How to be manage a team under Pressure, Time and Cost Effectiveness

Group Member: Mariam Zia Hafiza Ayesha Salim Muhammed Jehangir khan

Defining Software Quality:

Quality has always been a difficult topic to define, and software quality has been exceptionally difficult. The reason is that perceptions of quality vary from person to person and from object to object. For software quality for a specific application, the perceptions of quality differ among clients, developers, users, managers, software quality personnel, testers, senior executives, and other stakeholders. The perceptions of quality also differ among quality consultants, academics, and litigation attorneys. Many definitions have been suggested over the years, but none have been totally satisfactory or totally adopted by the software industry, including those embodied in international standards. The reason that quality in general and software quality in particular have been elusive and hard to pin down is because the word quality has many nuances and overtones. For example, among the attributes of quality can be found these ten: 1. Elegance or beauty in the eye of the beholder 2. Fitness of use for various purposes 3. Satisfaction of user requirements, both explicit and implicit 4. Freedom from defects, perhaps to Six Sigma levels 5. High efficiency of defect removal activities 6. High reliability when operating 7. Ease of learning and ease of use 8. Clarity of user guides and HELP materials 9. Ease of access to customer support 10. Rapid repairs of reported defects To further complicate the definition, quality often depends on the context inwhich a software component or feature operates. The quality of a softwarecomponent is not an intrinsic propertythe exact same component can be ofexcellent quality or highly dangerous depending on the environment in which itoperates or the intent of the user.

Cost effectiveness:
Cost for projects are often a challenge to manage. This is true in most circumstances but IT, healthcare, consultants and software development projects tend to get the raw end of the deal most of the time. With technical issues, resource availability and specification changes all the time, project managers often find budget maintenance a real test. Dovico Timesheet & Project Planning Software does relieve the problem with over 95 Project Management Reports and an easy to use gantt planning chart, budgets can be managed with ease.

Increase and decrease task lengths, manage task dependencies, reorganise resources and align project budget goals in real time. Reports can then be generated and set to auto generate to keep your project management team abreast of any budget and over run issues well before they become project risks. Most small software vendors dont want all the hassle of taking payments direct from customers, so they use a third party registration service. Registration services provide payment processing plus additional services, including handling of:

licensee key emails coupon codes affiliate payments taxes invoice sales

But these services dont come cheap. According to this calculator some registration services charge as much as 15% commission on every 20/$40 sale. 15%! I find that quite staggering. 10% is more typical, but personally I dont intend to give 10+% of my hard earned income to anyone, except my wife and the government. To add insult to injury some of these services also try to up sell questionable offers to your customers. For example KAGI up sell a license look-up service for which the software vendor gets a, frankly insulting, $1. I understand from reading the macsb forum that the up sell will be added automatically to the shopping carts of all software vendors selling download and will be checked by default. You then have to opt out if you dont want it. Personally I think every software vendor should offer license retrieval for free. And dont even get me started on digital river/serge and their reservation rewards offer. PayPal and Google Checkout are much cheaper, with rates of approximately 3.4%[1] and 2.25%[2] respectively on a 20/$40 sale. But PayPal and Google Checkout are just payment processors and dont provide all the additional services most software vendors need. They provide extensive APIs so you can roll your own service, but this sounds like a lot of work reinventing the same old wheels. Alternatively you can use a third party to provide additional services on top of PayPal and/or Google Checkout. I use ejunkie which provides most of the services you would expect from a fully-fledged registration service from just $5 per month [3]. The savings can be considerable, for example (all figures approximate): If you can offset your Google Checkout processing fees against your Google adwords spend your monthly costs could be as little as just the $5 ejunkie fee.

Investigations of software development practices, processes, and techniques frequently report separately on the costs and benefits of a phenomenon under study, but rarely adequately address the combined bottom line implications. In particular, tensions between the quality and productivity effects are hard to reconcile, making objective, high-level insights elusive. For example, when would a practice that is believed to improve product quality, but incurs a developer productivity penalty economically feasible? In other words, under what conditions do the benefits outweigh the costs? Such questions can be tackled through synthesizing the combined effects and analyzing the resulting behaviors. In this light, the tutorial will present an approach that leverages well-known economic and financial concepts and techniques. The illustrated concepts and techniques can be used to wrap empirical findings related to software development practices and processes and evaluate software projects in terms of their cost-effectiveness. The tutorial is geared towards researchers and practitioners interested or involved in software processes, process improvement, project management, process/project measurement, and empirical software engineering. Though all 121 of the quality factors are important, in order to deal with the economic value of quality, it is obvious that the factors have to be capable of quantitative expression. It is also obvious that the factors have to influence these seven topics: 1. The costs of development, maintenance, enhancement, and support. 2. The schedules for development, maintenance, enhancement, and support. 3. The direct revenue that the application will accrue if it is marketed. 4. The indirect revenue that might accrue from services or related products. 5. The learning curve for users of the application. 6. The operational cost savings that the application will provide to users. 7. The new kinds of business opportunities that the application will provide to users. This book concentrates on software quality factors that have a tangible impact on costs and revenue. And to deal with the economic value of these quality factors, the book addresses three critical topics: What are the results of average quality in terms of costs, schedules, revenue,and other financial topics? Once defined, average quality will provide the baseline against which economic value can be measured. What are the results of high quality in terms of cost reduction, schedule reduction, higher revenues, new market opportunities, and other financial topics? What are the consequences of low quality in terms of cost increases, schedule increases, reduced revenue, loss of customers, and other financial topics?

