Software Project Management

 Course Introduction (learning objectives)

 Course Contents & Grading Policy
 Motivation of Studying SPM
 What is Project
 What is Project Management

Afsah Imtiaz Elahi, Software Project Management- Fall 2013 2

https://sites.google.com/site/iubspm/

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 Understand the fundamental principles of Software Project
management & will also have a good knowledge of
responsibilities of project manager and how to handle these.

 Be familiar with the different methods and techniques used for

project management.

 By the end of this course student will have good knowledge of

the issues and challenges faced while doing the Software project
Management and will also be able to understand why majority of
the software projects fails and how that failure probability can be
reduced effectively. Will be able to do the Project Scheduling,
tracking, Risk analysis, Quality management and Project Cost
estimation using different techniques

Afsah Imtiaz Elahi, Software Project Management 4

 Text books:

◦ Software Project Management (3rd Edition) By Bob Hughes, Mike

Cotterell
◦ The Mythical Man-Month by
Frederick P. Brooks
◦ The Deadline – A Novel about Project Management
by Tom DeMarco
◦ A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: Project
Management Institute (PM I)
◦ Effective Project Managment (2nd Edition) :Robert K. Wysocki, Robert Beck
Jr, David B.Crane

 Reference books:

◦ Managing the Software Process

by Watts S. by Humphrey

◦ Software Project Management

A Unified Framework
By: Walker Royce
Publisher: Addision-wesely

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 Quizzes
 Assignments : 20%
 Project Presentation/ Research Paper

 Mid Term : 30%

 Final Term : 50%

Afsah Imtiaz Elahi, Software

Project Management- Fall 2013 6
A project is sequence of unique, complex,
and connected activities having one
common goal that must be completed by a
specific time, within budget, and according
to specification.

SPM: What is Project ? 7

 “Project Management is the
application of knowledge,
techniques, tools and skills to
project activities to meet project
requirements”

Software project Management 8

 Daily, organizations are asked to accomplish
tasks that do not fit neatly into business-as-
usual
◦ The Ministry of Health may require an annually
updated census of all Punjab resident children, aged
17 years or younger, living with an illiterate parents;
the census must happen in 18 months.
◦ Develop a web page within the next four days that
provides information about the departmental
timetable to new incoming students.
◦ A software group may be asked to develop an
application program that will access Government data
on certain commodity prices and generate records on
the value of the commodity inventories held by the
firm; the software must be available for use on 26
DEC 2016.

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What is Software Project Management?
Software
–Complexity
•Inherent
–Intangibility/Invisibility
•Difficult to quantify
–Flexibility
•Subject to change

All above make software more problematic to build

than other engineered artefacts.

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 In the broadest sense, a project is a specific,
finite task to be accomplished. Any activity
that results in a deliverable or a product.

 Projects always begin with a problem. The

project is to provide the solution to this
problem.

 When the project is finished it must be

evaluated to determine whether it satisfies
the objectives and goals.

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 PMI definition
A project is a temporary endeavor
undertaken to accomplish a unique purpose
Project- A Precise Definition
–Definite beginning, duration and end
–Specific Objectives, results or products
–Large enough to require:
•Planning
•Significant resources
•Several phases
•Risk Management

The Project management Institute (PMI) is an independent

professional society http://www.pmi.org

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 Northwest Airlines developed a new
reservation system called ResNet
 Many Organizations upgrade hardware,
software and networks via projects
 Organizations develop new software or
enhance existing systems to perform many
business functions

Note: “IT projects” refers to projects involving

hardware, software and networks

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 Management can be defined as all activities
and tasks undertaken by one or more persons
for the purpose of planning and controlling the
activities of others in order to achieve
objectives or complete an activity that could
not be achieved by others acting
independently.
◦ Management functions can be categorized as
 Planning
 Organizing
 Staffing
 Directing
 Controlling

