Solving Problems

Obtaining more resources (money) is always a difficult, if not impossible, proposition. And extending the delivery date does not necessarily decrease the cost and may conflict with other organizational objectives. Increasing the schedule is a quadruple threat for the following reasons:
1.Changing the timing of the product introduction can have all sorts of negative marketing and sales consequences.
2.Costs increase because people must be paid to work on the project for a longer amount of time.
3.Additional schedule time leaves an opening for additional ‘feature creep.’
4.Extended timelines sometimes take the pressure off the development staff, which can lessen the urgency they feel to complete the task.
By process of elimination then, the decision often boils down to changing the design specification. Depending on the specific situation, however, fine-tuning any of the three factors is a possibility. Discuss the options with members of the Web development team as well as others in the organization who may be affected by your decision. Specialists in marketing, sales, and technology can often suggest alternatives of which you are unaware. As the project manager, you are responsible for finding a way to fix things through creative problem solving and an intimate knowledge of the development process.

Tightening Up a Loose Project

By identifying bottlenecks in the development process and reassigning tasks to widen those bottlenecks, you can often tighten up a loose project. For example, imagine creating a Web-based training program that contains numerous interactive simulations, all of which are individually programmed. The whole project may depend on a single programmer who is placing graphics, programming the simulations, and performing software testing. This heavy individual responsibility represents a substantial bottleneck.

Crises

Websites tend to be prone to crises, for the following reasons:
1.As software projects, they are subject to the many unknowns inherent to the invention or development process.
2.Cultural differences among team members from different disciplines (e.g., programming, writing, art and design, network technology, systems analysis) can lead to miscommunication and other management difficulties.
3.Team members new to website development projects must climb a steep learning curve, which slows down the process and leaves you vulnerable to mistakes.

Breaking It Down

When a crisis develops, separate the project factors and examine each issue to see what’s wrong. With a bit of luck, they can be fixed and realigned.

Maintaining Balance

So much of work comes down to people, which are categorized as resources in the project management model. If a key programmer finds another job halfway through the project, you face a resource problem. Personnel performance problems or interpersonal relations on the development team are not uncommon sources of delay. If a squabble breaks out between the programming and testing personnel, you also have a resource problem. Not that you do not have enough resources, but in this case, they cannot be used effectively because of the argument.
Websites are fluid, ever-changing works in progress. They reside in an online medium where change is an expectation. Often, shifting company priorities require updates, reorganization, and even redesign; therefore, the task factor is often a moving target. Estimating the resource and time factors of the ‘final application’ is especially difficult because the application is never truly finished.