New to Project Management

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heyitspython's picture
Posted by heyitspython on June 24, 2011 at 5:21am

Hi all,

I just recently took on a wonderful opportunity with a great drupal-based organization here in Portland. They've brought me on to be a project manager, and although I've done a little bit of management before, I'd really like to know what to anticipate. Any tips, advice, or stories would be much appreciated.

Thank you!!

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experince from project management

Posted by HelenaN on June 29, 2011 at 10:52am
HelenaN's picture

Congratulations!

I´ve been working as a project manager for Drupal projects for a while now. First on the buyer´s side and now on the supplier´s side.

Here is my experience/advice in short:

  • First, make sure the client understand what Drupal is, what open source is.
  • The hard part is always the estimate compared to the time it really takes (which a lot of the times is longer ;) )
  • The client should always be involved in the project. Have a meeting or phone conference at least every second week where you together with the developers discuss the project with the client.
  • The client should do the prioritazation of tasks (of course together with the developers)
  • The more involved the client is in the project and knows what´s going on, the easier it will be to explain and get an understanding for the problems that might turn up (and with that understanding for more time, a higher cost or need to change the prioritazation).

Good luck!
Helena

Helena

Thanks so much Helena! Any

Posted by heyitspython on June 29, 2011 at 8:27pm
heyitspython's picture

Thanks so much Helena! Any advice is great advice, and I will keep yours in the back of my mind at all moments. If I have any specific questions in the future, would it be okay if I shot you a message?

Andrea

Absolutely! :)

Posted by HelenaN on June 30, 2011 at 6:59am
HelenaN's picture

Absolutely! :)

Helena

Know your Drupal beans!

Posted by andyn-gbr on June 30, 2011 at 8:31am
andyn-gbr's picture

Hi Helena,

Great advice already from Andrea. I would add the following specifically regarding Drupal (or perhaps open source in general) PMing:

There is no consistent handbook of features - especially once you are using contributed modules for the project. This can make it difficult to match client requirements, and find the 'right' Drupal way of achieving them. There are many ways of doing things in Drupal and some that will require custom coding to get the exact feature the client is wanting.

Knowing what Drupal can do is really important and so keep close to the development team and broaden your Drupal knowledge as much as you can. This will help ultimately in specifying solutions to client requirements - keeping it simple and straightforward and knowing when you will be heading off into the riskier (in terms of the project) world of custom coding.

Andy.

Agile Scrum

Posted by francewhoa on September 11, 2011 at 4:03am
francewhoa's picture

My favorite book about Project Management with Agile Scrum:
http://www.amazon.ca/Agile-Project-Management-Scrum-Schwaber/dp/073561993X
or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-735-61993-7

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How to contribute to Drupal.

Some links for ya

Posted by svettes on September 15, 2011 at 9:51pm
svettes's picture

Hi Andrea!

Congrats on your job! I've been a PM for years, but only on drupal for about a year or so. But I'm starting to write some of my tips in blogs, here are links that may be helpful to you :) This comment box won't let me post all my links (keeps flagging as spam), but the blogs are at the website: http://www.bluesparklabs.com/blog

PS - if they are helpful, let me know!

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