SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND RISK MANAGEMENT

Concerned with activities involved in ensuring that software is delivered on time and
on schedule and in accordance with the requirements of the organisations developing
and procuring the software.

The objective of project management is to have a successful project ie

➢ is delivered on time and on schedule
➢ in accordance with the requirements of the organisations developing and
procuring the software.
➢ Within the budget

Management activities
➢ Proposal writing.
➢ Project planning and scheduling.
➢ Project costing.
➢ Project monitoring and reviews.
➢ Personnel selection and evaluation.
➢ Report writing and presentations.

Management commonalities
➢ These activities are not peculiar to software management.
➢ Many techniques of engineering project management are equally applicable to
software project management.
➢ Technically complex engineering systems tend to suffer from the same problems
as software systems.

Project staffing

➢ May not be possible to appoint the ideal people to work on a project

✓ Project budget may not allow for the use of highly-paid staff;
✓ Staff with the appropriate experience may not be available;
✓ An organisation may wish to develop employee skills on a software project.
➢ Managers have to work within these constraints especially when there are
shortages of trained staff.

Project planning
✓ Probably the most time-consuming project management activity.

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✓ Continuous activity from initial concept through
to system delivery. Plans must be regularly revised as new information becomes
available.
✓ Various different types of plan may be developed to support the main software
project plan that is concerned with schedule and budget.

Types of project plan

Plan Description

Quality plan Describes the quality procedures and standards that will
be used in a project.

Validation plan Describes the approach, resources and schedule used for
system validation.

Configuration Describes the configuration management procedures and

management plan structures to be used.

Maintenance plan Predicts the maintenance requirements of the system,

maintenance costs and effort required.

Staff development Describes how the skills and experience of the project team
plan. members will be developed.

The project plan

✓ The project plan sets out:
➢ The resources available to the project;
➢ The work breakdown;
➢ A schedule for the work.

Project plan structure

✓ Introduction.
✓ Project organisation.
✓ Risk analysis.
✓ Hardware and software resource requirements.
✓ Work breakdown.
✓ Project schedule.
✓ Monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

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Activity organization
✓ Activities in a project should be organised to produce tangible outputs for
management to judge progress.
✓ Milestones are the end-point of a process activity.
✓ Deliverables are project results delivered to customers.
✓ The waterfall process allows for the straightforward definition of progress
milestones.

Milestones in the RE process

Project scheduling
✓ Split project into tasks and estimate time and resources required to complete
each task.
✓ Organize tasks concurrently to make optimal use of workforce.
✓ Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays caused by one task waiting for
another to complete.
✓ Dependent on project managers intuition and experience.

The project scheduling process

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Scheduling problems
✓ Estimating the difficulty of problems and hence the cost of developing a solution
is hard.
✓ Productivity is not proportional to the number of people working on a task.
✓ Adding people to a late project makes it later because of communication
overheads.
✓ The unexpected always happens. Always allow contingency in planning.

Bar charts and activity networks

✓ Graphical notations used to illustrate the project schedule.
✓ Show project breakdown into tasks. Tasks should not be too small. They should take
about a week or two.
✓ Activity charts show task dependencies and the the critical path.
✓ Bar charts show schedule against calendar time.

Task durations and dependencies

Activity Duration (days) Dependencies
T1 8
T2 15
T3 15 T1 (M1)
T4 10
T5 10 T2, T4 (M2)
T6 5 T1, T2 (M3)
T7 20 T1 (M1)
T8 25 T4 (M5)
T9 15 T3, T6 (M4)
T10 15 T5, T7 (M7)
T11 7 T9 (M6)
T12 10 T11 (M8)

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Activity network

1 4/ 7 /0 3 15 da ys
15 da ys
M1 T3
8 da ys
T9
T1 5 da ys 4/ 8/03 2 5/ 8/03
2 5/ 7 /0 3
4/ 7 /0 3 T6 M4 M6
M3
star t 2 0 da ys 7 da ys
15 da ys
T7 T11
T2
25/ 7 /0 3 11/ 8/03 5/ 9/03
10 da ys 10 da ys
M2 M7 M8
T4 T5 15 da ys

T10 10da ys
1 8/ 7 /0 3
T12
M5

2 5 da ys
T8 Fi nish
19/ 9/03
Activity timeline
4/ 7 11/ 7 18/ 7 2 5/ 7 1/ 8 8/ 8 1 5/ 8 22/ 8 2 9/ 8 5/ 9 12/ 9 1 9/ 9

St ar t
T4
T1
T2
M1

T7
T3
M5
T8
M3
M2
T6
T5
M4
T9
M7
T10
M6
T11
M8
T12
Fi nish

Staff allocation

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 4/ 7 1 1/ 7 18/ 7 2 5/ 7 1/ 8 8/ 8 15/ 8 2 2/ 8 2 9/ 8 5/ 9 1 2/ 9 19/ 9

Fred T4
T8 T11
T12
Jane T1
T3
T9
Anne T2
T6 T10

Ji m T7

Mary T5

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RISK MANAGEMENT
Risk management is concerned with identifying risks and drawing up plans to
minimise their effect on a project.
A risk is a probability that some adverse circumstance will occur
➢ Project risks affect schedule or resources;
➢ Product risks affect the quality or performance of the software being
developed;
➢ Business risks affect the organisation developing or procuring the
software.

