18CSE22 - Software Project Management

UNIT I – An Introduction

Dr.R.C.Suganthe
Professor/CSE
Kongu Engineering College
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References
Bob Hughes, Mike Cotterell and Rajib Mall, ―Software
Project Management, 5th Edition, Tata McGraw Hill, New
Delhi, 2011.
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/software_engineering/soft
ware_project_management.htm
https://www.javatpoint.com/software-project-management
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/software-engineering-softw
are-project-management-spm/
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UN I Course Outcomes
On completion of the course, the students will be able to
CO1: Take part in the process of software project management and
analyse the projects Analysing (K4)
CO2: Prepare the project plan and calculate the efforts required
Applying (K3)
CO3: Plan, schedule and sequence the activities and determine the
risks Applying (K3)
CO4: Develop visualization charts to monitor the progress of projects
and to control the risks involved Applying (K3)
CO5: Outline the methods of managing people and organising teams
Understanding (K2)
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UN I Course Overview

Unit I – Introduction to SPM, Project Evaluation

Unit II – Project Planning, Software Effort Estimation

Unit III – Activity Planning and Risk Management

Unit IV – Monitoring and Control, Managing contracts

Unit V – Managing People and Organising Teams

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UN I Software Project Management
Software
Project
Management
When do we require to manage?
What do we require to manage?
How do we require to manage?
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UN I General points...
Why is software project management important?
Budget
Timely delivery
Coordinate all the activities to achieve the objectives and to avoid failure
What is a project?
Planned activity – determine how to carryout a task before start
Routine maintenance - performed so many times that everyone knows exactly
what to do
Documentation - procedures might be documented to ensure consistency and
to help newcomers
Software projects vs. other types of projects
Invisibility – Progress is not visible immediately in software projects
Complexity - software product is more complex
Conformity - The physical systems have complexity, but are governed by
consistent physical laws. This is not present in Software projects
Flexibility - software is easy to change
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UN I Characteristics of projects
A task is more project-like if it is
Non-routine
Planned
Aiming at a specific target
Work carried out for a customer
Involving several specialisms
Made up of several different phases
Constrained by time and resources
Large and/or complex
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UN I Projects-Example
Producing an edition of a newspaper
Putting a robot vehicle on Mars to search for signs of life
Getting married
Amending a financial computer system to deal with a common European
currency
A research project into what makes a good human-computer interface
An investigation into the reason why a user has a problem with a
computer system
A second-year programming assignment for a computing student
Writing an operating system for a new computer
Installing a new version of a word processing package in an organization
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IT Contract Management and Technical Project
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Management
In-house projects🡪 users and developers work for same organization
Contractual projects:
Contract ICT development to outside developers
Client organization appoint project managers to supervise the contract
Project Managers monitor the contract

Takes care of overall budget and schedule

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UN I Activities covered by SPM
Three successive processes that bring a new system into being
1. Feasibility study - assesses whether a project is worth starting
2. Planning - The plan details the activities to be carried out to create these
products
For larger project - Outline plan at the beginning and detailed one
after first stage
3. Project execution - design and implementation sub-phases
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N IT SDLC ISO 12207
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N IT SDLC ISO 12207
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UN I ISO 12207 SDLC
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UN I Plans, Methods, Methodologies
Plans – must be based on some idea of a method of work

It has start and end dates

Who will carry it out
What tools and materials will be needed
Methods – relates to a type of activity in general, a plan takes that
method and converts it to real activities
Start and end dates
Who will carry out
What tools and materials including information
The output from one method might be the input to the other
Methodologies – groups of methods / techniques e.g. object-oriented
design
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UN Ways of categorizing software projects

