How to Manage a Software Development Project?

Software project management is a process that includes planning for project deadlines, development direction, scheduling, and deliveries. Even though typically Project managers are responsible for ensuring that the software development project gets delivered within a deadline, under the available budget, and has the expected product quality, many organizations use project management software to handle these tasks more efficiently.

Why is Software Development Project Management important, and how does it benefit a business owner?

Global spending on enterprise software is expected to reach $755 billion in 2023 compared to $675 billion in 2022. Entering such an increasingly growing market requires the right experts to plan and manage a software project.

Every software development project has requirements and market expectations to meet in order to deliver a product that can succeed and generate revenue. A software project management strategy customized according to business and team requirements helps deliver a product that can meet and even exceed market expectations.

Software Project Management Tasks

Some management tasks in software development projects are mandatory, while some tasks a manager has to identify and perform by analyzing the capabilities and potential of the software development team.

Software Project Management Responsibilities

1. Determine Business Goals
2. Plan the Software Project
3. Define Project Scope
4. Conduct SWOT Analysis
5. Create a Project Timeline and Schedule
6. Estimate Project Cost
7. Create a Design Plan
8. Identify and Manage Risks
9. Plan Review Meetings
10. Help Implement the Feedback

Any tiny mistake or a flawed strategy in software project management can lead to an unsatisfactory product or service that would provide no value to the end users. That is why you must have a viable management strategy or get an experienced development company to help you with one.

10 Tips to Manage a Software Development Project

One of the benefits of hiring a one-stop solution development company is that they can manage the project from beginning to end while updating you on every new development in the project. However, having the right guidance and tips makes the process of handling projects yourself easier as well.

Hire a Good Development Team

Whether you hire an in-house team, freelancers, or outsource to offshore developers, ensure that your team has what it takes to deliver a good-quality product that can meet end-user needs.

Determine a Business Goal

A development team includes experts like iOS / Android developers, web developers, backend developers, UI/UX designers, and QA engineers. You have to encourage these experts to work towards the same goal in order to build the software your business needs. Determining business goals will give your team a direction they can follow to achieve the most lucrative results.

Use Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

Many IT industry experts recognize the software development life cycle (SDLC) as the most effective way to conduct software development.

Stages of SDLC-

• Project Planning
• Determine Feasibility and Requirements
• Design and Prototyping
• Software Development
• Testing and Deployment
• Maintenance and Support

Following these stages helps you manage the process effectively from beginning to end and even after software deployment. Talk to industry experts to determine how SDLC would work for your project requirements.

Have Deadlines and Weekly Goals

The Agile methodology (Scrum) has proven to increase the efficiency and productivity of many software development projects. A report by CA Technologies found that the teams that implement Scrum in their process improve product quality by 250%.

Sprints of 1 to 3 weeks with doable project deadlines can improve and accelerate the development process. Moreover, as a manager, weekly deliveries help you see the potential and skills of your team members, the direction they are following, and how you can help them to improve the process.

Monitor without Micromanagement

Regularly ask your team members whether they need help with anything and encourage them to discuss with you the problems they are facing with the project, communication, or teamwork. It will help you monitor and improve the progress of your project without having to engage in micromanagement.

Encourage Regular Communication

A development project without frequent communication may lead to a scenario where every member starts working towards different goals, which can waste company resources, time, and money. Encouraging healthy communication in the team is a crucial part of software project management.

It is like sailing a ship with 20 to 30 crew members and a captain responsible for crew management. You have to make sure the crew members get along, recognize your abilities as a leader, know their duties, understand the importance of collaboration, and improve the work of each other. Only then can your ship sail without any life-threatening situations or delays.

Plan Productive Meetings

Avoid meetings that add no value to your development project and ask yourself some questions before planning team meetings.

1. What is the purpose of this meeting?
2. Does the meeting topic need the whole team, or do you only have to discuss it with 2 or 3 members?
3. What should you gain at the end of the meeting?
4. Does the meeting help the software development project in some or any way?

When you have reasonable answers to all these questions, you can plan productive meetings that are crucial to improving the efficiency of your software development project.

Identify and Manage Potential Risks

Risks in software development projects are late deliveries, software bugs, developer absence, design errors, limited data, limited storage, and insufficient or wrong tools. You must identify and deal with such risks before they cause any unrecoverable damage to the project.

Monitor the Software Testing Process

This process can include automated testing, manual testing, and user acceptance testing (UAT), which are not always accurate in highlighting the weak points of your software. Monitoring the process yourself can help you identify potential bugs, coding and design errors, and functionality issues missed by everyone else. You can guide your team on how to deal with these issues quickly before deployment.

Compliment and Reward Your Team

Whether they are usual weekly deliveries, unique user interface work, or early delivery on feature development, compliment and reward your team when they meet expected goals or perform better than required. It will boost morale and encourage your team to work harder towards the business goal.

Final Word

The effectiveness of software project management entirely depends on the strategy you create according to your team and business requirements. Talk to an experienced software project management company to get a better idea, or let them take care of it for your project. Such a company will come with a team already under effective management, and thus, they can get your project done on time and under budget while providing a top-quality software product.