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 Planning
Predetermining a course of action for accomplishing
organizational Objectives
 Organizing
Arranging the relationships among work units for
accomplishment of objectives and the granting of
responsibility and authority to obtain those objectives
 Staffing
Selecting and training people for positions in the
organization
 Directing
Creating an atmosphere that will assist and motivate
people to achieve desired end results
 Controlling
Establishing, measuring, and evaluating performance of
activities toward planned objectives

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 According to *PMI, PMBOK Guide 2003

“The application of knowledge, skills, tools

and techniques to project activities in order
to meet project requirements”

* The Project management Institute (PMI) is an

independent professional society http://www.pmi.org

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 Concerned with activities involved in ensuring
that software is delivered:
◦ on time
◦ on schedule
◦ in accordance with the requirements of
the organization developing and
procuring the software

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Requirements analysis
◦ Requirements elicitation: what does the client
need?
◦ Analysis: converting ‘customer-facing’
requirements into equivalents that developers
can understand
◦ Requirements will cover
 Functions
 Quality
 Resource constraints i.e. costs

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 Specification
◦ Detail documentation of what the proposed system
has to do.
 design
◦ Based on system requirements
◦ Defines components of system: hardware, software,
organizational
◦ Software requirements will come out of this
 Code
◦ Writing code in a language.
◦ Of individual components
 Verification and Validation
◦ Whether the SW developed specially for the current
system or not

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 Implementation/Installation
◦ The process of making the system operational
◦ Includes setting up installation on operational
hardware platforms, user training etc
 Maintenance & support
◦ Including maintenance and enhancement

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 1. Initiating

2. Planning
5. Closing

4. Controlling 3. Executing

Figure 1. SPM Lifecycle

Software project Management 22

￭ State the problem or opportunity
￭ Establish the project goal
￭ Define project objectives
￭ Identify success criteria
￭ List assumptions, risks and obtacles

Software project Management 23

￭ Identify project activities
￭ Estimate activity duration
￭ Determine resource requirements
￭ Construct and analyze project network
￭ Prepare project proposal

Software project Management 24

￭ Recruit and organize the project team
￭ Establish team operating rules
￭ Level project resources
￭ Document work packages
￭ Schedule work packages

Software project Management 25

￭ Monitoring the project team
￭ Implement team operating rules
￭ Document team work status
￭ Control and check the task status

Software project Management 26

￭ Establish progress reporting system
￭ Install change control tools/process
￭ Define problem escalation process
￭ Monitor project progress vs. plan
￭ Revise project plan

Software project Management 27

i. Planning reduces uncertainty
ii. Planning increases understanding
iii. Planning improves efficiency

Software project Management 28

 These are people who have a stake or interest in
the project
In general,
◦ Stakeholders include
 The project sponsor and project team
 Support staff
 Customers
 Users
 Suppliers
 developers/implementers
They could be:
 Within the project team
 Outside the project team, but within the same
organization
 Outside both the project team and the organization

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 One clear objective
◦ A well defined set of end results
◦ Goal oriented
◦ End product or service must result
 Finite
◦ Fixed timeline, start date, end date, milestone
dates
 Limited
◦ Budget, Resources, Time
 Life Cycle
◦ Recognizable sequence of phases
 Interdependences (source of conflict)
◦ Cross-functional, cross-project, cross-activity

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 Uniqueness
◦ No practice or rehearsal, one time set of events

 A team of people Divisible into subtasks (called

activities) often numerous, essentially unique and
non-repetitive

 A single point of responsibility (the Project

Manager)

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 Resource conflict
◦ Interdependences
 Activities, Projects, Projects and Operations
◦ Limited Resources
 People, Equipment, Time, Money, Facilities

 People conflict
◦ As a result of resource conflict
◦ Resistance to Change

 Project Manager
◦ Must be a Conflict Manager

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 Client
◦ Max Flexibility, Max Quality at Min Price in Min Time

 Organization
◦ Max Profit, Min disruption to Operations

 Public
◦ Obeisance of all relevant Government Regulations
◦ Min Environmental Impact

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Two different types of negotiations
 win-lose
◦ your savings are other party’s losses
 win-win
◦ both parties try to understand the other party needs
◦ The win-win approach is a set of principles and
practices which enable a set of Interdependent
stakeholders to work out a mutually satisfactory
(win-win) set of shared commitments.

