Managing Software Projects

Project Life Cycle

Lecture 2
Software Project Life Cycle
Four Phases of the PLC
Project Initiation
Project Initiation - Develop a business case
• A business case is created to define the problem or opportunity in
detail and identify a preferred solution for implementation.
• The business case includes:
• a detailed description of the problem or opportunity;
• a list of the alternative solutions available;
• an analysis of the business benefits, costs, risks and issues;
• a description of the preferred solution;
• a summarized plan for implementation.
Project Initiation - Undertake a feasibility
study
• The purpose of a feasibility study is to assess the likelihood of each
alternative solution option achieving the benefits outlined in the
business case.
• The feasibility study will also investigate whether the forecast costs
are reasonable, the solution is achievable, the risks are acceptable
and the identified issues are avoidable.
Project Initiation - Establish the terms of
reference
• The terms of reference define the vision, objectives, scope and
deliverables for the new project.
• They also describe the organization structure, activities, resources
and funding required to undertake the project.
• Any risks, issues, planning assumptions and constraints are also
identified.
Project Initiation - Appoint the project team
• The project manager will ideally be appointed prior to recruiting the
project team.
• The project manager creates a detailed job description for each role
in the project team, and recruits people into each role based on their
relevant skills and experience.
Project Initiation - Set up a project office
• The project office is the physical environment within which the team
is based.
• Although it is usual to have one central project office, it is possible to
have a virtual project office with project team members located
around the world.
Project Initiation - Perform a phase review
• This is basically a checkpoint to ensure that the project has achieved
its objectives as planned.
Project Planning
Project Planning - Create a project plan
• The first step in the project planning phase is to document the project
plan.
• A ‘work breakdown structure’ (WBS) is identified which includes a
hierarchical set of phases, activities and tasks to be undertaken to
complete the project.
• After the WBS has been agreed, an assessment of the level of effort
required to undertake each activity and task is made.
• The activities and tasks are then sequenced, resources are allocated
and a detailed project schedule is formed.
Project Planning - Create a resource plan
• Although generic resource may have already been allocated in the
project plan, a detailed resource plan is required to identify the:
• type of resource required, such as labour, equipment and materials;
• quantity of each type of resource required;
• roles, responsibilities and skill-sets of all human resource required;
• specifications of all equipment resource required;
• items and quantities of material resource required.
• A schedule is assembled for each type of resource so that the project
manager can review the resource allocation at each stage in the
project.
Project Planning - Create a financial plan
• A financial plan is created to identify the total quantity of money
required to undertake each phase in the project (in other words, the
budget).
• The total cost of labour, equipment and materials is calculated and an
expense schedule is defined which enables the project manager to
measure the forecast spend versus the actual spend throughout the
project.
Project Planning - Create a quality plan
• The quality plan:
• Defines the term ‘quality’ for the project.
• Lists clear and unambiguous quality targets for each deliverable. Each quality
target provides a set of criteria and standards to be achieved to meet the
expectations of the customer.
• Provides a plan of activities to assure the customer that the quality targets
will be met (in other words, a quality assurance plan).
• Identifies the techniques used to control the actual quality level of each
deliverable as it is built (in other words, a quality control plan).
Project Planning - Create a risk plan
• The next step is to document all foreseeable project risks within a risk
plan.
• This plan also identifies the actions required to prevent each risk from
occurring, as well as reduce the impact of the risk should it
eventuate.
Project Planning - Create an acceptance plan
• An acceptance plan is created, by clarifying the completion criteria for
each deliverable and providing a schedule of acceptance reviews.
• These reviews provide the customer with the opportunity to assess
each deliverable and provide formal acceptance that it meets the
requirements as originally stated.
Project Planning - Create a communications
plan
• Prior to the execution phase, it is also necessary to identify how each
of the stakeholders will be kept informed of the progress of the
project.
• The communications plan identifies the types of information to be
distributed to stakeholders, the methods of distributing the
information, the frequency of distribution, and responsibilities of
each person in the project team for distributing the information.
Project Planning - Create a procurement plan
• The procurement plan provides a detailed description of the products
(that is, goods and services) to be acquired from suppliers, the
justification for acquiring each product externally as opposed to from
within the business, and the schedule for product delivery.
Project Planning - Contract the suppliers
• Although external suppliers may be appointed at any stage of the
project, it is usual to appoint suppliers after the project plans have
been documented but prior to the execution phase of the project.
• Only at this point will the project manager have a clear idea of the
role of suppliers and the expectations for their delivery.
Project Planning - Perform a phase review
• At the end of the planning phase, a phase review is performed.
• This is a checkpoint to ensure that the project has achieved its
objectives as planned.
Project execution
Project execution - Build the deliverables
• This phase involves physically constructing each deliverable for acceptance
by the customer.
• The activities undertaken to construct each deliverable will vary depending
on the type of project being undertaken.
• Activities may be undertaken in a ‘waterfall’ fashion, where each activity is
completed in sequence until the final deliverable is produced, or an
‘iterative’ fashion, where iterations of each deliverable are constructed
until the deliverable meets the requirements of the customer.
• Regardless of the method used to construct each deliverable, careful
monitoring and control processes should be employed to ensure that the
quality of the final deliverable meets the acceptance criteria set by the
customer.
Project execution - Monitor and control
• Time Management
• Cost management
• Quality management
• Change management
• Risk management
• Issue management
• Procurement management
• Acceptance management
• Communications management
Project execution - Perform a phase review
• At the end of the execution phase, a phase review is performed.
• This is a checkpoint to ensure that the project has achieved its
objectives as planned.
Project closure
Project closure - Perform project closure
• Project closure, or ‘close-out’, essentially involves winding up the
project.
• This includes:
• determining whether all of the project completion criteria have been met;
• identifying any outstanding project activities, risks or issues;
• handing over all project deliverables and documentation to the customer;
• cancelling supplier contracts and releasing project resources to the business;
• communicating the closure of the project to all stakeholders and interested
parties.
• A project closure report is documented and submitted to the
customer and/or project sponsor for approval.
Project closure - Review project completion
• The final activity within a project is the review of its success by an
independent party.
• Success is determined by how well it performed against the defined
objectives and conformed to the management processes outlined in
the planning phase.
Project Management Essentials
How do you become a good project planner?

