INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
VIT Chennai
• INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT Planning – scope, milestones
& deliverables, Risk Management, Metrics &
Measurements
 Objectives
• To explain the main tasks undertaken by project managers
• To introduce software project management and to describe its
distinctive characteristics
• To discuss project planning and the planning process
• To show how graphical schedule representations are used by
project management
• To discuss the notion of risks and the risk management process
 Topics covered
• Management activities
• Project planning
• Project scheduling
• Risk management
 Software project 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.
• Project management is needed because
software development is always subject to
budget and schedule constraints that are set
by the organisation developing the software.
Software management distinctions
• The product is intangible.
• The product is uniquely flexible.
• Software engineering is not recognized as an
engineering discipline with the sane status as
mechanical, electrical engineering, etc.
• The software development process is not
standardised.
• Many software projects are 'one-off' projects.
Failure curve for hardware
Failure Curves for software
 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.
• 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
 Project planning process
Establish the project constraints
Make initial assessments of the project parameters
Define project milestones and deliverables
while project has not been completed or cancelled loop
Draw up project schedule
Initiate activities according to schedule
Wait ( for a while )
Review project progress
Revise estimates of project parameters
Update the project schedule
Re-negotiate project constraints and deliverables
if ( problems arise ) then
Initiate technical review and possible revision
end if
end loop
 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.
 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
 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 (da ys) 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)
 Activity network
1 4 /7 /0 3 15 da y s
15 da y s
M1 T3
8 day s T9
T1 5 day s 4 /8/03 2 5 /8/03
2 5 /7 /0 3
4 /7 /0 3 T6 M4 M6
M3
start 2 0 day s 7 day s
15 day s
T7 T 11
T2
25 /7 /0 3 11 /8/03 5 /9/03
10 da y s 10 day s
M2 M7 M8
T4 T5 15 da y s

T 10 10 da ys
1 8 /7 /0 3
T 12
M5
2 5 day s
T8 Finish
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

Start
T4
T1
T2
M1

T7
T3
M5
T8
M3
M2
T6
T5
M4
T9
M7
T 10
M6
T 11
M8
T 12
Finish
 Staff allocation
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 T 11
T 12
Jane T1
T3
T9
An ne T2
T6 T 10

Jim T7

M ary T5
 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 change Project There will be a change of organisational management with
different priorities.
Hardware unavailability Project Hardware that is essential for the project will not be
delivered on schedule.
Requirements change Project and There will be a larger numb er of changes to the
product requirements than anticipated.
Specification delays Project and Specifications of essential interfaces are not available on
product schedule
Size underestimate Project and The size of the system has been underestimated.
product
CASE t ool under- Product CASE t ools which support the project do not perform as
performance anticipated
Technology change Business The underlying technology on which the system is b uilt is
superseded by new technology.
Product comp etition Business A competitive product is marketed before 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
 Risk identification
• Technology risks.
• People risks.
• Organisational risks.
• Requirements risks.
• Estimation risks.
 Risks and risk types
Risk type Possible risks
Techno logy The da tabase used in the system canno t process as many transactions per second
as exp ected.
Software componen ts that shou ld be reus ed contain defects that limit their
func tiona li ty.
People It is im possible to recruit staff wit h the skill s required.
Key staff are ill and unava il able at criti cal tim es.
Requi red training for staff is not availa ble.
Organ isationa l The o rgan isation is restructured so that diff erent manag ement are respons ible for
the project.
Organ isationa l f inancial problems force reduc tions in the project budge t.
Tools The cod e gen erated by CASE tools is i neffi cient.
CASE tools canno t be integrated.
Requi rements Changes to requirements that require major design rewo rk are proposed .
Customers fail to unde rstand the im pact of requirements change s.
Estim ation The tim e requir ed to deve lop the software is unde restim ated.
The rate of defect repair is und erestim ated.
The size o f t he software is unde restim ated.
 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.
 Risk analysis (i)

Risk Probability Effects

Organ isationa l f inancial problems force reduc tions in Low Catastrophic
the project budge t.
It is impossible to recruit staff with the skill s required High Catastrophic
for the p roject.
Key staff are ill at crit ical tim es in the project. Moderate Serious
Software componen ts that shou ld be reus ed contain Moderate Serious
defects which li mit their func tion ality.
Changes to requirements that require major design Moderate Serious
rework are proposed.
The o rgan isation is restructured so that diff erent High Serious
manage me nt are respons ible for the project.
 Risk analysis (ii)

