Project Managment

Dr. Ibahim Elsemman

Lecture 1: Why do need PM in
making software?
The problem
Lecture 1

Developing Software does not mean writing algorithms.

We MUST plan when we are developing Software.

Please comment about this
Please comment about this

Project Scope
Team
Language

Time
Do we really need project managment in
software developlment?
• A survey of hundreds of corporate software development projects
indicated that five out of six software projects are considered
unsuccessful [Johnson 95], and approximately a third of software
projects are canceled. The remaining projects delivered software at
almost double the expected budget and time to develop as originally
planned.

William J. Brown et al, AntiPatterns Refactoring Software, Architectures, and Projects in

Crisis
Simple Equation
• Devloping Software = project

We learn project mangement to make good

softwares.
Agree or do not agree
• Software is a collection alghorithm.

• We should write algorithms to make a new software.

Example
We are here
Agree or do not agree
• Software is a collection alghorithm.

• We should write algorithms to make a new software.

Software Development Process

Visual Description of How the 14 steps during the Software Development Process
• Building software is not easy task.
• We have to plan and uses resources efficiently.
• I am not teaching software Engineering course.
• But I teach you what is project mangement? How can you use project
managment skills to make good software or information systems.

• Please remember this

”A survey of hundreds of corporate software development projects
indicated that five out of six software projects are considered
unsuccessful [Johnson 95], and approximately a third of software
projects are canceled. The remaining projects delivered software at
almost double the expected budget and time to develop as originally
planned.”
Lecture 2: What is Project
What Is a Project?

•A project is a temporary
endeavor undertaken to create a
unique product, service, or
result.
• Project Management is rapidly becoming a
standard way of doing business.
What is a program?
• A program is a group of related projects designed to accomplish a common goal over an extended period of
time.
• Each project within a program has a project manager. The major differences lie in scale and time span.
• Program management is the process of managing a group of ongoing, interdependent, related projects in a
coordinated way to achieve strategic objectives.
The major characteristics of a project
1. An established objective.
2. A defined life span with a beginning and an end.
3. Usually, the involvement of several departments and professionals.
4. Typically, doing something that has never been done before.
5. Specific time, cost, and performance requirements.
What a Project Is Not?
Projects should not be confused with everyday work. A project is
not routine, repetitive work! Ordinary daily work typically requires
doing the same or similar work over and over, while a project is
done only once; a new product or service exists when the project is
completed. Examine the list in The next Table that compares
routine, repetitive work and projects. Recognizing the difference is
important because too often resources can be used up on daily
operations which may not contribute to longer range organization
strategies that require innovative new products.
The Project Life Cycle

• Defining stage: Specifications of the project are defined; project objectives are established; teams are
formed; major responsibilities are assigned.
• Planning stage: The level of effort increases, and plans are developed to determine what the project will
entail, when it will be scheduled, whom it will benefit, what quality level should be maintained, and what the
budget will be.
• Executing stage: A major portion of the project work takes place—both physical and mental. The physical
product is produced (a bridge, a report, a software program). Time, cost, and specification measures are used
for control. Is the project on schedule, on budget, and meeting specifications? What are the forecasts of each
of these measures? What revisions/changes are necessary?
• Closing stage: Closing includes three activities: delivering the project product to the customer, redeploying
project resources, and post-project review.
The Project Manager

• Good project managers are always in demand. Every industry is looking for effective people who can get the
right things done on time.
• Project managers are ultimately responsible for performance (frequently with too little authority). They must
ensure that appropriate trade-offs are made among the time, cost, and performance requirements of the
project.
• Project managers must work with a diverse troupe of characters to complete projects. They are typically the
direct link to the customer and must manage the tension between customer expectations and what is feasible
and reasonable. Project managers provide direction, coordination, and integration to the project team, which
is often made up of part-time participants loyal to their functional departments. They often must work with a
cadre of outsiders—vendors, suppliers, subcontractors—who do not necessarily share their project allegience.
• Project managers must decide what and how things should be done instead of simply managing set processes.
They must meet the challenges of each phase of the project life cycle, and even oversee the dissolution of
their operation when the project is completed.
Lecture 3: Project Scope (define)
Software Development Process

