Software Project Management
Course Objective
To learn the techniques required to
plan, organize, monitor and control
software projects
Learning aspects in SPM …
Managing people, process and problems during a
software project
Relating software metrics with software projects
Estimating effort, cost and project duration
Risk assessment techniques
Project scheduling
Project quality management
Formal Technical Reviews (FTRs)
Change management during software development
and after delivery to customer
Books
Text Book:
Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s
Approach– by Roger Pressman
Reference Material:
A Guide to The Project Management Body of
Knowledge – PMI Standards Committee (William
R. Duncan)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_project_ma
nagement
Other relevant resources will be included on
suggestions
Lecture Outline
What is a Project
Details relevant to Project
What is Project Management
Details relevant to Project Management
What is Software Project Management
Details relevant to Software Project
Management
What is a Project ?
PMI definition
It is a temporary endeavor (having
specific start and completion dates)
undertaken to create a unique product or
service
Elaborating the Definition …
Temporary
means that every project has a definite beginning and
definite end
End is reached when …
project’s objectives have been achieved OR
It is clear that objective will not be met. The project is
terminated in such a situation
The term temporary does not apply to a project’s product
or service (which is a lasting result)
Unique
means that the product or service is different in some
distinguishing way from all similar products or services
Projects
Projects may involve a single person or thousands
Projects may be completed in hours, several
months or years
Examples of projects
Developing a new product or service
Designing a new vehicle
Constructing a building
Running a campaign for political office
Implementing a new business procedure or process
And so on …
What is Project Management ?
It is the discipline of
planning, organizing, and managing resources
to bring about the successful completion of
specific project goals and objectives
Project Management
Following are related to Project Management
Professional Organizations
Project Management Institute (PMI) (pmi.org)
Software Engineering Institute (SEI)
IEEE Software Engineering Group
Certifications
PMI’s PMP (Project Management Professional)
The “PMBOK” – PMI Body of Knowledge
Tools
MS Project
Primavera Project Manager
Project Management
Project Management Skills
Leadership
Communications
Problem Solving
Negotiating
Influencing the Organization
Mentoring
Process and technical expertise
Project Management
Project Manager Positions
Project Administrator / Coordinator
Assistant Project Manager
Project Manager / Program Manager
Executive Program Manager
V.P. Program Development
Project Management
Knowledge Areas
PMI has suggested 9 Knowledge Areas
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Project Human Resource Management
Project Communications Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
Software Project Management
Management
Project
Management
Software
Project
Management
Software Project Management
a sub-discipline of project
management in which software
projects are planned, monitored and
controlled
Project Planning
Its purpose is to identify the
scope of the project,
estimate the work involved,
and create a project schedule.
Project planning begins with requirements
that define the software to be developed.
The project plan is then developed to
describe the tasks that will lead to
completion
Project Monitoring and Control
The purpose
To keep the team and management up to date
on the project's progress.
If the project deviates from the plan, then the
project manager can take action to correct the
problem.
Project monitoring and control involves
status meetings to gather status from the
team. When changes need to be made,
change control is used to keep the products
up to date.
Project Management
The Management Spectrum (4 Ps in
Project Management)
Detailed discussion on each P
W5HH Principle
4P’s in Project Management
Spectrum
People
Product
Process
Project
The People
People…
…the most important factor in success of
software project.
“Companies That sensibly manage their
investment in people will prosper in the long
run” Tim & Tom.
Cultivation of motivated and highly skilled
software people has always been important
for software organizations.
The “people-factor” is so important that SEI
has developed People Management
Capability Maturity Model (PM-CMM).
PM-CMM
Developed by SEI
“to enhance the readiness of s/w organizations
to undertake increasingly complex applications
by helping to attract, grow, motivate, deploy, and
retain the talent needed to improve their
software development capability”
In simple words - to enhance the people’s
capabilities through personnel development
Organizations that achieve high levels of maturity in
PM-CMM have a higher likelihood of implementing
effective software engineering practices
PM-CMM (Contd.)
Key Practice Areas of PM-CMM
Recruiting
Selection
Performance Management
Training
Compensation
Career development
Organization and work design
Team/culture development
People Involved in Software
Process
Stakeholders
Team Leaders
Software Team
Agile Teams
People Involved in Software
Process
The Stakeholders
They can be categorized into one of the following
Senior Managers
they define business issues that often have significant influence on
business
Project (technical) managers
they must plan, motivate, organize and control the practitioners who
do software work
Practitioners
They deliver the technical skills necessary to engineer a product or
application
Customers
They specify the requirements for the software to be engineered
End Users
They interact with the software after it is released for production use
People Involved in Software
Process
The Team Leaders
Competent Practitioners often make poor team
leaders as they lack the right mix of skills
In his excellent book of technical leadership,
Jerry Weinberg suggests a MOI model of
leadership MOI Model of Leadership
Motivation
encourage technical people (by “push” or “pull” ) to
produce
Organization
Apply , improve processes efficiently
Ideas or Innovation
Make people feel creative
Be Creative
People Involved in Software
Process
The Team Leaders (Contd.) - Characteristics of a
effective project managers:
Problem Solving
Diagnostic
Skill to solve
Ability to design solution
Managerial Identity
Control the project
Achievement
Reward Initiative
Encourage Controlled risk taking
Influence and team building
Influence the team
Read people’s mind and respond according to their needs
Be controlled in stress situations
People Involved in Software
Process
The Software Teams
Organizations/Structure of teams:
Democratic decentralized
No permanent leader
Communication is horizontal
Controlled decentralized
Defined Leader
Horizontal communication
Problem solving is a group activity
Controlled centralized
Defined team leader
Problem solving , communication and management by team
leader
Communication is vertical
People Involved in Software
Process
The Software Team (Contd.)