Risk Probability Effects

The da tabase used in the system canno t process as Moderate Serious
many transactions per second as expec ted.
The tim e requir ed to deve lop the software is High Serious
unde restim ated.
CASE tools canno t be integrated. High Tolerable
Customers fail to unde rstand the impact of Moderate Tolerable
requirements change s.
Requi red training for staff is not availa ble. Moderate Tolerable
The rate of defect repair is und erestim ated. Moderate Tolerable
The size o f t he software is unde restim ated. High Tolerable
The cod e gen erated by CASE tools is i neffi cient. Moderate Insignif icant
 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;
 Risk management strategies (i)

Risk Strategy
Organ isationa l Prepare a briefing document for senior manage ment
financ ial problems sho wing how th e project is making a very im portant
contribution to the goa ls of the bus iness.
Recruitm ent Alert customer of potential difficulti es and the
problems possibil ity of delays, inves tigate buying- in
componen ts.
Staff illness Reorgan is e team so that there is more ove rlap of work
and people therefore und erstand e ach other’s jobs.
Defective Replace pot entia lly defective componen ts wit h bough t-
componen ts in compon ents of known reli abilit y.
 Risk management strategies (ii)
Risk Strategy
Requirements Derive traceabili ty info rmation to assess requ ir ements
chang es chang e im pact, maximi se information hid ing in the
design.
Organ isationa l Prepare a briefing document for senior manage ment
restructuring sho wing how th e project is making a very im portant
contribution to the goa ls of the bus iness.
Database Inves tigate the po ssibilit y o f buy ing a high er-
performanc e performanc e database.
Unde restim ated Inves tigate buying in componen ts, inve stigate use of a
deve lopment time progra m gene rator
 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 indi cators

Techno logy Late delivery of hardware or support software, many reported
techno logy problems
People Poor staff morale, poor relationsh ips amongst team m ember,
job avail abil ity
Organ isationa l Organ isationa l gos sip, lack of action by senior ma nage ment
Tools Reluctance by team m embers to use tools, comp laints about
CASE tools , demands for high er-powered workstations
Requi rements Many requir ements change reques ts, cus tomer comp la ints
Estim ation Fail ure to meet agreed schedu le, failure to clear reported
defects
Project Metrics
Measurement & Metrics
Against:
Collecting metrics is too hard ... it’s too
time consuming ... it’s too political ...
they can be used against individuals ... it
won’t prove anything
For:
In order to characterize, evaluate,
predict and improve the process and
product a metric baseline is essential.
“Anything that you need to quantify can
be measured in some way that is
superior to not measuring it at all” Tom
Gilb
 goal of metrics
• to improve product quality and development-
team productivity
• concerned with productivity and quality
measures
 measures of SW development output as function
of effort and time
 measures of usability
 terms:
• measure
– quantitative expression of an attribute of a product or process
– Measure: Quantitative indication of the extent, amount,
dimension, or size of some attribute of a product or process. A
single data point

• measurement
– the act of determining a measure
• metric
– quantitative measure of the degree to which a system,
component or process possesses an attribute
– The degree to which a system, component, or process possesses
a given attribute. Relates several measures (e.g. average
number of errors found per person hour)
 terms:
• indicator
– a metric that provides insight into the SW process
or project
– enables manager to adjust (improve) the process
or project
• process indicators
– allow assessment of process in terms of what
works and what doesn’t
 Terms:
• project indicators
• allow manager to
• (1) assess status of ongoing project
• (2) track project risks
• (3) uncover problem areas
• (4) adjust tasks or workflow
• (5) evaluate team’s ability to control quality
 metrics apply to
 process - used to develop the SW
 project - specific SW development project
 product - SW produced

• many of the same metrics apply to both the

process and project domains
 A Good Manager Measures
process
process metrics
project metrics
measurement
product
metrics
product
What do we
“Not everything that can be use as a
counted counts, and not basis?
everything that counts can be • size?
counted.” - Einstein • function?
 Metrics in the Process and Project
Domains
• Process metrics are collected across all projects and
over long periods of time
• Project metrics enable a software project manager to
– Assess the status of an ongoing project
– Track potential risks
– Uncover problem areas before they go “critical”
– Adjust work flow or tasks
– Evaluate the project team’s ability to control quality of
software work products

