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Ask HN: Planning a software project

1 points by mise ↗ HN
What would be an online source for learning the basics of software project management?

My usual projects only involve myself, so I haven't had the following issue so much.

At work, I'm responsible for a software project.

I am the only programmer (although I'm more a researcher in this role). I have to manage expectations with my boss.

There's a time limit to the project.

There's a vision for how this 'big' system would work, but a small prototype I created already exists.

It's difficult to find a way to break down the features being suggested, with the amount of time they would take. Writing little descriptions in a spreadsheet row doesn't seem to be descriptive enough.

3 comments

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michaelpinto
You should read this: The Mythical Man-Month http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

If you skip to the back of the book there are even cliff notes so you don't have to read the book!

PS Drucker felt very strongly that it's very hard for people to manage themselves, and doing that all the time myself I tend to agree...

mise
Interesting point on people managing themselves. Hadn't articulated that for myself before.
GFischer
There are several approaches, some are overkill (the PMI style for example), and some depend on your having access to your customer.

If the latter, you could try out Scrum or other "agile" project management techniques, there's a great introductory video here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5k7a9YEoUI

For the former, there are resources online (look up the PMBOK):

http://www.unipi.gr/akad_tmhm/biom_dioik_tech/files/pmbok.pd...