advanced resource management functions such as resource provisioning, future demand forecasting and skill set search.

All events have planned start and end dates. Once the event has passed the planned start date, the timer begins. The responsible person must update the progress, otherwise the system will automatically calculate the progress. Users can easily see disproportionate time consumption and completion rates. If the activity has passed the completion date and the completion rate is less than 100%, the system will send an alert and mark the activity as overdue.

Project managers can decide whether to track the cost of the project. If he/she chooses to track expenses, he/she can define budgets at the activity and/or project level. Workloads are automatically converted to actual labor costs, and procurement and travel costs are automatically calculated in the actual materials, services, and travel costs for the corresponding activity.

Once the project is approved, the baseline will appear. When the cumulative project plan or budget change exceeds the preset threshold, 8Manage PM’s change control principles and parameters will automatically trigger the need for project re-approval. Each time a project is approved, a new project baseline is recorded. The system can display whether current plans and executions are in line with previous baselines, and users can measure current duration, resources, costs, and deliverable deviations from previous approval points.

8Manage PM helps to arrange work in a natural way, where proper responsibilities and commitments will be put in place. If anyone changes the commitment, it will inform the affected parties. The system also provides the following ways to enhance result management:

• Set rules for review and acceptance
• Real-time reminder of review and acceptance results
• Real-time overview and periodic email reports

Using the above functions, all stakeholders can understand the responsibilities and results.

Project issues can range from non-issues to catastrophic ones. The biggest challenge in project issue management is the systematic listing and categorization of issues and actions until their closure.

8Manage PM automatically collects and categorizes issues from different activities. It supports centralized tracking of issues, their severity and priority, and provides automatic alerts and escalation functions. In addition, it allows you to track issues, sub-issues, actions and sub-actions.