Project Management Using Redmine

Dr. Athar Mahboob Associate Professor Head of Computer Science Department Electronic and Power Engineering Department Pakistan Navy Engineering College National University of Sciences & Technology

What is a Project?

A (collaborative) effort to design a product or implement a service An undertaking involving time and cost: Budget

limits number of people, supplies, and capital

Risk is associated with a project Sequence of tasks

Planned from beginning to end Bounded by time, resources, & required results

Defined outcome and "deliverables" Deadline

Collaboration

Projects are collaborative by nature Multiple individuals work together Individuals may be distributed in space or work asynchronously Communication is the key to project success

Roles

Project team members can take on different roles and responsibilities Tasks are assigned based on roles Roles vary based on projects

Manager for one project can be a developer in another

Project Management
Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually timeconstrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverables),[1] undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives,[2] typically to bring about beneficial change or added value. The temporary nature of projects stands in contrast with business as usual (or operations),[3] which are repetitive permanent, or semi-permanent functional activities to produce products or services. In practice, the management of these two systems is often quite different, and as such requires the development of distinct technical skills and management strategies. The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goals[4] and objectives while honoring the preconceived constraints.[5] Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget.[1] The secondaryand more ambitiouschallenge is to optimize the allocation and integrate the inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management

Project Management Triangle

Engineers can be good project managers

There is always a tussle between managers and engineers

Quality versus perfection: quality refers to repeatability Heroism is not repeatable

Driving Factors for Project Management System

Collaboration Communication Transparency Documentation Effective Modularization Configuration and Change Management A Project Management System can be a powerful tool to achieve the above objectives but remember:
A fool with a tool is still a fool.
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Driving Factors for Project Management System at PNEC

Evaluating consistency of student effort

Efforts are more important than results Objective assessment and comparison of multiple student projects

Provide repository of information to build on in the future projects

Not re-inventing the wheel again and again

Document a critical part of engineering education Provide students further exposure to the real-world

Linux and Open Source

Business model is based on services alone:

Open source is free software ! Software is free, people are not ! Free as in freedom not necessarily as in free beer Open source is a viable business model Open source is a better software engineering methodology

Implementation Customizations Training Documentation Support

A fair and consumer friendly business model for software because:

Software is incrementally developed Software is infinitely replicable

Project Management in Linux and Open Source World

Massive projects made possible because of open source: Linux Kernel, OpenOffice, XWindows, Debian Linux Version control systems: CVS, Subversion, Mercurial, Bazar, GIT Agile Open Peer-review
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Redmine

Multiple projects support Flexible role based access control Flexible issue tracking system Gantt chart and calendar News, documents & files management Feeds & email notifications Per project wiki Per project forums

Time tracking Custom fields for issues, time-entries, projects and users SCM integration (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and Darcs) Issue creation via email Multiple LDAP authentication support User self-registration support Multilanguage support Multiple databases support

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Why Redmine?

Built on a solid MVC architecture in Ruby on Rails Web-based Being used for large projects

Both open source and other-wise

Beats most other systems available Based on minimalistic approach Integrates well with other technologies: Email, SCM
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PNEC Project Management System

http://pms.pnec.edu.pk
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Typical Use Cases

Issue/Task Creation Issue/Task Update Documentation Files Versions Repository Editing Profile
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Redmine Issues

Issues can be:

Features Bugs Support

Issues are assigned to resources Issues have a workflow: states and transitions Workflows can be customized

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Versions

Allow us to define stages of prototyping/development Roadmap is generated based on versions Issues can be assigned to versions

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Repository

Version Control System CVS, Subversion, GIT More and more project artifacts are in electronic format

Source Code Design Files Design Documents

Multiple people working on the same file Changes are applied atomically and updates can be obtained by all History and evolution of design including reverting to previous version, if required
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SVN Terminology

Subversion Server Subversion Client Creating a repository Importing files Checking Out Checking In Exporting
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Conclusion

Project management practice can ensure project success Redmine project management tool can be beneficial to students and academic management

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Questions

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