CHAPTER 6 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

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 TOPICS COVERED

• Risk management

• Managing people

• Teamwork

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 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.

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 SUCCESS CRITERIA
• Deliver the software to the customer at the agreed time.

• Keep overall costs within budget.

• Deliver software that meets the customer’s expectations.

• Maintain a coherent and well-functioning development

team.

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 SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT DISTINCTIONS
• The product is intangible.
⮚ Software cannot be seen or touched. Software project
managers cannot see progress by simply looking at the
artefact that is being constructed.
• Many software projects are 'one-off' projects.
⮚ Large software projects are usually different in some
ways from previous projects. Even managers who have
lots of previous experience may find it difficult to
anticipate problems.
• Software processes are variable and organization specific.
⮚ We still cannot reliably predict when a particular
software process is likely to lead to development
problems.
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 FACTORS INFLUENCING PROJECT MANAGEMENT
• Company size
• Software customers
• Software size
• Software type
• Organizational culture
• Software development processes
• These factors mean that project managers in different
organizations may work in quite different ways.

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 UNIVERSAL MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES
• Project planning
⮚ Project managers are responsible for planning.
estimating and scheduling project development and
assigning people to tasks.
⮚ Covered in Chapter 23.
• Risk management
⮚ Project managers assess the risks that may affect a
project, monitor these risks and take action when
problems arise.
• People management
⮚ Project managers have to choose people for their team
and establish ways of working that leads to effective
team performance.Chapter 22 Project management
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 MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES
• Reporting
⮚Project managers are usually responsible for reporting
on the progress of a project to customers and to the
managers of the company developing the software.
• Proposal Writing
⮚The first stage in a software project may involve writing
a proposal to win a contract to carry out an item of
work. The proposal describes the objectives of the
project and how it will be carried out.

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 RISK MANAGEMENT

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 RISK MANAGEMENT
• Risk management is concerned with identifying risks and
drawing up plans to minimise their effect on a project.
• Software risk management is important because of the
inherent uncertainties in software development.
⮚These uncertainties stem from loosely defined
requirements, requirements changes due to changes in
customer needs, difficulties in estimating the time and
resources required for software development, and
differences in individual skills.
• You have to anticipate risks, understand the impact of these
risks on the project, the product and the business, and take
steps to avoid these risks.

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 RISK CLASSIFICATION
• There are two dimensions of risk classification
⮚The type of risk (technical, organizational, ..)
⮚what is affected by the risk:

• 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.

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 EXAMPLES OF PROJECT, PRODUCT, AND BUSINESS
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 organizational

management with different priorities.

Hardware unavailability Project Hardware that is essential for the project will not be
delivered on schedule.

Requirements change Project and product There will be a larger number of changes to the
requirements than anticipated.

Specification delays Project and product Specifications of essential interfaces are not
available on schedule.

Size underestimate Project and product The size of the system has been underestimated.

CASE tool Product CASE tools, which support the project, do not
underperformance perform as anticipated.

Technology change Business The underlying technology on which the system is

built is superseded by new technology.

Product competition
04/12/2014 Business Chapter 22 ProjectAmanagement
competitive product is marketed before the system
12
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;

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 THE RISK MANAGEMENT PROCESS

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 RISK IDENTIFICATION
• May be a team activities or based on the individual project
manager’s experience.
• A checklist of common risks may be used to identify risks in
a project
⮚Technology risks.
⮚Organizational risks.
⮚People risks.
⮚Requirements risks.
⮚Estimation risks.

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 EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT RISK TYPES
Risk type Possible risks

Estimation The time required to develop the software is underestimated. (12)

The rate of defect repair is underestimated. (13)
The size of the software is underestimated. (14)

Organizational The organization is restructured so that different management are responsible for the
project. (6)
Organizational financial problems force reductions in the project budget. (7)

People It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required. (3)

Key staff are ill and unavailable at critical times. (4)
Required training for staff is not available. (5)

Requirements Changes to requirements that require major design rework are proposed. (10)
Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements changes. (11)

Technology The database used in the system cannot process as many transactions per second as
expected. (1)
Reusable software components contain defects that mean they cannot be reused as
planned. (2)

Tools The code generated by software code generation tools is inefficient. (8)
Software tools cannot work together in an integrated way. (9)
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 RISK ANALYSIS
• Assess probability and seriousness of each risk.

• Probability may be very low, low, moderate, high or very

high.

• Risk consequences might be catastrophic, serious,

tolerable or insignificant.

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 RISK TYPES AND EXAMPLES
Risk Probability Effects

Organizational financial problems force reductions in the project Low Catastrophic

budget (7).

