Introduction

The purpose of the Project Management workflow is to ensure the successful management of your project team's efforts. During the Construction phase, the Project Management workflow includes several key activities:

• managing and mitigating the risks of the project,

• managing the project team,

• updating the project estimate, schedule, and plan,

• navigating the political waters within your organization,

• measuring the progress of your development efforts,

• managing the ongoing relationships with your subcontractors and vendors,

• managing your relationship with the project stakeholders,

• and assessing the viability of the project.

The technical aspects of project management scheduling, planning, estimating, and measuring are covered in detail in the first book in this series, The Unified Process Inception Phase (Ambler, 2000a). The books The Rational Unified Process (Kruchten, 1999), The Unified Software Development Process (Jacobson, Booch, & Rumbaugh, 1999), and SoftwareProject Management (Royce, 1998) also cover these topics very well. To enhance the Project Management workflow during the Construction phase, you should consider adopting best practices such as pair programming, modeling first before coding, time boxing, and negotiating realistic commitments for your team. Furthermore, Extreme Programming (XP) a lightweight software process that is complimentary to the Unified Process offers many interesting insights that your project team may benefit from. Finally, because some projects can get into trouble despite the best intentions of everyone involved, the Unified Process can be enhanced with tips and techniques for getting your project on track again. Therefore, to enhance the Project Management...