Project management

 Organising, planning and scheduling

software projects
Objectives
 To introduce software project management and
to describe its distinctive characteristics

To discuss project planning and the planning
process
 To show how graphical schedule representations
are used by project management
 To discuss the notion of risks and the risk
management process
Topics covered
 Management activities
 Project planning
 Project scheduling
 Risk management
Software project management

Software project management is an art and discipline of
planning and supervising software projects. It is a sub-
discipline of software project management in which
software projects planned, implemented, monitored and
controlled.

It is a procedure of managing, allocating and timing
resources to develop computer software that fulfills
requirements.
 In software Project Management, the client and the
developers need to know the length, period and cost of the
project.
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
Prerequisite of software project management?


There are three needs for software project management.
These are:

Time

Cost

Quality

It is an essential part of the software organization to deliver a
quality product, keeping the cost within the client’s budget
and deliver the project as per schedule. There are various
factors, both external and internal, which may impact this
triple factor. Any of three-factor can severely affect the other
two.
Project Manager
 A project manager is a character who has the overall
responsibility for the planning, design, execution,
monitoring, controlling and closure of a project. A project
manager represents an essential role in the achievement
of the projects.

A project manager is a character who is responsible for
giving decisions, both large and small projects. The
project manager is used to manage the risk and minimize
uncertainty. Every decision the project manager makes
must directly profit their project.
Role of a Project Manager:
Leader

A project manager must lead his team and should provide them
direction to make them understand what is expected from all of them.
Medium:

The Project manager is a medium between his clients and his team.
He must coordinate and transfer all the appropriate information from
the clients to his team and report to the senior management.
Mentor:

He should be there to guide his team at each step and make sure that
the team has an attachment. He provides a recommendation to his
team and points them in the right direction.
Responsibilities of a Project Manager:

Managing People

Act as project leader
 Liaison with stakeholders
 Managing human resources

Setting up reporting hierarchy etc.
Managing Project

Defining and setting up project scope
 Managing project management activities
 Monitoring progress and performance
 Risk analysis at every phase

Take necessary step to avoid or come out of problems
 Act as project spokesperson
Software management distinctions
 The product is intangible
 The product is uniquely flexible
 Software engineering is not recognized as an
engineering discipline with the same status as
mechanical, electrical engineering, etc.
 The software development process is not
standardised
 Many software projects are 'one-off' projects
Management activities
 Like typical project management, 
IT project management involves number of
activities to plan, track, monitor and deliver
project. Software project management also
involves certain activities about software
development and maintenance.
Management activities
Software project management can include following activities:
 Project planning and Tracking

Project Resource Management

Scope Management
 Estimation Management
 Project Risk Management
 Scheduling Management

Project Communication Management
 Configuration Management
 In order to get a holistic view and better control over project project
managers prefer to use project management software for IT teams.
Management activities
 1. Project Planning: It is a set of multiple processes, or we can say
that it a task that performed before the construction of the product
starts.
 2. Scope Management: It describes the scope of the project. Scope
management is important because it clearly defines what would do
and what would not. Scope Management create the project to
contain restricted and quantitative tasks, which may merely be
documented and successively avoids price and time overrun.

3. Estimation management: This is not only about cost estimation
because whenever we start to develop software, but we also figure
out their size(line of code), efforts, time as well as cost.

©Ian Sommerville 2000 Software Engineering, 6th edition. Chapter 4 Slide 13

Management activities
 4. Scheduling Management: Scheduling Management in software
refers to all the activities to complete in the specified order and
within time slotted to each activity. Project managers define multiple
tasks and arrange them keeping various factors in mind.

5. Project Resource Management: In software Development, all
the elements are referred to as resources for the project. It can be a
human resource, productive tools, and libraries.

6. Project Risk Management: Risk management consists of all the
activities like identification, analyzing and preparing the plan for
predictable and unpredictable risk in the project.

©Ian Sommerville 2000 Software Engineering, 6th edition. Chapter 4 Slide 14

Management activities
 7. Project Communication
Management: Communication is an essential factor in
the success of the project. It is a bridge between client,
organization, team members and as well as other
stakeholders of the project such as hardware suppliers.

From the planning to closure, communication plays a
vital role. In all the phases, communication must be clear
and understood. Miscommunication can create a big
blunder in the project.

©Ian Sommerville 2000 Software Engineering, 6th edition. Chapter 4 Slide 15

Management activities
 8. Project Configuration Management: Configuration
management is about to control the changes in software like
requirements, design, and development of the product.
 The Primary goal is to increase productivity with fewer errors.

Some reasons show the need for configuration management:

Several people work on software that is continually update.

Help to build coordination among suppliers.

Changes in requirement, budget, schedule need to accommodate.

Software should run on multiple systems.

©Ian Sommerville 2000 Software Engineering, 6th edition. Chapter 4 Slide 16

Management activities
 People involved in Configuration Management:

Project Manager

Configuration Manager

Developers

Users

©Ian Sommerville 2000 Software Engineering, 6th edition. Chapter 4 Slide 17

Management commonalities
 These activities are not peculiar to software
management

Many techniques of engineering project
management are equally applicable to software
project management

Technically complex engineering systems tend
to suffer from the same problems as software
systems
Important Management
activities
 Proposal writing
 Project planning and scheduling
 Project costing
 Project monitoring and reviews

Personnel selection and evaluation

Report writing and presentations
Project Proposal
 A project proposal is a document that outlines
everything stakeholders need to know to initiate
a project. It’s a necessary first step towards
getting a project off the ground.

