Continuing my interview with Stephen Ritchie (@ruthlesshelp, blog here). author of Pro .NET Best Practices (Amazon paperback & Kindle, Barnes & Noble). Also, Stephen describes a promotion to get 40-percent-off his book at his blog here. Here we focus on why he spent so much time on PM-relevant topics:
One of the pleasant surprises in the book was the early attention you paid to strategy, value, scope, deliverables and other project management touchstones. Why so much PM?
I find that adopting a new and different practice — in the hope that it’ll be ruthlessly helpful one — is an initiative, kinda like a micro-project. This can happen at so many levels … an individual developer, a technical leader, the project manager, the organization.
For the PM and for the organization, they’re usually aware that adopting a set of better practices is a project to be managed. For the individual or group, that awareness is often missing and the PM fundamentals are not applied to the task. I felt that my book needed to bring in the relevant first-principles of project management to raise some awareness and guide readers toward the concepts that make these initiatives more successful.
Filed under: PMO Tagged: | best practices, Project Management, Ruthlessly Helpful, software development
