What Is Project Management In Long-Term Projects?

Long-term projects differ from short-term projects. It is important to be agile when working on a long-term project. So what is project management for long-term projects? What facts should be considered working on long-term projects?

What Is Project Management?

Project management is the process of planning, motivating, organizing, and controlling resources, procedures, and protocol to achieve certain goals. All goals have to be completed on time and without overspending the budget.

Here are some approaches in project management: lean , iterative, incremental and phased.

Now, lets talk about long-term projects.

Long-Term Project

Usually, a project is treated as long-term when its duration is 10–15 years or more. In IT, however, a long-term project can last 3–5 years because short-term ones can last a couple of weeks or even a couple of days.

Our Own Experience

Here at 111 Minutes, we work on long-term projects as well as on short-term projects. In some ways these projects have similar features and they differ in others. We are going to share with you our own experience and tips on how to successfully run a long-term project.

The Main Thing That Must Be Considered

The longer a project lasts, the more its features and scope of work will be changed. The product in the end may differ from how it was imagined in the beginning. It’s like choosing a long path to go. When the path is chosen and you start your trip, you see that you should change your route a little because there is a mountain ahead. Also, you could change your way to go to the bank of a beautiful river that wasn’t planned in the beginning but will bring more joy in your trip.

For example, how product is imagined to look like in the beginning of the project:

And how it may look in the end:

Why The Product Will Be Changed?

The product is being developed step by step (phase after phase and iteration after iteration; it depends on the approach that was used). In the approach that is used by 111 Minutes, core features are developed first and then the product gains more and more features iteration after iteration with each of them becoming more and more completed. You can read more about a similar approach that we use in design here.

When some core functions are ready, people start to use the product. And some features that seemed to be important have to change a little bit. Sometimes users don’t use one of the product’s features and it has to be removed. When implementing that feature, the team of developers spent a couple of weeks and now it will be deleted. This is why team motivation is super important while working on long term projects.

Motivation

Working on the same product day after day can be hard. It looks like nothing new happens and after implementing hundreds of features the client adds more and more. However, visualization can help to save motivation:

• Demos: Feel free to make demos for your client and all the people involved in the project once or twice a week. This way everyone will see how the project evolves week by week.
• Scale: A scale is a line that shows the progress of work and a number of completed percents. Scale also shows how much was done and how much work is left.
• Two lines of tasks: You can use two lines of tasks of the project; ones that are already done and others that will be done in the future. However, new tasks will be added to the “To do” line, so the end of the project can be delayed.

Also, calls where the client, managers, and other people involved in the project talk is a good idea. The team will see the client, better communicate and understand each other.

Usually big companies start big projects. It is cool to work with a big, world famous company, but there is also another side of this cooperation. Instead of one person that makes decision about the project (like a CEO in a startup usually does), there could be a team of specialists there. It is natural that their views and opinions differ, and this could lead to misunderstandings between the clients and the development team when different instructions about developments are made. However, this misunderstanding can be averted by choosing one person who will decide for the client.

I’m happy to share with you information about what project management for long-term projects is and some of our experience. I hope that this information is useful for you and that you are now ready to take part in a long-term project.

Originally published at 111 Minutes blog.