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To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles.
Wireless Networking Handbook
Executing the ProjectAfter completing the planning stage of the project, the project manager can begin work activities with a kick-off meeting and guide the project through the activities identified in the WBS. The project team should periodically hold status meetings to assess the progress to date and make changes to the plan if necessary to keep the project on course. Figure 5.10 illustrates these project management actions.
The Kick-Off MeetingThe entire project team should have a kick-off meeting to review the project plan and officially start the project. This starts the team off together and avoids having people stray away from the primary objectives. Figure 5.11 is an agenda you should use as a basis for the kick-off meeting.
The key to an effective kick-off meeting (or any meeting for that matter) is to stay focused by keeping discussions within scope of the specific agenda items. Spend a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting to review the agenda and ensure everyone agrees the topics are applicable and see if anything is missing. Its not too late at this time to make alterations to the agenda if necessary. Periodic ActivitiesPeriodically, the team should check the status of the project, perform technical interchange meetings, and report progress to upper management. The following list explains each of these activities:
A management report should focus on current accumulative costs and the schedule status, past and present resource utilization, negative impacts on the project schedule, identification of successful and unsuccessful tasks, as well as major changes made to the project plan. Major changes to the project plan should also be thoroughly explained. The progress report also should explain how the project team will counter all deficiencies. Maximizing CommunicationsDuring the execution of the project, take steps to maximize communications flow among team members when determining requirements, designing the system, and performing installations. The problem with many project organizations is that they operate in a very serial form as shown in figure 5.13. As a result, they depend heavily on documentation to convey requirements, solutions, and ideas. In this case, the customer represents the needs of potential end users of the system or product under development. In companies that develop software products, sales and marketing staff typically express customer needs in terms of requests and requirements. Otherwise, requirements generally flow directly from the customer. Project managers are often responsible for managing the overall development, installation, and support of the product or system. Typically they produce the first specification the development group uses to design and code the system or product.
There are several problems with this process, which lead to systems and products that do not adequately meet the users needs. The series of hand-offs between the different players in the process, for example, can take a long time, delaying the creation of a prototype for validation purposes. In addition, the process doesnt engage the customer continually throughout the process, forcing developers to guess at missing or incomplete requirements. The process also dilutes the clarity of requirements as they flow via documentation and the spoken word from one element to the next. The solution to this serial communications problem is to utilize team meetings that incorporate representatives from all organizational groups, especially when defining requirements. Sometimes this is referred to as Joint Application Design (JAD). This concept is described in Chapter 6, Defining Requirements for Wireless Networks. Utilizing Project Management ToolsThere are many tools available on the market that can assist in planning and executing the project. Here are a few software products you should consider. Primaveras Sure Trak Project ManagerSureTrak Project Manager is ideal for resource planning and controlling on small to medium-sized projects. With SureTrak, you can create schedules graphically and point and click to create relationships between activities, simplifying updates. SureTrak offers the following features:
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