Team Structures: 7 Factors that affect team
structure
Difficulty of task
Size of resultant code (no. of lines)
Time that team will stay together
Degree of modularization
Required quality and reliability of the system being built
Rigidity of delivery date (schedule)
Degree of communication
Reading assignment
Organizational paradigms suggested by
Constantine
People Involved in Software Process -
Communication & coordination Issues
Formal approaches
Writings (SE documentation, Customer requests, etc.)
Status review meetings
Design and code inspections
Other non-interactive and impersonal comm. channels
Informal approaches (more personal)
Interpersonal networking
Sharing of ideas on ad hoc basis
Seeking help from inside or outside the project team when
problem arises
Electronic Communication
E-mail, electronic bulletin boards, video conferencing
The Product
The Product
The product and the problem it is intended
to solve must be examined at very
beginning of the software project.
The scope of product must be established
and bounded.
Bounded scope means
establishing quantitative data like no. of simultaneous
users, max. allowable response time. etc.
Constraints and limitations
The problem that the product is addressing
must be decomposed
Software scope
Scope is defined by
Context (1 st step in scope determination)
Functional location of the software product into a large
system, product or business context
Constraints involved
Information Objectives (2nd step)
What data objects are required as i/p or o/p
Function and Performance (3rd step)
What function does the software system perform on i/p to
produce o/p
What level of performance is required
Problem Decomposition
Also called partitioning OR problem
elaboration
This activity is at core of requirements
analysis
Divide and conquer policy for complex
problems
Decompose problem in tasks
Decomposition in 2 major areas
Functionality that must be delivered
Process that will be used to deliver product
Problem Decomposition (Contd.)
A complex problem is partitioned into
smaller problems that are more
manageable.
Decomposition make planning easier.
Software functions, defined in scope, are
evaluated and refined to provide more detail
before estimation (part of planning) begins.
The Process
Common Process Framework
Activities
These characterize a software process and
are applicable to all software projects
Communication
Planning
Modeling
Construction
Deployment
These are applied to software engineering
work tasks (e.g., different product functions)
The Process Models
Different process models:
Linear sequential, Prototyping, RAD, Spiral,
Formal …
Project manager must decide about which
model to use depending on
Customers who have requested the product
People who would work on project
Product characteristics
Project environment
Project planning begins once model is
selected
Process decomposition
The way a process is decomposed
depends on project complexity
Decomposition involves outlining of
work tasks involved in each process
framework activity
The Project
Signs of Projects Risk
Software people don’t understand
customer needs
Product scope is poorly defined
Changes are managed poorly
The chosen technology changes
Business needs change
Deadlines are unrealistic
Signs of Projects Risk
(Cont…)
Users are resistant
Sponsorship is lost
Team lacks skills
Managers avoid best practices
How to avoid problems?
Start on the right foot
Involves detailed understanding of project
setting realistic objectives & expectations
Selecting the right team
Facilitating the team
Maintain Momentum
Provide incentives
Reduce bureaucracy and give autonomy to team
members but with supervision
Track Progress
Assess progress as work products are produced
How to avoid problems? (Contd..)
Make smart decisions
When possible, use existing software components / COTS
software
Choose standard approaches and keep it simple
Avoid risks and allocate more time than needed for
complex/risky tasks
Conduct a postmortem analysis
Compare planned and actual schedule
Collect and analyze project metrics (standards)
Get feedback from team and customers
Establish record of lessons learnt for each project
W5HH Principle
About the principle
Suggested by Barry Boehm in one of his papers
Excellent planning outline for project managers
and software team
Applicable to all sizes of software projects
It is an approach to address
project objectives
Milestones & schedule
Responsibilities
Management & technical approaches
Required resources
W5HH principle
Why is the system being develop?
Answer to this questions help assess validity of business
reason for the software work.
It answers if the business purpose justifies the
expenditure of people, time and money
What will be done?
Answer to this question establishes the task set required
for project
When will it be done?
Answer to this question helps the team establish a project
schedule by identifying when tasks have to be conducted
and when milestones are to be reached
W5HH principle (Contd.)
Who is responsible for a function ?
Answer to this question establishes roles and
responsibility of each team member
Where are they organizationally located ?
Answer to this question indicates that all roles and
responsibilities are not limited to the software team itself,
the customers, users and stakeholders also have
responsibilities.
How will be job done technically and managerially ?
Once product scope is establishes, a technical and
management strategy must be defined for it.
How much of each resource is needed ?
Answer to this question is derived by developing
estimates based on answers to earlier questions.
THE END
Reference:
http://web.uettaxila.edu.pk/CMS/seSPMb
sSp09/Policy_CMS.asp
