Working with Stakeholders: Software Project Management

Let's talk about stakeholders who play a pivotal role in any software project.

Who are the stakeholders in software project management?

Stakeholders are people who are interested in and affected by the project's completion and success.

To put it in a clear perspective, if you are building a user-centric mobile app, your end-users who use your app daily can be your stakeholders.

If you're building an internal tool to improve code reviews, your colleagues, developers and code maintainers who will use it within the organization can be your stakeholders.

How do I communicate with senior project stakeholders?

As a project manager, your ability to communicate with senior stakeholders of the project plays a crucial role in effective project management.

1. Learn how to communicate the project problems.
2. Summarise the project problems briefly to the stakeholders.
3. Propose solutions to the problem.
4. Discuss the next steps for the call to action.

Communication is key. It really is. Communicate timely in clear terms. Communicate project problems worthy of their attention with a solution.

Communicate risks early on to the project stakeholders

Communicate

Choose the right people for your software team

Building a software team is a huge task for a bunch of reasons. As a project manager, you must take it seriously because the people you build your team with are the ones who drive the future of the project.

1. Decide on team size according to project size
2. Create a list of required roles in the team - basically, who does what. Each team member should be accountable for specific tasks within the project life cycle
3. Assess the required skills and time to train someone who can be skilled later
4. People's availability and their discipline towards the mutual motive

Pick people who are disciplined and inclined towards the mutual motive of the project. Many would relate to seeking motivation and inspiration. It's good and drives us ahead. In most reality, done tasks weigh more than a to-do. So, a balance between discipline and motivation can create a culture of productivity.

Dream teams are created from scratch

We do not get to choose the top resources or assign the best people for every next task. Your best engineer could be on holiday or assigned to a completely different project. As a project manager, it's your responsibility to try your best to bring out the best in everyone and deliver the best collective work.

There's only a subtle difference in the notion, but it does make a huge difference in the outcome.

In essence, the foundation of creating your dream team lies in your selection of team size, their diverse skillset, their availability, and their persevered efforts towards the project's success. Remember, a project manager doesn’t merely select dream teams; they actively collaborate with everyone with strong leadership to form these exceptional teams. As a project manager, you’ll be the driving force behind all of this collaborative process.

Consider Accessibility (A11Y) in your Software Projects

Building accessible software products is a key factor. Over 1 billion people in the world have a disability, whether visible or invisible. Some can be born with a disability, and some get it later in life. Someone from your own team could have a disability that you are unknown to. When you build software for people with disabilities, you are not only serving the critical audience but also creating a space for people who may move in and out of the disability over time.

As a project manager, it is your responsibility to consider accessibility (A11Y) in your software projects.

Understand the difference between Users vs Customers

Users are those who use your product and may or may not pay for it.

Customers are those who pay for your product and may or may not use it.

For instance, if a company buys a set of chairs for its employees, then the company is the customer, and the employees who will use the chairs are the users.

Here the company, being a customer, won't use it, whereas the employees who are using it won't pay for the chairs.

As a project manager, understanding the difference between your users and customers can be a rock-solid foundational concept of product development.