It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required for the project High Catastrophic
(3).

Key staff are ill at critical times in the project (4). Moderate Serious

Faults in reusable software components have to be repaired before Moderate Serious

these components are reused. (2).

Changes to requirements that require major design rework are Moderate Serious
proposed (10).

The organization is restructured so that different management are High Serious

responsible for the project (6).

The database used in the system cannot process as many Moderate Serious
transactions per second as expected (1).

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 RISK TYPES AND EXAMPLES
Risk Probability Effects

The time required to develop the software is underestimated High Serious

(12).

Software tools cannot be integrated (9). High Tolerable

Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements Moderate Tolerable

changes (11).

Required training for staff is not available (5). Moderate Tolerable

The rate of defect repair is underestimated (13). Moderate Tolerable

The size of the software is underestimated (14). High Tolerable

Code generated by code generation tools is inefficient (8). Moderate Insignificant

19
 RISK PLANNING
• Consider each risk and develop a strategy to manage that
risk.

• Avoidance strategies
⮚The probability that the risk will arise is reduced;

• Minimization 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;
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 WHAT-IF QUESTIONS
• What if several engineers are ill at the same time?
• What if an economic downturn leads to budget cuts of 20%
for the project?
• What if the performance of open-source software is
inadequate and the only expert on that open source
software leaves?
• What if the company that supplies and maintains software
components goes out of business?
• What if the customer fails to deliver the revised
requirements as predicted?

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 STRATEGIES TO HELP MANAGE RISK
Risk Strategy

Organizational financial Prepare a briefing document for senior management showing how the
problems project is making a very important contribution to the goals of the
business and presenting reasons why cuts to the project budget would
not be cost-effective.

Recruitment problems Alert customer to potential difficulties and the possibility of delays;
investigate buying-in components.

Staff illness Reorganize team so that there is more overlap of work and people
therefore understand each other’s jobs.

Defective components Replace potentially defective components with bought-in components

of known reliability.

Requirements changes Derive traceability information to assess requirements change impact;

maximize information hiding in the design.

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 STRATEGIES TO HELP MANAGE RISK

Risk Strategy

Organizational Prepare a briefing document for senior management showing how

restructuring the project is making a very important contribution to the goals of
the business.

Database performance Investigate the possibility of buying a higher-performance

database.

Underestimated Investigate buying-in components; investigate use of a program

development time generator.

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 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.

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 RISK INDICATORS

Risk type Potential indicators

Estimation Failure to meet agreed schedule; failure to clear reported defects.

Organizational Organizational gossip; lack of action by senior management.

People Poor staff morale; poor relationships amongst team members; high staff
turnover.

Requirements Many requirements change requests; customer complaints.

Technology Late delivery of hardware or support software; many reported technology

problems.

Tools Reluctance by team members to use tools; complaints about CASE tools;
demands for higher-powered workstations.

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 MANAGING PEOPLE

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 MANAGING PEOPLE
• People are an organisation’s most important assets.

• The tasks of a manager are essentially people-oriented.

Unless there is some understanding of people,
management will be unsuccessful.

• Poor people management is an important contributor to

project failure.

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 PEOPLE MANAGEMENT FACTORS
• Consistency
⮚ Team members should all be treated in a comparable
way without favourites or discrimination.
• Respect
⮚ Different team members have different skills and these
differences should be respected.
• Inclusion
⮚ Involve all team members and make sure that people’s
views are considered.
• Honesty
⮚ You should always be honest about what is going well
and what is going badly in a project.
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 MOTIVATING PEOPLE
• An important role of a manager is to motivate the people
working on a project.
• Motivation means organizing the work and the working
environment to encourage people to work effectively.
⮚If people are not motivated, they will not be interested
in the work they are doing. They will work slowly, be
more likely to make mistakes and will not contribute to
the broader goals of the team or the organization.
• Motivation is a complex issue but it appears that their are
different types of motivation based on:
⮚Basic needs (e.g. food, sleep, etc.);
⮚Personal needs (e.g. respect, self-esteem);
⮚Social needs (e.g. to be accepted as part of a group).
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 HUMAN NEEDS HIERARCHY

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 NEED SATISFACTION
• In software development groups, basic physiological and
safety needs are not an issue.
• Social
⮚ Provide communal facilities;
⮚ Allow informal communications e.g. via social
networking
• Esteem
⮚ Recognition of achievements;
⮚ Appropriate rewards.
• Self-realization
⮚ Training - people want to learn more;
⮚ Responsibility.

