How to manage releases on a small project

Small projects are characterized by factors such as short duration; small team; budget size and balance between the time committed to delivering the project itself and the time committed to managing the project.

Small-scale projects are by far the most common form. so the following outlines the common issues in a small project and essential ingredients to managing small projects and how to successfully deliver the project.

Common issues exist in a small project

• Insufficient time to plan. Without proper planning, there are several consequences. Higher organizational costs, deadline get missed, managers get frustrated, and other foreseeable adverse effects.
• Unrealistic deadlines exist for all projects, but it seems especially true for those small ones. Manager or internal customers often say “I want this” without a deadline being defined. People may not realize this is a sign that a project is being instigated.
• Lack of Communication Small projects usually have less communication compared to their larger brethren. What results is the sponsors often forget they asked an initiative, which in turn leads to wasted effort.
• Melding operational and project work. People also have a tendency to conflate project work with ongoing support or maintenance. Project work often suffers because it is not so urgent than the operational work. In a related way, items, never seem to end.

So how to manage releases on a small project?

1. Defining the project scope

• Business issues and their impact.
• What the project should accomplish for the business – objectives.
• What are the outcomes – deliverables.
• Identifying the Stakeholders, Systems and Environments involved.

2. Setting up the release schedule

• Taking each deliverable and breaking it down to determine the tasks needed to produce each one.
• Breaking projects into smaller tasks makes it easier to estimate the time needed to perform the work, and it can be rolled up into an overall project estimate.

3. Reporting status and on-going monitoring

• What has been accomplished since the last report,
• Variations from the budget or schedule
• Any issues that have arisen.
• Constantly monitoring relative activities.

4. Approving and closing the Project

Plutora Release Manager  helps you to plan all the necessary work, and only the necessary work needed to meet the project objectives, monitor this process and deliver a successful project.