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Process Metrics and Software Process
Improvement (1)
Product

Customer Business
characteristics conditions

Process

People Development Technology

environment

Fig.-22.1: Determinants for s/w quality and organizational effectiveness

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Process Metrics and Software Process
Improvement (2)
• We measure the efficacy of a s/w process indirectly,
based on outcomes
• Probable outcomes are
– Measures of errors uncovered before release of the s/w
– Defects delivered to and reported by end-users
– Work products delivered (productivity)
– Human effort expended
– Calendar time expended
– Schedule conformance, etc.

52
 Process metrics and SW process
improvement
• How to improve SW quality and organizational
performance?
• Factors that influence quality:
– people - skills and experience of SW people
– technology - used in development (e.g. CASE)
– product complexity
– process - glue that ties it all together
Process Metrics and Software Process
Improvement
• Software metrics etiquette [GRA92]
– Use common sense and organizational sensitivity
when interpreting metrics data
– Provide regular feedback to the individuals and
teams who collect measures and metrics
– Don’t use metrics to appraise individuals

54
Process Metrics and Software Process
Improvement
• Software metrics etiquette [GRA92] (contd.)
– Work with practitioners and teams to set clear goals and
metrics that will be used to achieve them
– Never use metrics to threaten individuals or teams
– Metrics data that indicate a problem area should not be
considered “negative”. These data are merely an indicator
for process improvement
– Don’t obsess on a single metric to the exclusion of other
important metrics

55
Process Metrics and Software Process
Improvement (5)
• Error
– Some flaw in a s/w engineering work product that is
uncovered before the s/w is delivered to the end-user

• Defect
– A flaw that is uncovered after delivery to the end-user

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 Types of process metrics:
• private vs. public metrics
• SW process improvement should begin at the
individual level
 some private metrics:
 defect rates by individual
 defect rates by module
 errors found during development
 public metrics
• use information from individual and team
metrics
• some public metrics:
 project-level defect rates
 effort
• calendar times
 Project Metrics
• Used during estimation
• Used to monitor and control progress
• The intent is twofold
– Minimize the development schedule
– Assess product quality on an ongoing basis
• Leads to a reduction in overall project cost

60
 Typical Project Metrics

• Effort/time per software engineering

task
• Errors uncovered per review hour
• Scheduled vs. actual milestone dates
• Changes (number) and their
characteristics
• Distribution of effort on software
engineering tasks

61
 Software Measurement
• S/W measurement can be categorized in two
ways:
1. Direct measures of the s/w process (e.g., cost
and effort applied) and product (e.g., lines of
code (LOC) produced, etc.)
2. Indirect measures of the product (e.g.,
functionality, quality, complexity, etc.)
• Requires normalization of both size- and
function-oriented metrics

62
 direct measures
• direct measure of process:
– cost and effort
• direct measure of product:
– lines of code (LOC)
– execution speed
– defects per time period
 Indirect measures
• indirect measures of product:
– functionality
– quality
– complexity
– reliability
– maintainability
 Size-Oriented Metrics (1)
• Lines of Code (LOC) can be chosen as the
normalization value
• Example of simple size-oriented metrics
– Errors per KLOC (thousand lines of code)
– Defects per KLOC
– $ per KLOC
– Pages of documentation per KLOC

65
 Size-Oriented Metrics (2)

Project LOC Effort $(000) Pp. doc. Errors Defects People

alpha 12,100 24 168 365 134 29 3

Beta 27,200 62 440 1224 321 86 5

gamma 20,200 43 314 1050 256 64 6

. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .

