Software Development Projects: 12 Keys Steps To Successful Management
It is very important for most business leaders to know how to utilize project-management skills, especially for tech leaders. In this day and age, every tech team usually has to manage several projects simultaneously, work with different stakeholders, and deal with numerous deadlines and priorities.
It will be troublesome if tech leaders do not know how to establish clear paths for projects. A vague roadmap for software development projects can lead to a huge waste of time and money. Not to mention, this can also make members of the team and clients of the firm frustrated.
It is necessary for tech leaders to have a deep understanding of crucial components that can affect the success of Software Projects of the business, in order to gain tangible results and avoid failure for the business.
This article will provide 12 recommendations for planning the details of the next software development project.
1. Alignment With Business Objectives
A strong connection from a portfolio of the program to project management can create business outcomes. This ensures that each project within a larger program or portfolio obtains the strategic imperatives from the firm, while a company prioritization matrix is being enabled to label competing priorities. Enabling business outcomes is the key to successful IT development initiatives.
2. Connection with stakeholders
Another important key to success is alignment with the company’s stakeholders. In the case of working with a software development outsourcing partner, before undertaking any project, technical leaders of the projects should organize a meeting between the outsourcing partners and their sales team.
This can help reduce misunderstanding of information and avoid the negative impact of unrealistic promises that might occur during the process, avoiding the circumstance of one particular team taking all responsibilities. As a result, there will be a reduction in alignment problems early and later on.
3. Basic knowledge of the industry that the software development firm is serving
Having an overview of the industry in which the project is about is extremely crucial that tech leaders need to take caution. It is indeed true that project management skills are necessary across businesses. However, without a good knowledge foundation about the industry that the company is serving might cause such a ruckus in the operating process and set unrealistic goals which are nearly impossible to be achieved.
4. A list of priorities for features
Tech managers need to list down the priorities, timelines, financial estimates, and resources when they make a plan for digital and software development projects. For features, tech leaders can prioritize them based on the needs of the customers. Additionally, they need to categorize the business value into groups such as "must-have", "okay to have" and "nice to have".
5. Alignment of all teams in one project management platform
Applying the right tools is the initial step to a successful Software Project. A failure will definitely occur in every project if there is no full buy-in in terms of management tools. A project management platform that is able to be used by every team in the organization becomes an important tool for the business. In order to achieve faster and repeatable project success, tech managers need to adopt a well-designed management platform for all teams across the organization.
6. A breakdown of actionable tasks
The method that can help reduce project failures is predicting the risk that might occur by making an accurate evaluation of the difficulty of tasks during the early period of the project life cycle. It might seem like a hassle. However, tech leaders can divide the project into small tasks and find out the dependencies on the early stage of the project. After completing that step, IT leaders can utilize the smart management tool to track those factors.
7. High level of knowledge about the project’s components
A project manager needs to have a deep understanding of the project's components to achieve effective project management. The project will be allowed to run more smoothly and there will be a decrease in mistakes that might be made during the process if the project manager has a robust knowledge foundation.
8. Well-written report including KPIs and other statistics
IT leaders and associated enterprise clients leaders need to share the same milestones, dates, deliverables, and financial statistics from the beginning to achieve a well-managed Software Project. After that, the leaders need to make sure that there is a well-written report on these KPIs regularly.
9. A well-communicated cadence
Communicating early on and often with associated teams for the project and teammates is the key to successful digital project management. Effective communication can create coherence which leads to a successful tactical or strategic initiative. The requirements, timelines, and expectations for co-workers should be mentioned as well by the project manager so that there will be a reconciliation between them and the leadership team in order to accelerate the project.
10. A detailed project plan
Listing everything down, especially when unpredictable things occur while the projects are progressing. When this situation happens, recording a task to the project plan can remind the project managers of finding a resource that can be assigned to it. A detailed project plan is a vital tool that will help the IT managers deal with the deadline of the project.
11. A plan to overcome failure
In business, there is no certainty that failure will never occur in a project. Thus, the project managers should keep being objective about the probability of failure. They need to make a plan in case of the occurrence of failure. Not only can this help project managers have a higher chance to prevent failures that are identified before, but it can also help improve the development of the project. 
12. Good teamwork and smart delegation
On the one hand, teamwork is one of the crucial factors that can directly affect the success of a digital project. Not everyone is perfect and can handle every project on their own, that is why a team is established. A diverse team can lead to creativity, a wide range of new innovations, and diversity of opinion. That is why IT leaders need to engage more effectively with their team members.
The right communication approach includes tight communication loops between team members. Moreover, Each member needs to understand their tasks on the project and their effects on the final result. Tech managers need to understand and encourage their employees to achieve success in digital projects.
On the other hand, project managers need to be pragmatic and realistic, instead of being methodology purists. Project leaders also need to learn how to trust others in order to create a good digital project for the companies. Even some experienced managers also find it challenging to assign tasks for their teammates. But bear this in mind, smart delegation is the key to managing a good digital project.
Tech managers should improve their skills in utilizing tools allowing them to work on the projects jointly, share tasks and create a better workplace for their employees. Thus, digital leaders can also manage projects more easily and efficiently by adopting those tools.
