Top 10 Tips for Successful Software Development Management by Jack Bicer

Here are some time tested guidelines that have been used extensively to deliver web
development projects successfully, on-time and on-budget. Although most of the
projects developed are between 1 to 10 man years of effort, these tips also scale nicely
for smaller projects of 2 man months to larger projects of 25 man years.
1. Understand the user’s needs, write the specs before coding and keep them up to
date. Develop the User Interface with the specs and flush out design issues.
2. Break projects into modules of 1 week or shorter.
3. Implement risky modules early.
4. Create validation milestones, every 3 to 4 weeks.
5. Provide the necessary resources.
6. Get developer buy-in for features, timelines and milestones.
7. Keep people accountable to their commitments.
8. Resist “feature creep” during implementation and testing.
9. Use automated functional testing tools and do stress testing.
10. Under-promise, over-deliver and plan a pleasant surprise at the end.
In every project, one or more of these guidelines will be broken. A breach of a guideline
does not mean a project will be unsuccessful. Other guidelines will usually pull you
through and help the project succeed. It is the large number of breaches and the depth
of the breaches that will create project failures.