Description

Roles

Attributes

Steps

1. Capture and communicate status:

   The project manager needs to do the following:

   • continuously monitor the project to ensure it is progressing appropriately
   • enable the team to react as soon as possible to any change

    

   Many alternative means may be used to track the status. Quick, daily meetings with the entire project team are useful to understand what team members have accomplished since the last meeting, and what they plan to accomplish before the next meeting. It also allows the team to identify any blocking issues.

    

   Another approach is the collection of basic metrics, ideally automatically generated from the tools at hand, or manually assembled. Burndown charts are one of the most useful project progress metrics. They show how many work items where accomplished during previous iterations (or days) and the remaining work. They can be used to track project releases and iterations. Communicating project status is as important as gathering it. Keep the information visible to stakeholders and project team at all times. The Project Plan should outline which metrics the project should use.

2. Handle exceptions and problems:

   One of the project manager's key responsibilities is to know about the project team's problems and issues. The manager needs to focus on problems that are blocking progress. A quick, daily meeting is usually a good way to monitor those problems and issues. A record of issues that have to be solved within the team may be kept in the Iteration Plan.

    

   Identify the cause and impact of problems and exceptions as they arise. Identify possible solutions for problems that have an immediate impact on the short-term goals and objectives and identify who needs to be involved in implementing the solution. Then, define the corrective actions and implement them.

3. Identify and manage risks:

   Identify risks as soon as the project starts and continue identifying and managing risks throughout the project. The Risk List should be revisited weekly, or as a minimum once per iteration. The entire team should be involved in identifying and mitigating risks.

4. Manage objectives:

   When a team is falling significantly behind, or critical problems occur, that prevents the team from meeting the iteration objectives it may be necessary to descope work to ensure that the team delivers a useful product increment by the end of the iteration, while maximizing stakeholder value. The project manager should work with the team and stakeholders to revise the Iteration Plan and, as necessary, reduce the emphasis on less critical tasks postponing them to a subsequent iteration. In rare cases, if the iteration objectives still seem impossible to be met, the team might consider terminating the iteration or reformulating the iteration to a new objective.

Inputs and Outputs

WorkProduct	Input	Output	Allowable States
Iteration Plan			(none)
Project Plan			(none)
Risk List			(none)
Work Items List			(none)

Other Instances

Instance Parent
OpenUP (with RACI and Entry_Exit criteria)Inception Iteration [1..n]Plan and Manage Iteration (Inception Iteration [1..n])
OpenUP (with RACI and Entry_Exit criteria)Elaboration Iteration [1..n]Plan and Manage Iteration (Elaboration Iteration [1..n])
OpenUP (with RACI and Entry_Exit criteria)Transition Iteration [1..n]Plan and Manage Iteration (Transition Iteration [1..n])