DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT (LSM)

ASSIGNMENT -4

OF

SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

MS. PENCY JUNEGA SHUJA QAMMER

REG NO: 10904442
ROLL NO: A03
SECTION: S1906
MBA (IT)
3rd Sem.
 Part-A
Qns.1: Elaborate on the issues that relates to the Risk analysis and Risk management
of any software development process and why we need Risk management?

Ans: Risk analysis:

Risk analysis is a technique to identify and assess factors that may jeopardize the success of a project or
achieving a goal. This technique also helps to define preventive measures to reduce the probability of these
factors from occurring and identify countermeasures to successfully deal with these constraints when they
develop to avert possible negative effects on the competitiveness of the company. Reference class
forecasting was developed to increase accuracy in risk analysis.

Facilitated Risk Analysis process:

FRAP analyzes one system, application or segment of business processes at time.

FRAP assumes that additional efforts to develop precisely quantified risks are not cost effective because:

 Such estimates are time consuming

 Risk documentation becomes too voluminous for practical use
  Specific loss estimates are generally not needed to determine if controls are needed.

Risk management:
Risk management is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and
economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of
unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities. Risks can come from uncertainty in
financial markets, project failures, legal liabilities, credit risk, accidents, natural causes and disasters as
well as deliberate attacks from an adversary. Several risk management standards have been developed
including the Project Management Institute, the National Institute of Science and Technology, actuarial
societies, and ISO standards. Methods, definitions and goals vary widely according to whether the risk
management method is in the context of project management, security, engineering, industrial processes,
financial portfolios, actuarial assessments, or public health and safety.

The strategies to manage risk include transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the
negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk.

Risks in Software Project Management:

 The dangers in the young and emerging field of software engineering must often be learned without the
benefit of lifelong exposure. A more deliberate approach is required. Such an approach involves studying
the experiences of successful project managers as well as keeping up with the leading writers and thinkers
in the field.

The following top 10 software risk items:

 Personnel Shortfalls,
 Unrealistic schedules and budgets,
 Developing the wrong functions and properties,
 Developing the wrong user interface,
 Gold-plating,
 Continuing stream of requirements changes,
 Shortfalls in externally furnished components,
 Shortfalls in externally performed tasks,
 Real-time performance shortfalls,
 Straining computer-science capabilities,

Qns.2: What are the objective of activity planning and discuss the different activity
identification technique?

Ans: Activity Planning:

Activity planning is a term used to describe the planning and promoting of activities in the residence halls.
These activities promote the development of community since they allow residents to spend time together
and enjoy themselves, consequently leading to a sense of belonging.
 Ensure that the appropriate resources will be available precisely when required,
 Avoid different activity competing for the same resources at the same time,
 Produced a detailed schedule showing which staff carry out each activity,
 Produced a detailed plan against which actual achievement may be measured,
 Produced a time cash flow forecast,
 Replan the project during its life to correct drift from the target,

Objective of activity planning:

Feasibility assessment:
It is not until we have constructed a detailed plan that we can forecast a completion date with any
responsible knowledge of its achievability. The fact that a project may have been estimated as requiring
two work years effort might not mean that it would be feasible to complete it within three months were
eight people to work on it, that will happened upon the availability to staff and the degree to which
activities may be under taken in parallel.

Resource allocation:
The project plan allows us to investigate the relationship between timescales and resource availability and
the efficacy of additional spending on resource procurement. What are the most effective ways of
allocating resources to the project and when should be available?
Detailed costing:
How much will the project cost and when is that expenditure likely to take place, after producing an
activity plan and allocating specific resources, we can obtain more detailed estimates of costs and their
timing.

Qns.3: Burman’s priority ordering for allocating resources to activity takes into
account the activity duration as well as its total float. Why do you think this is
advantageous?
Ans: Resource Allocation:
Resource allocation is used to assign the available resources in an economic way. It is part of resource
management. In project management, resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources
required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource availability and the project
time.
Resource allocation is the distribution of resources – usually financial - among competing groups of
people or programs. When we talk about allocation of funds for healthcare, we need to consider three
distinct levels of decision-making.
 Part B
Qns.4: In scheduling a large project, the project manager ignored the risk of absence
due to staff sickness. What might he/she have done to estimate the likelihood of this
occurring and how might he/she taken account of the risk when scheduling the
project?
Ans: Scheduling:
Project scheduling is concerned with the techniques that can be employed to manage the activities that
need to be undertaken during the development of a project. Scheduling is an inexact process in that it tries
to predict the future. While it is not possible to know with certainty how long a project will take, there are
techniques that can increase your likelihood of being close. If you are close in your planning and
estimating, you can manage the project to achieve the schedule by accelerating some efforts or modifying
approaches to meet required deadlines.

