Principles of project management

Project management principles are most often learned from experience, and they have universal validity for all projects. It is up to you to apply them intelligently to your project. I woulld like to put those principiles in following 6W and 6-ations.

1st-W. Why? -- You must ask why do we have to do this project.
What business you are in for this project
What business value will the poroject bring to customer
What business value will the project bring to you
Undertand the "why" will help you understand requirements of customers.

keywords: business value, business needs

2nd-W. What? -- You must unserdtand clearly what the customer requirements are.
You must document all requirements and get it under version control.
You must also expect the changes of requirement and have proper change control
Software requirement specificaion(SRS), Requirement Tracking Matrix

Keywords: SRS, RTM

3rd-W. How? -- You must be able to answer to asnwer "How"
development project RESONABLE plan (project scope, schedule, cost, ...)
development project cost estimation correctly.
specify the development methodology and your approch for the project

keywords: plan, feasibility, WBS(work breakdown structure),
PMTproject management traiangle(cost,schedule,technical objectives)

4th-W. Who? -- You must establish a very clear ownership of you each tasks
create the ptoject teams, and have each task to have an owner.

Keywords: the Motivation Triangle(3T):task ownership/timely feedback/tools and training

5th-W. Where? -- this important especially for outsourcing offshore projects.
You must clearly define where the task should be conducted. The location, department, or teams

6th-W. When --
project deadline, milestone dateline, task deadkines

1st-ation: Communication -- keep the project wide visibility
Good Communication is very very important facotor.
each memebr of be easy to know/understand the progress of the projects.
Milestone review, weekly/montly reviews
management tools
good documents, feedback,

2nd-ation: Configuration -- project baseline control and configurarion management
baseline the project (cost-schedule-objectives) and get it under control
configuration manager / change control board

3rd-ation: Documentation -- write down all important stuff, save and share it
good documents are key and basic to have a good communications betwwen members.
especially for offshore projects.
requirements,design, schedule,review meeting minutes, implementation ideas,
writing agreement from customer

"it is not documented" == "it did not happen".

4th-ation: verification -- it means testing,
all requirement/fuucntions must be tested and verified.

"It is not tested" == "it does not work"

5th-ation: Satisfaction of customer
If your output/result does not satisfy customer, it means failure.
Keep the customer's real needs and requirements continuously in view
Expect and reflect requirement changes

6th-ation: Preparation -- get prepared for any potential risk
Risk management
identifying all risks(leave no stone unturned) and find a solution for each risk
solve problems as they arise