Manage Your Project Using V-Model Methodology

Steer the Project

Throughout the project, you’ll need to steer activities to achieve the defined objectives.

Using the steering tools you’ve set up, you’ll be able to:

• Check if the development tasks are progressing at a decent pace.

• Notice whether the human and financial resources are being used correctly.

• Organize meetings to inform people or work through a topic.

• Manage unexpected events and issues that could slow down the project.

• Ensure that what is produced in your area is of the right quality.

• Analyze and make the right decisions to guarantee project success.

To keep everything on track, refer back to the priorities that were set at the beginning and ask yourself the following questions:

• Are deadlines being met?

• Does it look like we will achieve our objectives and sub-objectives?

• Are we going to exceed the budget or stay within its limits?

• Are there any risks on the horizon? 

• Are we focusing on the right priorities? 

• How can we be accountable for the progress of the project?

• How are the teams going? Are they working well and feeling okay?

To steer the project effectively, you need to:

• Communicate: Reports, meetings, and documents are ways of sharing your progress on the project.

• Decide and direct: Establishing a strategy, efficient processes, and proper prioritization will help you make the right decisions.

• Analyze: Understanding the requirements, your environment, and your team’s results will enable you to define appropriate solutions.

• Maintain control and anticipate: Managing time and budgets while anticipating risks will lessen the impact of unexpected events.

Although your role involves delivering a project, never forget the human aspect of your work. You need to avoid behaviors that make you seem like a tyrant when you’re managing a team. By staying receptive to events happening around you, you can adapt yourself to others.

Demonstrate Leadership Qualities

To effectively steer a project to delivery, you’ll need to set a great example for your teams. That’s what we mean by demonstrating leadership qualities.

You’ll need to show these qualities when leading both the project and your teams, and that’s often a dilemma you’ll need to resolve. You need to find the right balance between performance and relationships.

First of all, here’s what leadership doesn’t mean:

• Being an infallible superhero or playing the part of character who is nothing like you.

• Brandishing authority or talking with a loud voice to make sure you’re heard.

• Micromanaging everything and always having the last word.

• Knowing everything about every subject.

Good leadership is showing people the way:

• By sharing the objectives that were set and your ongoing progress, you’ll make everyone aware of where you’re heading.

Good leadership is being able to encourage your team:

• It’s not a sign of weakness to pay someone a compliment. By showing that you genuinely value their work, you’ll motivate them to stay committed to the work.

Sometimes, you’ll just need to demonstrate how to do something by setting the right example:

• You can inspire people simply by doing your own work properly.

Along the way, some people will struggle to make progress in their work.

Try to help them whenever possible:

• You can’t always solve their problems. But by providing support, you can contribute to a feeling of trust and mutual support within the team. 

Finally, you’ll need to make decisions:

• For the team and with the team, even difficult decisions.

Things won’t always be perfect, but do your best and persevere. Leadership is an adventure where you gain experience on the ground. When you keep an open mind, your management skills will grow.

Make Informed Decisions

You’re working as a project manager, and you realize that the situation on the ground has had a more negative effect on your schedule than expected. Despite your excellent planning skills, you’re faced with circumstances that require making decisions you’d never envisaged. You want to make the right choice.

Here are some tips to help guide you through your decision-making:

• Analyze and filter the information
  In a world where information is coming at us from all angles, the art of separating the wheat from the chaff becomes vital. Identify the information that is genuinely relevant to your situation.
  Example: I often use a visualization tool to sort the technical and functional data on a project. I really like creating filters for my emails so that I can prioritize what’s most important.

• Assess options
  Sometimes, you’ll need to make a decision by comparing different options. To do this, you can weigh up the pros and cons and check alignment with the project objectives.
  Example: I create a comparison table for the technical solution options, highlighting costs, deadlines, and performance to ensure I choose the most suitable option to meet the client’s needs.

• Consult stakeholders
  If you’re stuck, consult your team members or other stakeholders. Their perspective on the situation can often clarify aspects of the problem that you hadn’t considered.
  Example: You could organize a meeting with the client, the technical team, and the end users to clarify certain concerns and requirements.

• Rely on intuition and experience
  Your intuition has been built on years of experience and can be a valuable guide. Trust your instincts! But make sure that this trust is balanced with a thought process and an analytical approach based on facts.
  Example: A colleague with a wealth of experience insisted on doing additional testing on a solution, and this ultimately revealed some major defects.

• Review and adapt
  In the ever-changing environment of project management, a decision that was right today might need to be reviewed tomorrow. Be ready to adapt and change direction if necessary.
  Example: I had to rethink the project strategy after receiving user feedback during a testing phase, which meant I needed to adjust a number of our initial objectives.

• Manage stress and personal well-being
  Finally, remember that making decisions can be stressful. Take care of yourself. Look after your mental and emotional health to ensure that you retain optimal clarity and effectiveness in your decision-making.
  Example: I used to feel enormous pressure when approaching a complex topic. I’ve learned to allow myself time to pause, get some exercise, or take a break to distance myself from the situation.

Manage Risks and Issues

During the project, it is completely normal to encounter problems. It’s in these exact situations when you’ll have the chance to prove yourself by providing solutions.

You need to learn to identify problems and know how to handle them effectively.

If you want to approach problem-solving in a strategic way, you can use a table to isolate the risks. Identify the area concerned and suggest specific solutions, as shown in the following example:

By creating a table showing the area of concern, the risk, and the solution, you can step back from the issues you encounter on the project and find solutions that will become a plan of action.

Over to You!

Background

You’re a project manager at AirGalaxy, and you’ve encountered four problems on your project: coding, unclear objectives, inadequate testing, and a demotivated team.

Instructions

1. Identify the problem category: Label each identified problem with the correct category.

2. Suggest corrective actions: Suggest two corrective actions for each problem using the solution-problem table.

At the end of this exercise, you’ll have specific solutions for each problem, which will help contribute to the success of the project.

Let’s Recap

• Project steering tools will help you track progress on project tasks, optimize resource usage, organize meetings, manage unexpected issues, and safeguard the quality of your deliverables.

• Effective leadership is not about being infallible, but about providing guidance, encouraging the team, setting a good example, and being willing to help out and make decisions.

• Informed decision-making involves analyzing data, assessing options, consulting relevant stakeholders, trusting in your own intuition and experience, and being able to adapt to change.

• Managing risks involves anticipating issues and responding to them by identifying the area of concern, understanding potential problems, and devising appropriate solutions, all while monitoring staff well-being and stress management.

After exploring the key skills required to steer a project to delivery, you need to ensure that your work will be clear to future users. Let’s look at the importance of producing high-quality user and maintenance manuals to ensure that your application is used effectively.