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 Win-lose Generally Becomes Lose-lose

Proposed “Winner” “Loser”

Solution
Quick, cheap & Developer & User
Sloppy product Customer
Lots of “Bells & Developer & Customer
whistles ” User
Driving too hard Customer & Developer
a bargain User

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Information Systems v. Embedded Systems
–Information systems
•Interfaces with the organization, e.g., HR System
–Embedded systems
•Interfaces with machines, e.g., Appliance Control
System
•Products v. Objectives
–Software Products
•Software projects that produce products, e.g.,
Word processing system
–Software Objectives
•Software projects that meet objectives, e. g., to
provide an online banking service

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 Project Control Cycle:
◦ Measures of data against standards & then actions
accordingly are taken.

- Evalution of the project

- Projects actions are to be first checked on a small
mode before implimentation.

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Data – the raw details
e.g. ‘6,000 documents processed at location X’
Information – the data is processed to produce
something that is meaningful and useful
e.g. ‘productivity is 100 documents a day’
Comparison with objectives/goals
e.g. we will not meet target of processing all documents by 31st March
Modelling – working out the probable outcomes
of various decisions
e.g. if we employ two more staff at location X how quickly
can we get the documents processed?
Implementation – carrying out the remedial
actions that have been decided upon

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 Software Complexity

–Technical Complexity
–Management Complexity

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•Sources of Complexity
•[From: F. Brooks, “The Mythical Man-Month”,
Addison Wesley, 1995]
–Essential complexity
•inherent to the problem
•cannot be eliminated by technology or technique
–e.g., solving the traveling salesman problem
–Accidental complexity
•due to technology or methods used to solve the
problem
–e.g., building a skyscraper using hand tools only

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Additional Sources of Software Complexity
–Requirements
•Difficulty in Capturing Requirements
•Competing and Contradictory Requirements
•Changing Requirements
–Characterizing Behavior
•External events change the state of the system
•Nondeterministic, that is, inability to predict which
state the system will enter

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Software complexity cannot be solved, but it
can be mastered with the help of Software
Engineering and mother nature

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Manager’s view:
–Poor estimates and plans
–Lack of quality standards and measures
–Lack of guidance about making organizational
decisions
–Lack of techniques to make progress visible
–Poor role definition –who does what?
–Incorrect success criteria

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-Staff view:
–Inadequate specification of work
–Management ignorance of IT
–Lack of knowledge of application area/training
–Lack of standards
–Lack of up-to-date documentation
–Preceding activities not completed on time
–Late deliver of equipment/hardware
–Lack of communication
–Narrow scope of technical expertise
–Changing software environment
–Deadline pressure
–Lack of quality control
–Remote management

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 A 1996 Fortune article called project
management the “number one career choice”

 Other authors and IT Gurus stress that Project

managers are who add value to organizations

 Professional societies like the Project

Management Institute (PMI) have grown
tremendously

 Average Salaries for Project managers are over

81K US$ per year

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 PMI provides certification as a Project Management
Professional (PMP)
 A PMP has documented sufficient project
experience, agreed to follow a code of ethics, and
passed the PMP exam
 The number of people earning PMP certification is
increasing quickly, and the certification program
department received ISO approval in 1999
 Other groups, like the Singapore Computer Society,
have their own IT PM Certification programs

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 Software Project Management (3rd Edition) by
Bob Hughes, Mike Cotterell
 The Mythical Man-Month by
Frederick P. Brooks
 A Guide to the Project Management Body of
Knowledge: Project Management Institute (PM I)

Afsah Imtiaz Elahi, Software

Project Management 51