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 CASE STUDY: INDIVIDUAL MOTIVATION
Alice is a software project manager working in a company that develops alarm
systems. This company wishes to enter the growing market of assistive
technology to help elderly and disabled people live independently. Alice has
been asked to lead a team of 6 developers than can develop new products
based around the company’s alarm technology.

Alice’s assistive technology project starts well. Good working relationships

develop within the team and creative new ideas are developed. The team
decides to develop a peer-to-peer messaging system using digital televisions
linked to the alarm network for communications. However, some months into
the project, Alice notices that Dorothy, a hardware design expert, starts coming
into work late, the quality of her work deteriorates and, increasingly, that she
does not appear to be communicating with other members of the team.
Alice talks about the problem informally with other team members to try to find
out if Dorothy’s personal circumstances have changed, and if this might be
affecting her work. They don’t know of anything, so Alice decides to talk with
Dorothy to try to understand the problem.

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 CASE STUDY: INDIVIDUAL MOTIVATION

After some initial denials that there is a problem, Dorothy admits

that she has lost interest in the job. She expected that she would
be able to develop and use her hardware interfacing skills.
However, because of the product direction that has been chosen,
she has little opportunity for this. Basically, she is working as a C
programmer with other team members.

Although she admits that the work is challenging, she is

concerned that she is not developing her interfacing skills. She is
worried that finding a job that involves hardware interfacing will be
difficult after this project. Because she does not want to upset the
team by revealing that she is thinking about the next project, she
has decided that it is best to minimize conversation with them.
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 COMMENTS ON CASE STUDY
• If you don’t sort out the problem of unacceptable work, the
other group members will become dissatisfied and feel that
they are doing an unfair share of the work.

• Personal difficulties affect motivation because people can’t

concentrate on their work. They need time and support to
resolve these issues, although you have to make clear that
they still have a responsibility to their employer.

• Alice gives Dorothy more design autonomy and organizes

training courses in software engineering that will give her
more opportunities after her current project has finished.
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 PERSONALITY TYPES
• The needs hierarchy is almost certainly an over-
simplification of motivation in practice.

• Motivation should also take into account different

personality types:
⮚ Task-oriented people, who are motivated by the work
they do. In software engineering.
⮚ Interaction-oriented people, who are motivated by the
presence and actions of co-workers.
⮚ Self-oriented people, who are principally motivated by
personal success and recognition.

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 PERSONALITY TYPES
• Task-oriented.
⮚ The motivation for doing the work is the work itself;
• Self-oriented.
⮚ The work is a means to an end which is the
achievement of individual goals - e.g. to get rich, to
play tennis, to travel etc.;
• Interaction-oriented
⮚ The principal motivation is the presence and actions of
co-workers. People go to work because they like to go
to work.

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 MOTIVATION BALANCE
• Individual motivations are made up of elements
of each class.

• The balance can change depending on personal

circumstances and external events.

• However, people are not just motivated by personal factors

but also by being part of a group and culture.

• People go to work because they are motivated by the

people that they work with.
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 TEAMWORK

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 TEAMWORK
• Most software engineering is a group activity
⮚The development schedule for most non-trivial software
projects is such that they cannot be completed by one
person working alone.

• A good group is cohesive and has a team spirit. The people

involved are motivated by the success of the group as well
as by their own personal goals.

• Group interaction is a key determinant of group

performance.

• Flexibility in group composition is limited

⮚ Managers must do Chapter
04/12/2014
the22best they can with available
Project management 39
people.
 GROUP COHESIVENESS
• In a cohesive group, members consider the group to be
more important than any individual in it.
• The advantages of a cohesive group are:
⮚ Group quality standards can be developed by the group
members.
⮚ Team members learn from each other and get to know
each other’s work; Inhibitions caused by ignorance are
reduced.
⮚ Knowledge is shared. Continuity can be maintained if a
group member leaves.
⮚ Refactoring and continual improvement is encouraged.
Group members work collectively to deliver high quality
results and fix problems, irrespective of the individuals
who originally created the design or program.
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 TEAM SPIRIT
Alice, an experienced project manager, understands the
importance of creating a cohesive group. As they are developing a
new product, she takes the opportunity of involving all group
members in the product specification and design by getting them
to discuss possible technology with elderly members of their
families. She also encourages them to bring these family
members to meet other members of the development group.

Alice also arranges monthly lunches for everyone in the group.