Visual Description of How the 14 steps during the Software Development Process
Defining the Project Scope
• You should know that:
• My project do these, but not World

do these

Project
• Project objective. The first step of project scope definition is to define the overall objective to meet your
customer’s need(s). For example, as a result of extensive market research a computer software company
decides to develop a program that automatically translates verbal sentences in English to Russian. The project
should be completed within three years at a cost not to exceed $1.5 million.
• Deliverables. The next step is to define major deliverables—the expected, measurable outputs over the life of
the project. For example, deliverables in the early design phase of a project might be a list of specifications.
In the second phase deliverables could be software coding and a technical manual. The next phase could be
the prototype. The final phase could be final tests and approved software. Note: Deliverables and
requirements are often used interchangeably.
• Milestones. A milestone is a significant event in a project that occurs at a point in time. The milestone
schedule shows only major segments of work; it represents first, rough-cut estimates of time, cost, and
resources for the project. The milestone schedule is built using the deliverables as a platform to identify major
segments of work and an end date—for example, testing complete and finished by July 1 of the same year.
Milestones should be natural, important control points in the project. Milestones should be easy for all project
participants to recognize.
• Technical requirements. More frequently than not, a product or service will have technical requirements to ensure proper
performance. Technical requirements typically clarify either the deliverables or define the performance specifications. For
example, a technical requirement for a personal computer might be the ability to accept 120-volt alternating current or 240-
volt direct current without any adapters or user switches. Another well-known example is the ability of 911 emergency
systems to identify the caller’s phone number and location of the phone. Examples from information systems projects
include speed and capacity of database systems and connectivity with alternative systems.
• Limits and exclusions. The limits of scope should be defined. Failure to do so can lead to false expectations and to
expending resources and time on the wrong problem. Examples of limits are: work on site is allowed only between the
hours of 8:00 pm - 5:00 am; system maintenance and repair will be done only up to one month after final inspection; client
will be billed for additional training beyond that prescribed in the contract. Exclusions further define the boundary of the
project by stating what is not included. Examples include: data will be collected by the client, not the contractor; a house
will be built, but no landscaping or security devices added; software will be installed, but no training given.
• Reviews with customer. Completion of the scope checklist ends with a review with your customer—internal or external.
The main concern here is the understanding of and agreement to expectations. Is the customer getting what he or she desires
in deliverables? Does the project definition identify key accomplishments, budgets, timing, and performance requirements?
Are questions of limits and exclusions covered? Clear communication in all these issues is imperative to avoid claims or
misunderstanding.
Please rember this

Scope definition should be as brief as

possible but complete; one or two pages are
typical for small projects.
Understand why it is important to establish project
priorities in terms of cost, time, and performance.

One of the primary jobs of a project manager

is to manage the trade-offs among time, cost,
and performance. To do so, project managers
must define and understand the nature of the
priorities of the project. They need to have a
candid discussion with the project customer
and upper management to establish the
relative importance of
 Priority Matrix
• One technique found in practice that is useful for this purpose is completing a priority matrix for the project
to identify which criterion is constrained, which should be enhanced, and which can be accepted:
• Constrain. The original parameter is fixed. The project must meet the completion date, specifications and
scope of the project, or budget.
• Enhance. Given the scope of the project, which criterion should be optimized? In the case of time and cost,
this usually means taking advantage of opportunities to either reduce costs or shorten the schedule.
Conversely, with regard to performance, enhancing means adding value to the project.
• Accept. For which criterion is it tolerable not to meet the original parameters? When trade-offs have to be
made, is it permissible for the schedule to slip, to reduce the scope and performance of the project, or to go
over budget?
Step 3: Creating the Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS)
• Once the scope and deliverables have been identified, the work of the project can be successively subdivided
into smaller and smaller work elements. The outcome of this hierarchical process is called the work
breakdown structure (WBS). Use of a WBS helps to assure project managers that all products and work
elements are identified, to integrate the project with the current organization, and to establish a basis for
control. Basically, the WBS is an outline of the project with different levels of detail.
work package
• The lowest level of the WBS is called a work package. Work packages are short duration tasks that have a
definite start and stop point, consume resources, and represent cost. Each work package is a control point.