One key ingredient in the scheduling process is experience in the project area; another is experience with
scheduling in general. In every industry area there will be a body of knowledge that associates the
accomplishment of known work efforts with the time duration. In some industries, there are books
recording industry standards for use by cost and schedule estimators. Interviewing those who have had
experience with similar projects is the best way to determine how long things will really take.

When preparing a schedule estimate, consider that transition between activities often takes time.
Organizations or resources outside your direct control may not share your sense of schedule urgency, and
their work may take longer to complete. Beware of all external dependency relationships. Uncertain
resources of talent, equipment, or data will likely result in extending the project schedule.

Experience teaches that things usually take longer than we think they will, and that giving away schedule
margin in the planning phase is a sure way to ensure a highly stressed project effort. People tend to be
optimistic in estimating schedules and, on average, estimate only 80% of the time actually required.

Scheduling is carried out in advance of the project commencing and involves:

• identifying the tasks that need to be carried out;

• estimating how long they will take;
• allocating resources;
• scheduling when the tasks will occur.

Qns.5: Discuss how meaningful the following measurement are:

a) The number of error message produced on the first compilation of a program
b) The average effort to implement changes requested by user to a system
 c) The percentage of lines in program listing that are comments
d) The number of pages in requirement document.
Ans:

Qns.6. How PERT technique take account of the uncertainty surrounding estimate of
tak duration explain it? Using PERT network solve the given problem and find the
standard deviation and target date for this project.

Activity Optimistic
A 6
B 5
C 4
D 5
E 1
F 2
.
Most likely Pessimistic
7 9
6 7
5 7
7 9
3 4
3 5

Ans: PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) are project management techniques, which have been
created out of the need of Western industrial and military establishments to plan, schedule and control
complex projects. A PERT chart is a project management tool used to schedule, organize, and coordinate
tasks within a project. PERT stands for Program Evaluation Review Technique, a methodology developed
by the U.S. Navy in the 1950s to manage the Polaris submarine missile program. A similar methodology,
the Critical Path Method (CPM) was developed for project management in the private sector at about the
same time.
A PERT chart presents a graphic illustration of a project as a network diagram consisting of
numbered nodes representing events, or milestones in the project linked by labeled vectors representing
tasks in the project. The direction of the arrows on the lines indicates the sequence of tasks. In the diagram,
for example, the tasks between nodes 1, 2, 4, 8, and 10 must be completed in sequence. These are
called dependent or serial tasks. The tasks between nodes 1 and 2, and nodes 1 and 3 are not dependent on
the completion of one to start the other and can be undertaken simultaneously. These tasks are
called parallel or concurrent tasks. Tasks that must be completed in sequence but that don't require
resources or completion time are considered to have event dependency. These are represented by dotted
lines with arrows and are called dummy activities. For example, the dashed arrow linking nodes 6 and 9
indicates that the system files must be converted before the user test can take place, but that the resources
and time required to prepare for the user test are on another path. Numbers on the opposite sides of the
vectors indicate the time allotted for the task.

The PERT chart is sometimes preferred over the Gantt chart, another popular project management charting
method, because it clearly illustrates task dependencies. On the other hand, the PERT chart can be much
more difficult to interpret, especially on complex projects. Frequently, project managers use both
techniques.
Advantage:

 PERT chart explicitly defines and makes visible dependencies (precedence relationships) between
the WBS elements
 PERT facilitates identification of the critical path and makes this visible
 PERT facilitates identification of early start, late start, and slack for each activity,
 PERT provides for potentially reduced project duration due to better understanding of
dependencies leading to improved overlapping of activities and tasks where feasible.
 The large amount of project data can be organized & presented in diagram for use in decision
making.

Disadvantage:

 There can be potentially hundreds or thousands of activities and individual dependency

relationships
 The network charts tend to be large and unwieldy requiring several pages to print and requiring
special size paper
 The lack of a timeframe on most PERT/CPM charts makes it harder to show status although colors
can help
 When the PERT/CPM charts become unwieldy, they are no longer used to manage the project.