TIME:
Project managers are in a constant battle between managing resources, skill sets, and billable hours. Worse still are those fixed priced projects that cost you money when actual hours spent overrun budgeted time. In order to manage and maintain the course of your projects you need clear and concise reporting systems. Time tracking reporting is not the only challenge to keep your management eyes on though; task assignments, leave, expenses, billable and non-billable time, cost Vs budget to name just a few are all part of the project management mix. Time Tracking Software by Dovecot, is not only a project managers best friend from a project planning point of view, but it provides over 95 reports as standard and allows you to create custom project management reports and set project management alerts and email notification reports if required.

BENEFITS - TIMESHEET MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Receive notices via e-mail when targets for time or costs have been reached Specify a lockout date after which no time can be entered or submitted Manage billable, non-billable, overtime, flextime
Setup the simple to use, easy time tracking for employees quickly.

Manage Projects:

Easy client, project & task setup Detailed or simple estimates Approve time & expenses Track project progress Up-to-date reporting Get free live world currency rates

Time & Expense Tracking:

Easy time & expense entry Track expenses in multiple currencies Attach receipt images to expenses View and print timesheets Short learning curve Graphs & reports Improved productivity.

Below is a sample list of some of the 95 reports we provide Free with the software:
ADMINISTRATION & PROJECT RESOURCES

Employee Assignments Holiday and Leave by Employee Projects By End Date Project Notes & Risks Time Over Time Under Timesheet Waiting for Approval Expenses Not Submitted

BILLABLE & NON-BILLABLE TIME

Employee Billable vs. Non-Billable Time by project Project Billable vs. Non-Billable Time By Employee Real Time Reporting Employee Time by project (Chart) Project Time (Chart) Time Entries by Project Project Time by Employee (with Budget) Employee Time by Project and Task (with Budget)

Pressure/ Stress:
It isn't easy to point on just one or two causes of stress. There are several factors that could contribute towards a person suffering from all sorts of stress.You must understand what causes stress if you are to efficiently try and reduce stress from your lifestyle. Most often, employees find themselves in a state of confusion as to what their job entails and they may even worry as to whether they might lose their jobs given the current economic situation. This could lead to a lot of stress in the workplace. Increased pressure from employers could also make an employee work too hard and maybe even work overtime in an attempt to impress the employer or outdo another employee. There are of course other reasons that could contribute to individual employees suffering from severe stress outside the workplace such as family problems, health related issues and so on. Failure to understand and eliminate these elements that cause the stress, could eventually lead to dire consequences. These elements are generally known as stressors and are found in plenty in the workplace. It is not only the employees who need to identify these stressors, but also the organization itself would need to take relevant steps. HOW TO REDUCE STRESS It is of utmost importance that an organization takes this issue seriously. The organization can help reduce stress by:

Reducing the number of hours for which their employees would have to work per week. This will, in the long run, contribute to a more efficient functioning of the organization, as employees would have more time to rest at home, and will come back the next day feeling refreshed. Working hours should be flexible. This may also include shifts, and the rotation of employees.

A tried and tested technique that many organizations have begun using is the provision of lounges and other recreational facilities to help employees relax during the day should they require some time off. You may even choose to add refreshments and a TV so that they could forget all the worries of work for a few minutes. Investing in such facilities is a great idea for any organization. You may also allow them to take more holidays throughout the year to ensure that they have a good break.

Female employees may find that they do not have enough time to spend with their newborn if they have just had a baby. You should make allowance for such situations. Providing longer maternity leave could help your female employee to come back to work without having too much on her mind with regard to the baby and any postnatal depression. Another idea would be to provide child care facilities at the office so that mothers with young children could peep in and ensure their kids are okay every few hours.

As an employee, you should also make it a point to occasionally have a casual chat with your employees to ensure that they are satisfied with their jobs and have no issues at work. You should also encourage them and appreciate and praise him/her for tasks carried out very well. This would reduce any worries they may have of the risks of losing their jobs and help them to feel more secure.

TIPS ON COPING WITH STRESS If you are suffering from stress and have identified some of the causes, you should try different techniques to help you cope with the pressure or problems that you face. Being positive and remaining calms would take you a very long way. Try not to worry about insignificant matters.

If you have any queries or any work-related problems, you should always take it up with your employer and try and get the issue sorted out. It is important to keep in mind that you should take regular breaks while at work and even after you get home. You can relieve yourself of most of the stress by taking part in relaxing activities, be it yoga or simply curling up on the couch with a good book and a cup of coffee. Create a schedule and plan out how you would balance both your work life and family life without letting one overtake the other. You would find that you are more relaxed this way and would actually look forward to going to work the next day. Of course, nothing can beat a good nights sleep and a healthy lifestyle and diet. CONCLUSION Although most work-related software may seem too huge to shake off, once you master the art of coping with stress, time and cost effectiveness are able to get rid of any negative thoughts, you would find that peace would come to you naturally.