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-A little over 6 years.
-Jobs, work friends and the spirit of Granit.
-I plan, read and spend time with my family.
- In this job, the work changes and every customer assignment is different. They have similar features, so learning accumulates, but the object and way of doing things differ. As a technical project manager, I have been involved in the planning and definition of the initial phase, tendering, implementation, production start-up, further development and monitoring of continuous services. As a technical project manager, you have to know what you are doing and understand the effects of what you are doing. In the role, it is important to understand both the technology with which we work and the methods of project management.
-Many of my assignments have been acting as the client's project manager in a delivery project where the work has been purchased from a subcontractor. In this case, my role has been to supervise the work of the subcontractor and ensure that the client's tasks are completed on time and properly. In development projects, it has been necessary to keep the direction of development clear and deliver the desired system to production according to the plan.
-During the planning phase, it is good to sit at the same table and talk face to face. Ideas can be presented on a flipchart and everyone can comment on them freely. This is very difficult to do online. When the project progresses, the status meetings go just fine as Teams meetings. Each participant has his own speech. When things are handled in order and everyone participates, things go well. There are many good ways to communicate quickly; Teams, Slack, phone, etc. At the beginning of the project, it is good to agree which communication tools will be used and how to work with them. Documents should not be sent via such instant messengers. A much better way is to keep the documents in one place and forward the link to the document. In this case, all the people in the project use the correct version, and the documents do not get lost in e.g. people's own e-mails.
- The risk list is a living document that is reviewed regularly. In the customer-supplier model, both the customer's and the supplier's project manager record emerging risks as soon as they appear. We go through them together and think about how to handle them as efficiently as possible. The measures are recorded and monitored until the risk no longer exists or is low enough. The budget is constantly monitored. Both realized and future plans. In my opinion, it is a good way to present the original budget and compare the realization with it. If there are deviations, there must be valid reasons for the deviations. In agile development, the Burn-up diagram during the entire development is a good way to monitor the development progress. If the team stays roughly the same, then the costs are reasonably constant. In this case, the amount of costs depends on the duration of the development. The disadvantage of using the Burn-up diagram during the entire project is the decrease in agility. If you can already say at the beginning what will be done and when, then there is not much agility left.
- In the example project, I joined the project after it was defined. The project was well planned and the schedule was not tight. The supplier delivered a new ERP system and it was put into use. The system was a finished product, but there was a lot of work to be done to make it suitable for customer use. The project was largely done using the Scrum method, but the content of the sprints had already been decided at the beginning of the project. The project went downhill right from the start. Already after three sprints, it was clear that the finish line would not be reached in the original schedule. In the first phase, all the blanks were removed from the schedule and two sprints were added to give time for development. Later it turned out that this was not enough. In this case, all the work that was not necessarily needed during commissioning was postponed. In the project, the initial start of production had to be postponed by a month, because things were not ready in time. This resulted in a cost overrun. The contract with the supplier was drawn up in such a way that the supplier took a part of the excess costs and the customer took a part. This was agreed in advance and was a reasonable solution for everyone. The post-analysis revealed that there were a few reasons for the result. The first was underestimating the amount of work. Several tasks clearly took more work time than was estimated in the plan. Another reason was the lack of specifications. When more advanced functionalities started to be implemented, it was discovered that the supplier's solution does not work as desired. This led to changes in plans and increased workload.
-I follow what is happening on the field and I read a lot. Granit has had good trainings and discussions. As a technical project manager, it is important to stay up-to-date in both technology and project management methods.
- Project-like working suits my nature. There are clearly several stages in the process. At first, we plan and define. This is often a peaceful phase. After this, the implementation begins, where the pace clearly accelerates and the stress increases. The fastest and most stressful phase is the start of production. Often the systems are business-critical for customers. If something goes wrong, there must be a clear plan on how to get things going. Even though the testing has been done carefully and the plans are ready, going into production gives me butterflies in my stomach time and time again. After this comes the post-treatment phase, which is usually much calmer. Possible defects and deficiencies are corrected and it is ensured that production runs smoothly. The next project doesn't always start right away, but at this point it is possible to sigh and see what has happened in the project world before the next push. As a consultant, seeing and experiencing new customers' ways of working is pleasant. When you have already seen several customers, it is possible to give help on the good practices of implementing an IT project. Many customers have many things very well, but many also have areas for development.
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