Theory-W software project management principles and examples

A software project management theory is presented called Theory W: make everyone a winner. The authors explain the key steps and guidelines underlying the Theory W statement and its two subsidiary principles: plan the flight and fly the plan; and, identify and manage your risks. Theory W´s fundamental principle holds that software project managers will be fully successful if and only if they make winners of all the other participants in the software process: superiors, subordinates, customers, users, maintainers, etc. Theory W characterizes a manager´s primary role as a negotiator between his various constituencies, and a packager of project solutions with win conditions for all parties. Beyond this, the manager is also a goal-setter, a monitor of progress towards goals, and an activist in seeking out day-to-day win-lose or lose-lose project conflicts confronting them, and changing them into win-win situations. Several examples illustrate the application of Theory W. An extensive case study is presented and analyzed: the attempt to introduce new information systems to a large industrial corporation in an emerging nation. The analysis shows that Theory W and its subsidiary principles do an effective job both in explaining why the project encountered problems, and in prescribing ways in which the problems could have been avoided