66
 LOC pros:
 easily counted (after the fact, once you choose
a counting method)
 used a lot
 LOC cons:
 lack of universally accepted definition for what
a line of code really is (there are at least 11
different variations for counting LOC)
 programming language dependent
 difficult to use to estimate project size and
effort - don’t have enough information at
beginning of project to accurately estimate
LOC
 Size-Oriented Metrics (3)
• Controversy regarding use of LOC as a key measure
– According to the proponents
• LOC is an “artifact” of all s/w development projects
• Many existing s/w estimation models use LOC or KLOC as a key
input
– According to the opponents
• LOC measures are programming language dependent
• They penalize well-designed but shorter programs
• Cannot easily accommodate nonprocedural languages
• Difficult to predict during estimation

69
 Function-Oriented Metrics
• The most widely used function-oriented
metric is the function point (FP)
• Computation of the FP is based on
characteristics of the software’s information
domain and complexity

70
 Information Domain

• Number of external inputs – from user or another

application
• Number of external outputs
• Number of external inquiries – request from user that
generates an on-line output
• Number of internal logical files (maintained by system)
• Number of external interface files (provides data but not
maintained by system)

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 1. number of user inputs
• each unique user input that provides
application-oriented data to the SW
• includes input that enter directly as
transactions from the user, and those that
enter as transactions from other applications
(e.g. input file of transactions)
 2. number of user outputs
• each user output that provides application-
oriented information to user (reports, screens,
error messages, etc.)
• include reports and messages to the user and
reports and messages to other applications
(e.g. files of reports and messages)
 3. number of inquiries
• inquiry is an on-line input that results in
generation of an immediate SW response in
form of an on-line output
• each distinct inquiry is counted
 4. number of internal files
• include each logical file or if using a DB,
logical grouping of data, that is generated,
used and maintained by the application
 5. number of external interfaces
• files passed or shared between applications
should be counted
• i.e., machine-readable interfaces (e.g., data
files on tape or disk) that are used to transmit
information to another system are counted
 Computing Function Points
Analyze information
domain of the Establish count for input domain and
application system interfaces
and develop counts

Weight each count by Assign level of complexity or weight

assessing complexity to each count

Assess influence of Grade significance of external factors, Fi

global factors that affect
the application such as reuse, concurrency, OS, ...

function points = (count x weight) x C

Compute
function points where:
complexity multiplier: C = (0.65 + 0.01 x N)
degree of influence: N = F
i
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 Analyzing the Information Domain
weighting factor
measurement parameter count simple avg. complex
number of user inputs 3 X 3 4 6 = 12

number of user outputs 5 X 4 5 7 = 25

number of user inquiries 2 X 3 4 6 = 8

number of files 4 40
X 7 10 15 =
number of ext.interfaces 1 X 5 7 10 = 7

count-total 92

complexity multiplier [0.65 + 0.01 × ∑(Fi)]

function points count-total × [0.65 + 0.01 ×∑(Fi)]

78
Taking Complexity into
Account
Factors(Fi) are rated on a scale of 0 (not important)
to 5 (essential)

The following are some examples of these factors:

• Is high performance critical?
• Is the internal processing complex?
• Is the system to be used in multiple sites and/or by multiple
organizations?
• Is the code designed to be reusable?
• Is the processing to be distributed?
• and so forth . . .

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 Computing Function Points
weighting factor
measurement parameter count simple avg. complex
number of user inputs 3 X 3 4 6 = 12

number of user outputs 5 X 4 5 7 = 25

number of user inquiries 2 X 3 4 6 = 8

number of files 4 40
X 7 10 15 =
number of ext.interfaces 1 X 5 7 10 = 7

count-total 92

complexity multiplier [0.65 + 0.01 × ∑(Fi)] 1.07

function points count-total × [0.65 + 0.01 ×∑(Fi)] 98.44

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 Uses of Function Points(FP)

But how long will the project take and how

much will it cost?
• If programmers in an organization produce average 16
function points per month. Thus . . .
98.44 FP divided by 16 = 6 man-months
• If the average programmer is paid $5,200 per month
(including benefits), then the [labor] cost of the project
will be . . .
6 man-months X $5,200 = $31,200

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 Pros & Cons of FP
• Controversy regarding use of FP as a key measure
– According to the proponents
• It is programming language independent
• Can be predicted before coding is started
– According to the opponents
• Based on subjective rather than objective data
• Has no direct physical meaning – it’s just a number

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Reconciling LOC and FP Metrics

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 Consolidation of metrics
• individual metrics combined to develop
project metrics
• project metrics consolidated to create process
metrics
• how to combine metrics from different
projects?
• normalization - enables comparison