1. Defines work (what).

2. Identifies time to complete a work package (how long).
3. Identifies a time-phased budget to complete a work package (cost).
4. Identifies resources needed to complete a work package (how much).
5. Identifies a single person responsible for units of work (who).
6. Identifies monitoring points for measuring progress (how well).
Responsibility Matrix
Process Breakdown Structure
• Information systems projects typically fall in this category— for example, creating an extranet website or an
internal software database system. Process projects are driven by performance requirements, not by
plans/blueprints. Some practitioners choose to utilize what we refer to as a process breakdown structure
(PBS) instead of the classic WBS.
Integration projection with Organization
 4.8 Project Communication Plan
Once the project deliverables and work are clearly identified, following up with an internal communication
plan is vital. Stories abound of poor communication as a major contributor to project failure. Having a robust
communications plan can go a long way toward mitigating project problems and can ensure that customers,
team members, and other stakeholders have the information to do their jobs.

Project communication plans address the following core questions:

∙ What information needs to be collected and when?
∙ Who will receive the information?
∙ What methods will be used to gather and store information?
∙ What are the limits, if any, on who has access to certain kinds of information?
∙ When will the information be communicated?
∙ How will it be communicated?
Developing a communication plan that answers these questions usually entails the following
basic steps:

Stakeholder analysis. Identify the target groups. Typical groups could be the customer, sponsor, project team, project
office, or anyone who needs project information to make decisions and/or contribute to project progress. A common
tool found in practice to initially identify and analyze major project stakeholders’ communication needs is presented
in the next figure. How and what is communicated is influenced by the stakeholder interest and power. Some of these
stakeholders may have the power either to block or enhance your project.
Dissemination modes. In today’s world, traditional status report meetings are being supplemented by e-mail, teleconferencing,
SharePoint, and a variety of database sharing programs to circulate information. In particular, many companies are using the Web
to create a “virtual project office” to store project information. Project management software feeds information directly to the
website so that different people have immediate access to relevant project information.

Sources of information. When the information needs are identified, the next step is to determine the sources of information.
That is, where does the information reside? How will it be collected? For example, information relating to the milestone
report, team meetings, and project status meetings would be found in the minutes and reports of various groups.

Responsibility and timing. Determine who will send out the information. For example, a common practice is to have secretaries
of meetings forward the minutes or specific information to the appropriate stakeholders. In some cases the responsibility lies
with the project manager or project office. Timing and frequency of distribution appropriate to the information need to be
established.
Lecture 4: Developing a Project
Plan
There are three basic relationships that must
be established for activities included in a
project network. The relationships can be
found by answering the following three
questions for each activity:
1. Which activities must be completed
immediately before this activity? These
activities are called predecessor activities.
2. Which activities must immediately follow
this activity? These activities are called
successor activities.
3. Which activities can occur while this
activity is taking place? This is known as a
concurrent or parallel relationship.
Network Information
Adding Activity time information
What are the critical paths?
Gantt chart
Calendar Dates
Ultimately you will want to assign calendar dates to your project activities. If a
computer program is not used, dates are assigned manually. Lay out a calendar of
workdays (exclude non-workdays), and number them. Then relate the calendar
workdays to the workdays on your project network. Most computer programs will
assign calendar dates automatically after you identify start dates, time units, non-
workdays, and other information.
Lecture 5:
Main Steps in the project management
 Types of Resource Constraints
People. This is the most obvious and important project resource. Human resources are usually classified by the skills
they bring to the project—for example, programmer, mechanical engineer, welder, inspector, marketing director,
supervisor. In rare cases some skills are interchangeable, but usually with a loss of productivity. The many differing
skills of human resources add to the complexity of scheduling projects.

Materials. Project materials cover a large spectrum: for example, chemicals for a scientific project, concrete for a road
project, survey data for a marketing project. Material availability and shortages have been blamed for the delay of many
projects. When it is known that a lack of availability of materials is important and probable,
materials should be included in the project network plan and schedule. For example, delivery and placement of an oil
rig tower in a Siberian oil field has a very small time window during one summer month.