• Establish a project plan

• Start with the plan based on your experience with the last
project(s)
• Keep track of activities and their duration
• Determine difference between planned and actual
performance
• Make sure to do a post-mortem
• Lessons learned
• Ask developers for feedback
• Write a document about what could have been improved
Communication
• In large system development efforts, you will spend more
time communicating than coding.
• A software engineer needs to learn the so-called soft
skills:
• technical writing,
• reading documentation,
• communication,
• collaboration,
• management,
• presentations.
Identifying Needs
• The project manager drives the scope of the project.
• The project manager should identify and talk to the main stakeholder
• The effective way to show stakeholders that their needs are understood and
that those specific needs will be addressed is with a vision and scope
document
Vision and Scope Document
• A typical vision and scope document follows an outline like this one:
1. Problem Statement
a) Project background
b) Stakeholders
c) Users
d) Risks
e) Assumptions
2. Vision of the Solution
a) Vision statement
b) List of features
c) Scope of phased release (optional)
d) Features that will not be developed
Alternative Project Plan
• The project plan defines the work that will be done on the project and who will
do it. It consists of:
• A statement of work (SOW) that describes all work products that will be produced and a list
of people who will perform that work
• A resource list that contains a list of all resources that will be needed for the product and
their availability
• A work breakdown structure and a set of estimates
• A project schedule
• A risk plan that identifies any risks that might be encountered and indicates how those risks
would be handled should they occur
Statement of Work
• The statement of work (SOW) is a detailed description of all of the
work products which will be created over the course of the project. It
includes:
• A list of features that will be developed
• A description of each intermediate deliverable or work product that will be
built.
• The estimated effort involved for each work product to be delivered
Resource List
• The project plan should contain a list of all resources that will be used
on the project.
• A resource is a person, hardware, room or anything else that is necessary for
the project but limited in its availability
• The resource list should give each resource a name, a brief one-line
description, and list the availability and cost (if applicable) of the resource
Estimates and Project Schedule
• The project plan should also include estimates and a project schedule:
• A work breakdown structure (WBS) is defined. This is a list of tasks which, if performed, will
generate all of the work products needed to build the software.
• An estimate of the effort required for each task in the WBS is generated.
• A project schedule is created by assigning resources and determining the calendar time
required for each task.

Estimates and project schedules will be discussed in detail in later slides.

Risk Plan
• A risk plan is a list of all risks that threaten the project, along with a
plan to mitigate some or all of those risks.
• The project manager selects team members to participate in a risk planning
session:
• The team members brainstorm potential risks
• The probability and impact of each risk is estimated
• A risk plan is constructed