Software risks

Risk Affects Description

Staff turnover Project Experienced staff will leave the project
before it is finished.

Management Project There will be a change of organisational

change management with different priorities.

Hardware Project Hardware that is essential for the project will

unavailability not be delivered on schedule.

Requirements Project There will be a larger number of changes to

change and the requirements than anticipated.
product

Specification Project Specifications of essential interfaces are not

delays and available on schedule
product

Size underestimate Project The size of the system has been

and underestimated.
product

CASE tool under- Product CASE tools which support the project do not
performance perform as anticipated

Technology change Business The underlying technology on which the

system is built is superseded by new
technology.

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Product Business A competitive product is marketed before
competition the system is completed.

The risk management process

✓ Risk identification
➢ Identify project, product and business risks;
✓ Risk analysis
➢ Assess the likelihood and consequences of these risks;
✓ Risk planning
➢ Draw up plans to avoid or minimise the effects of the risk;
✓ Risk monitoring
➢ Monitor the risks throughout the project;

The risk management process

a) Risk identification
✓ Technology risks.
✓ People risks.
✓ Organisational risks.
✓ Requirements risks.
✓ Estimation risks.

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Risks and risk types

Risk type Possible risks

Technology ✓ The database used in the system cannot process as many

transactions per second as expected.
✓ Software components that should be reused contain defects
that limit their functionality.

People ✓ It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required.

✓ Key staff are ill and unavailable at critical times.
✓ Required training for staff is not available.
Organisational ✓ The organization is restructured so that different
management are responsible for the project.
✓ Organisational financial problems force reductions in the
project budget.

Tools ✓ The code generated by CASE tools is inefficient.

✓ CASE tools cannot be integrated.

Requirements ✓ Changes to requirements that require major design rework

are proposed.
✓ Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements
changes.

Estimation ✓ The time required to develop the software is

underestimated.
✓ The rate of defect repair is underestimated.
✓ The size of the software is underestimated.

b) Risk analysis
✓ Assess probability and seriousness of each risk.
✓ Probability may be very low, low, moderate, high or very high.
✓ Risk effects might be catastrophic, serious, tolerable or insignificant.

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Risk Probability Effects

✓ Organisational financial problems force Low Catastrophic

reductions in the project budget.
✓ It is impossible to recruit staff with the High Catastrophic
skills required for the project.
✓ Key staff are ill at critical times in the Moderate Serious
project.
✓ Software components that should be Moderate Serious
reused contain defects which limit their
functionality.
✓ Changes to requirements that require Moderate Serious
major design rework are proposed.
✓ The organisation is restructured so that High Serious
different management are responsible for
the project.
✓ The database used in the system cannot Moderate Serious
process as many transactions per second
as expected.
✓ The time required to develop the High Serious
software is underestimated.
✓ CASE tools cannot be integrated. High Tolerable

✓ Customers fail to understand the impact Moderate Tolerable

of requirements changes.
✓ Required training for staff is not Moderate Tolerable
available.
✓ The rate of defect repair is Moderate Tolerable
underestimated.
✓ The size of the software is High Tolerable
underestimated.
✓ The code generated by CASE tools is Moderate Insignificant
inefficient.

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c) Risk planning

➢ Consider each risk and develop a strategy to manage that risk.

➢ Avoidance strategies
✓ The probability that the risk will arise is reduced;
➢ Minimisation strategies
✓ The impact of the risk on the project or product will be reduced;
➢ Contingency plans
✓ If the risk arises, contingency plans are plans to deal with that risk;

e) Risk monitoring
✓ Assess each identified risks regularly to decide whether or not it is becoming less or
more probable.
✓ Also assess whether the effects of the risk have changed.
✓ Each key risk should be discussed at management progress meetings.

Risk indicators

Risk type Potential indicators

Technology Late delivery of hardware or support software, many reported

technology problems

People Poor staff morale, poor relationships amongst team member, job
availability

Organizational Organizational gossip, lack of action by senior management

Tools Reluctance by team members to use tools, complaints about CASE

tools, demands for higher-powered workstations

Requirements Many requirements change requests, customer complaints

Estimation Failure to meet agreed schedule, failure to clear reported defects

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Risk Management Strategies

Risk Strategy

Organisational Prepare a briefing document for senior management

financial problems showing how the project is making a very important
contribution to the goals of the business.

Recruitment Alert customer of potential difficulties and the possibility of

problems delays, investigate buying-in components.

Staff illness Reorganize team so that there is more overlap of work and
people therefore understand each other’s jobs.

Defective Replace potentially defective components with bought-in

components components of known reliability.

Requirements Derive traceability information to assess requirements

changes change impact, maximize information hiding in the design.

Organisational Prepare a briefing document for senior management

restructuring showing how the project is making a very important
contribution to the goals of the business.

Database Investigate the possibility of buying a higher-performance

performance database.

Underestimated Investigate buying in components, investigate use of a

development time program generator

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