Equipment. Equipment is usually presented by type, size, and quantity. In some cases equipment can be interchanged to
improve schedules, but this is not typical. Equipment is often overlooked as a constraint. The most common oversight is
to assume the resource pool is more than adequate for the project. For example, if a project needs one earthmoving
tractor six months from now and the organization owns four, it is common
to assume the resource will not delay the pending project. However, when the earthmoving tractor is due on-site in six
months, all four machines
Classification of a Scheduling Problem
A time-constrained project is one that must be completed by an imposed date. If required, resources can be
added to ensure the project is completed by a specific date. Although time is the critical factor, resource usage
should be no more than is necessary and sufficient.

A resource-constrained project is one that assumes the level of resources available cannot be exceeded. If the
resources are inadequate, it will be acceptable to delay the project, but as little as possible.
Resource Allocation Methods
For the purpose of demonstration, the Botanical Garden
project uses only one resource (backhoes); all backhoes are
interchangeable.
Final Program Network
Lecture 6: Budject Estimation
Why Estimating Time and Cost Is Important?
Creating a Time-Phased Budget
By using information from your WBS and resource schedule, you can create a time-phased

Cost baseline. Remember from the WBS for the PC Project. We integrated the WBS and OBS organization
breakdown structure so the work packages could be tracked by deliverable and organization responsible. See
Figure 8.12 for an example of the PC Prototype Project arranged by deliverable and organization unit
responsible. For each intersection point of the WBS/OBS matrix, you see work package budgets and the total
cost. The total cost at each intersection is called a cost or control account. For example, at the intersection of the
Read/write head deliverable and the Production department we see there are three work packages with a total
budget of $200,000.
Lecture 7: reducing the project
time
There are many good reasons for attempting to reduce the duration of a project. One of the more important
reasons today is time to market. Intense global competition and rapid technological advances have made speed a
competitive advantage. To succeed, companies have to spot new opportunities, launch project teams, and bring
new products or services to the marketplace in a flash. Perhaps in no industry does speed matter as much as in
the electronics industry. For example, a rule of thumb for moderate- to high-technology firms is that a six-month
delay in bringing a product to market can result in a loss of market share of about 35 percent.

Another common reason for reducing project time occurs when unforeseen delays— for example,
adverse weather, design flaws, and equipment breakdown—cause substantial delays midway in the
project. Getting back on schedule usually requires compressing the time on some of the remaining
critical activities. The additional costs of getting back on schedule need to be compared with the
consequences of being late. This is especially true when time is a top priority.
Options for Accelerating Project Completion
• Adding Resources. The most common method for shortening project time is to assign additional staff and
equipment to activities. There are limits, however, as to how much speed can be gained by adding staff.
Doubling the size of the workforce will not necessarily reduce completion time by half.
• For example, doubling a team by adding two workers requires six times as much pairwise
intercommunication than is required in the original two-person team. Not only is more time needed to
coordinate and manage a larger team; there is the additional delay of training the new people and getting
them up to speed on the project. The end result is captured in Brooks’s law: Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later.
• Frederick Brooks formulated this principle based on his experience as a project manager for IBM’s
System/360 software project during the early 1960s. While subsequent research confirmed Brooks’s
prediction, it also discovered that adding more people to a late project does not always cause the project to be
later.2 The key is whether the new staff is added early so there is sufficient time to make up for lost ground
once the new members have been fully assimilated.
• Outsourcing Project Work A common method for shortening the project time is to subcontract an activity.
The subcontractor may have access to superior technology or expertise that will accelerate the completion of
the activity. For example, contracting for a backhoe can accomplish in two hours what it can take a team of
laborers two days to do. Likewise, by hiring a consulting firm that specializes in ADSI programming, a firm
may be able to cut in half the time it would take for less experienced, internal programmers to do the work.
Subcontracting also frees up resources that can be assigned to a critical activity and will ideally result in a
shorter project duration.
Lecture 8: Risk Management