These lunches are an opportunity for all team members to meet
informally, talk around issues of concern, and get to know each
other. At the lunch, Alice tells the group what she knows about
organizational news, policies, strategies, and so forth. Each team
member then briefly summarizes what they have been doing and
the group discusses a general topic, such as new product ideas
from elderly relatives.
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 THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A TEAM
• The people in the group
⮚You need a mix of people in a project group as software
development involves diverse activities such as
negotiating with clients, programming, testing and
documentation.
• The group organization
⮚A group should be organized so that individuals can
contribute to the best of their abilities and tasks can be
completed as expected.
• Technical and managerial communications
⮚Good communications between group members, and
between the software engineering team and other
project stakeholders,
04/12/2014 is22essential.
Chapter Project management 42
 SELECTING GROUP MEMBERS
• A manager or team leader’s job is to create a cohesive
group and organize their group so that they can work
together effectively.
•
• This involves creating a group with the right balance of
technical skills and personalities, and organizing that group
so that the members work together effectively.

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 ASSEMBLING A TEAM
• 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.

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 GROUP COMPOSITION
• Group composed of members who share the
same motivation can be problematic
⮚ Task-oriented - everyone wants to do their own thing;
⮚ Self-oriented - everyone wants to be the boss;
⮚ Interaction-oriented - too much chatting, not enough
work.
• An effective group has a balance of all types.
• This can be difficult to achieve software engineers are often
task-oriented.
• Interaction-oriented people are very important as they can
detect and defuse tensions that arise.

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 GROUP COMPOSITION
In creating a group for assistive technology development, Alice is aware of the
importance of selecting members with complementary personalities. When
interviewing potential group members, she tried to assess whether they were
task-oriented, self-oriented, or interaction-oriented. She felt that she was
primarily a self-oriented type because she considered the project to be a way of
getting noticed by senior management and possibly promoted. She therefore
looked for one or perhaps two interaction-oriented personalities, with task-
oriented individuals to complete the team. The final assessment that she
arrived at was:

Alice—self-oriented
Brian—task-oriented
Bob—task-oriented
Carol—interaction-oriented
Dorothy—self-oriented
Ed—interaction-oriented
Fred—task-oriented

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 GROUP ORGANIZATION
• The way that a group is organized affects the decisions that are made
by that group, the ways that information is exchanged and the
interactions between the development group and external project
stakeholders.
– Key questions include:
• Should the project manager be the technical leader of the
group?
• Who will be involved in making critical technical decisions, and
how will these be made?
• How will interactions with external stakeholders and senior
company management be handled?
• How can groups integrate people who are not co-located?
• How can knowledge be shared across the group?

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 GROUP ORGANIZATION
• Small software engineering groups are usually organised
informally without a rigid structure.

• For large projects, there may be a hierarchical structure

where different groups are responsible for different sub-
projects.

• Agile development is always based around an informal

group on the principle that formal structure inhibits
information exchange

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 INFORMAL GROUPS
• The group acts as a whole and comes to a consensus on
decisions affecting the system.

• The group leader serves as the external interface of the

group but does not allocate specific work items.

• Rather, work is discussed by the group as a whole and tasks

are allocated according to ability and experience.

• This approach is successful for groups where all members

are experienced and competent.
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 GROUP COMMUNICATIONS
• Good communications are essential for effective group
working.

• Information must be exchanged on the status of work,

design decisions and changes to previous decisions.

• Good communications also strengthens group cohesion as

it promotes understanding.

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 GROUP COMMUNICATIONS
• Group size
⮚ The larger the group, the harder it is for people to
communicate with other group members.
• Group structure
⮚ Communication is better in informally structured groups
than in hierarchically structured groups.
• Group composition
⮚ Communication is better when there are different
personality types in a group and when groups are mixed
rather than single sex.
• The physical work environment
⮚ Good workplace organisation can help encourage
communications.
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 KEY POINTS
• Good project management is essential if software
engineering projects are to be developed on schedule and
within budget.
• Software management is distinct from other engineering
management. Software is intangible. Projects may be
novel or innovative with no body of experience to guide
their management. Software processes are not as mature
as traditional engineering processes.
• Risk management involves identifying and assessing
project risks to establish the probability that they will
occur and the consequences for the project if that risk
does arise. You should make plans to avoid, manage or
deal with likely risks if or when they arise.
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 KEY POINTS
• People management involves choosing the right people to work on a
project and organizing the team and its working environment.
• People are motivated by interaction with other people, the
recognition of management and their peers, and by being given
opportunities for personal development.
• Software development groups should be fairly small and cohesive.
The key factors that influence the effectiveness of a group are the
people in that group, the way that it is organized and the
communication between group members.
• Communications within a group are influenced by factors such as the
status of group members, the size of the group, the gender
composition of the group, personalities and available communication
channels.

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END OF PRESENTATION

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