coneblog

OK, it is time to take a break from our focus on content management. We have been tracking the progress of my content management project, and we recently waded into the deeper waters of XML, Metatagging, and Semantic Nets. Before we go completely under, let’s sit on the edge of the pool, catch our breath, and talk about more general IT project management concerns.

I have been running IT projects for quite a while, and I have accumulated a set of tools that I use in my work. I thought you might be interested in a tour through my personal toolbox.

Opening my toolbox, the first tool I see is one of my oldest, the Project Manager’s Hourglass.

Like most of my tools, the Hourglass is a conceptual tool. Here is how I visualize it: It consists of two brushed aluminum plates, eight inches square, set twelve inches apart by four steel rods threaded and bolted through holes in the corners. Inside the cage of the rods is a blown-glass hourglass, containing about a cup of black basaltic sand.

It is a precision tool for a precision job – the job of measuring the end of the analysis phase of a software project. Here is how I use it.

When the analysis phase of a project starts, I mentally turn over the hourglass. It could be a User Requirements Gathering phase, a Data Analysis phase or a User Interface Design Phase. As the project goes on, I keep my eye on the Hourglass. At some point, the sand runs out. When it does, I say, “Enough analysis; lets wrap up this phase.”

I remember the day I got this tool. I was a snotty-nosed staffer at The Firm now known as Accenture. I was neck deep in the analysis phase of a Crude Oil Contracting and Movement System. This system had everything: Tankers, Contracts, Terminals, Ullage, sweet and sour Crude Oil, Pipelines and lots of other stuff that I can’t remember. (I do, however, remember reducing the cute young Russian developer to tears by constructing a circular pipeline segment and crashing the test system).

But, anyway, I was way deep in analysis, and it wouldn’t end. More Entities; more Activities; more transaction types. One day the Frank, the Partner came in, and we presented our progress. At the end he said: “Great Work. You are done. Wrap it up.” I sounded like a go kart: “But, but, but, but … what about…”.

Frank was the Partner, not a hardass like many, but of course we did what he said. And it worked out. Frank knew something that I didn’t, that Analysis will, if unchecked, expand to fill the known Universe. He saw that we had done plenty, more than we could implement, and he pulled the plug. At first I was puzzled, but the project worked out, and I understood: The Hourglass had run out on that phase, it was time to wrap it up.

Thanks, Frank, for that tool. I have used it often. Next time I’ll talk about my favorite tool, the Scope Ax.

And a tip of the PM cap to Mike at John Harvard’s, for the perfect Martini that helped me complete this tale.