Compulsory-staff have to use if

they want to do something
Information Voluntary – user uses voluntarily
Compulsory
systems vs
vs. voluntary
embedded these system like games
users
systems Information systems - enable staff
to carry out office processes
Embedded systems - control
Object-drive
machines
Outsourced Outsourced Projects - company to
n
projects
development outsource some parts of its work
to other companies
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UN Problems
I with software projects
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
Lack of standards
Lack of documentation
Lack of training
Deadline pressure
Changing legal requirements
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UN I Stakeholders
People who have a stake or interest in the project
In general, they could be users/clients or developers/implementers
Internal to the project team
Under direct managerial control
External to the project team but within the same organization
Like testing team...commitment of the people involved has to be
negotiated
External to both the project team and organization
May be customers / users who will benefit from the system
Relationship is usually based on contract
Different types of stakeholders may have different objectives
one of the responsibilities of the project leader is to recognize these different
interests and being able to bring them
end-users may be concerned with the ease of use while managers may be more
focused on staff savings
Exercise : Identify the stakeholders in the College payroll project
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UN I Stakeholders
'Theory W' of software project management
Boehm and Ross proposed
The project manager focuses on setting up situations such that
everyone benefits from a project and has an interest in its success.
Theory W: Project managers can only be successful if they ensure
that ALL software process participants are winners regardless of
their status.
'W' stands for 'win-win’
Win-win situation:
Each individual in a process will lose something for the other to gain.
However, in theory, W, it is preempted that one may not lose for the
other to win, but all parties must benefit.
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UN I Setting objectives
To define what the project team must achieve for project success
Although different stakeholders have different motivations, the project
objectives identify the shared intentions for the project.
Focus on desired outcomes of the project rather than the tasks within it
To start with... “the project will be a success if..”
Need for a project authority
Sets the project scope
Allocates/approves costs
Identify project authority /ownership 🡪 project steering committee
Responsibility of Steering committee- setting, monitoring and
modifying objectives
Project manager runs the project on a day-to-day basis, but regularly
reports to the steering committee
Sub-objectives and goals
SMART.....
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UN I SMART....
It is used to describe well-defined objectives:
Specific : Effective objectives are concrete and well
defined
Measurable: satisfaction of the objective can be
objectively judged
Achievable: it must be within the power of the individual
or group to achieve the objective
Relevant: the objective must be relevant to the true
purpose of the project
Time constrained: there should be a defined point in time
by which the objective should have been achieved
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UN I Setting objectives - Example
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U Goals/sub-objectives
These are steps along the way to achieving the objective. Informally, these
can be defined by completing the sentence…
“To reach objective....the following must be in place..”
Example
Objective X will be achieved, if the following goals are all achieved
A……………
B……………
C…………… etc
Often a goal can be allocated to an individual.
Individual may have the capability of achieving goal, but not the objective
on their own e.g.
Objective –user satisfaction with software product
Analyst goal–accurate requirements
Developer goal–software that is reliable
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UN Measures of effectiveness
How do we know that the goal or objective has been
achieved?
By a practical test, that can be objectively assessed.
e.g. for user satisfaction with software product:
Repeat business –they buy further products from us
Number of complaints –if low etc
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UN I The Business Case
Business case – itemize and quantify the project’s costs and
benefits
Project –worthwhile in terms of the benefit
Project plan must ensure that the business case is kept intact
in terms of the following:
Development cost are not allowed to rise
Features of the system should not be reduced
Delivery date is not delayed
Project plan should ensure the project success by preserving
the business case
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UN I Project Success and Failure
The project objectives are the targets that the project team is expected to
achieve:
The agreed functionality
To the required level of quality
On time
Within budget
Business Objectives
a business organization wants to achieve or accomplish over a specified period of
time
Project vs business
A project can be a success on delivery but then be a business failure
On the other hand, a project could be late and over budget, but its deliverables
generate benefits.
There is gap between project and business concerns can be reduced by
considering business issues in projects
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UN I Management Activities
Planning – deciding what to be done

Organizing – making arrangements

Staffing – selecting the right people for the job

Directing – giving instructions

Monitoring – checking on progress

Controlling – taking action to remedy hold-ups

Innovating – coming up with new solutions

Representing – liaising with clients, users, developers, suppliers and other

stakeholders
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UN I Project Management Process
Planning – initiation
Monitoring - execution
Control
If required, plan revision
Finally -> project closing
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UN I PRINCE2 --- UK and Europe
PRojects IN Controlled Environments
Estimation
Cost
Duration
Effort
Scheduling
Staffing
Risk management
Miscellaneous plans
PMBOK – US – A guide to the Project Management Body Of
Knowledge
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UN I Project Management
Estimation - Cost, duration , effort
Scheduling
Staffing
risk management
Miscellaneous plan
Quality assurance plan
Configuration management plan
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UN I Management Control
The project control cycle
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UN I Management Control
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 31stMarch
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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N IT Traditional vs. modern project
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management practices
Recent life cycle models
Using some existing product or pre-built libraries
Maximization of code reuse and reducing duration
Facilitating customer feedback and customer participation in the development work
Incremental delivery of the product with evolving functionalities
RAD and deployment
Extreme project management
Change request from customer are encouraged
Differences
Planning incremental delivery
Instead of making long term project completion plan, the project manager now
plans all incremental deliveries with evolving functionalities – extreme project
management
Quality management
Assessment of project progress and tracking the quality of all intermediate
artifacts
Change management
Customer feedback is solicited in each version for incorporation
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UN I Summary
Why SPM?
Software projects vs. other projects
Setting clear objectives...will lead to success..
Ways of categorizing software projects
Stakeholders’ perspectives
Major activities covered by SPM
Management Activities
Traditional vs. modern practices