Project Management as a cornerstone to Rivet’s Production go-live — aka. a project management meme for every occasion
Any production software go-live comes with a host of operational things to consider, and that’s my bag, organizing and delivering things. (It’s awesome that I’ve been able to earn a living doing something my brain needs to do anyway!) I’ve spent much of my career managing projects whether they were from the bottom up, or the top down, and I’ve so often encountered team members who have never seen what good project management can do for an organization, a project or a service. Here are the key things that I worried about as the COO, but always a Project Manager, prior to our go-live with Rivet, and how that project management mindset made a difference!
Software development is the first piece of the puzzle. @Austin Roberts will be spending more time on that topic so I’ll be brief, except to say that I’m fortunate to work with two amazing co-founders. It’s especially wonderful to have worked with both of them on multiple occasions delivering state of the art software automating mission-critical processes in high stakes environments, which is why I had every confidence we could deliver! (When you see one of us IRL ask about the House of Representatives voting system we developed for the State of Indiana). Special shout out to @Greg Lang, who stepped outside his comfort zone to learn REACT and deliver our UI! Full marks! Project management is easy when working with team members like this!
Testing comes in so many shapes and sizes, and is a cornerstone of delivering quality software for high availability processes. It’s not sexy, and it requires a constant eye on Quality, Rigor, and Discipline in combination with thoughtful coordination and detailed planning. Rivet was built around the principles of test-driven development, but, that is just step number one. Careful coordination was required to ensure we covered all parts of the UI and back-end features, and interface with our Stripe billing partner. Then we progressed to load and performance testing which had to be completed with the utmost thoroughness and accuracy before we were confident we could turn on production service.
Now we get to what I consider the fun stuff! All the myriad details which are required for delivering production service!
Communication is key to the success of any project both internal and external to stakeholders and interested parties. Our internal communication revolved around many things which would ensure we did not trip over our own feet (which is easy for small companies with few standard processes) and larger more complex planning. We took care of all the details down to a naming convention for software packages to manage and branch our code for crisp delivery, support in production as well as clear schedules for new software rollouts to lower environments during the various testing phases. Externally, we created documentation for developers to ensure we have as much information publicly available as possible, and created public announcements on our regular channels and notifications to our BETA users about the upcoming go-live!
Support for any service is critical, and it’s easy to forget details of delivery. Internally we spent countless hours automating Rivet’s systems to self-heal, and create ways to reduce error and develop resiliency. We created SOPs to ensure we provide the same quality of service no matter which team member provided the service, and tackled questions we expected could arise with billing. We also created ways to manage the system on the back end to do things like correct any potential billing issues or issue credits including a fantastic Django admin to give us the tools we need to help customers. Customers will need to reach out to us, so we integrated Smallchat as well as our Telegram channel and Twitter. Our support model will continue to grow and evolve as we do. I’ve created many enterprise-class support teams. I am excited to apply what I’ve learned as Rivet grows!
Professional Project Management is not usually a luxury afforded to a start-up firm, however, at OpenRelay it’s in our DNA. Planning, scheduling, Risk and Issue management are core competencies we apply to all our service offerings from the very beginning to ensure we can provide top-shelf services at the most reasonable prices possible.
Project Management, done well is often the unseen magic behind the scenes. It’s the wonderful interstitial connection and communication which identifies issues early, manages risk, connects dots and ultimately keeps the trains running. It is often supported by documentation to track and communicate things like schedules and risks, but it’s not defined by those artifacts. Project Managers who make the focus of their job creating those artifacts and covering their behinds are not actually doing their job, nor are they good project managers. The connections and communication are what gels a team and gets them to follow you through the gates of hell to deliver one AWESOME project!