A well-written project proposal informs and
persuades, and 
combines project management skills with a few
other essential skills: research, data analysis,
and some copywriting.
Project Proposal Format
Conventional proposal formats that include the
following elements:

Executive summary.
 Background or history

Requirements.

Solution
 Authorization
 Appendix
Steps to Write Software project proposal

Step 1: Define the problem

Step 2: Present your solution
Step 3: 
Define your deliverables and success criteria
Step 4: State your plan or approach
Step 5: Outline your project schedule and budget
Step 6: Tie it all together
Step 7: Edit/proofread your proposal
Project staffing
 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 (as is currently the case) there
is an international shortage of skilled IT staff
Project planning
 Probably the most time-consuming project
management activity

Continuous activity from initial concept through
to system delivery. Plans must be regularly
revised as new information becomes available

Various different types of plan may be
developed to support the main software project
plan that is concerned with schedule and budget
Types of project plan
Plan Description
Quality plan Describes the quality procedures and
standards that will be used in a project.
Validation plan Describes the approach, resources and
schedule used for system validation.
Configuration Describes the configuration management
management plan procedures and structures to be used.
Maintenance plan Predicts the maintenance requirements of
the system, maintenance costs and effort
required.
Staff development plan. Describes how the skills and experience of
the project team members will be
developed.
Project planning process
Establish the project constraints
Make initial assessments of the project parameters
Define project milestones and deliverables
while project has not been completed or cancelled loop
Draw up project schedule
Initiate activities according to schedule
Wait ( for a while )
Review project progress
Revise estimates of project parameters
Update the project schedule
Re-negotiate project constraints and deliverables
if ( problems arise )then
Initiate technical review and possible revision
end if
end loop
Project plan structure
 Introduction
 Project organisation
 Risk analysis
 Hardware and software resource requirements

Work breakdown

Project schedule
 Monitoring and reporting mechanisms
Activity organization
 Activities in a project should be organised to
produce tangible outputs for management to
judge progress
 Milestones are the end-point of a process activity
 Deliverables are project results delivered to
customers
 The waterfall process allows for the
straightforward definition of progress milestones
Milestones in the RE process

ACT IVITIES

Feasibility Requir ements Prototype Design Requir ements

study analysis development study specification

Feasibility Requir ements Evaluation Architectural Requir ements

report definition report design specification

MILESTONES
Project scheduling
 Split project into tasks and estimate time and
resources required to complete each task
 Organize tasks concurrently to make optimal
use of workforce
 Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays
caused by one task waiting for another to
complete
 Dependent on project managers intuition and
experience
The project scheduling
process

Identify Identify activity Estimate resources Allocate people Create project

activities dependencies for activities to activities charts

Software Activity charts

requirements and bar charts
Scheduling problems
 Estimating the difficulty of problems and hence
the cost of developing a solution is hard

Productivity is not proportional to the number of
people working on a task
 Adding people to a late project makes it later
because of communication overheads
 The unexpected always happens. Always allow
contingency in planning
Bar charts and activity
networks
 Graphical notations used to illustrate the project
schedule

Show project breakdown into tasks. Tasks
should not be too small. They should take about
a week or two

Activity charts show task dependencies and the
the critical path

Bar charts show schedule against calendar time
Task durations and
dependencies
Task Duration (days) Dependencies
T1 8
T2 15
T3 15 T1 (M1)
T4 10
T5 10 T2, T4 (M2)
T6 5 T1, T2 (M3)
T7 20 T1 (M1)
T8 25 T4 (M5)
T9 15 T3, T6 (M4)
T10 15 T5, T7 (M7)
T11 7 T9 (M6)
T12 10 T11 (M8)
Activity network
14/7/99 15 days
15 days
M1 T3
8 days T9
T1 5 days 4/8/99 25/8/99
25/7/99
T6 M4 M6
4/7/99 M3
start 20 days 7 days
15 days
T7 T11
T2

25/7/99 10 days 11/8/99 5/9/99

10 days
M2 M7 M8
T4 T5 15 days
T10 10 days
18/7/99
T12
M5
25 days
T8 Finish
19/9/99
Activity timeline
4/7 11/7 18/7 25/7 1/8 8/8 15/8 22/8 29/8 5/9 12/9 19/9
Start
T4
T1
T2
M1
T7
T3
M5
T8
M3
M2
T6
T5
M4
T9
M7
T10
M6
T11
M8
T12
Finish
Staff allocation
4/7 11/7 18/7 25/ 1/8 8/8 15/8 22/8 29/8 5/9 12/9 19/9

Fred T4
T8 T11
T12
Jane T1
T3
T9
Anne T2
T6 T10

Jim T7

Mary T5
Risk management
 Risk management is concerned with identifying
risks and drawing up plans to minimise their
effect on a project.
 A risk is a probability that some adverse
circumstance will occur.
• 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
Software risks
Risk Risk type Description
Staff turnover Project Experienced staff will leave the
project before it is finished.
Management change Project There will be a change of
organisational management with
different priorities.
Hardware unavailability Project Hardware which is essential for the
project will not be delivered on
schedule.
Requirements change Project and There will be a larger number of
product changes to the requirements than
anticipated.
Specification delays Project and Specifications of essential interfaces
product are not available on schedule
Size underestimate Project and The size of the system has been
product underestimated.
CASE tool under- Product CASE tools which support the
performance project do not perform as anticipated
Technology change Business The underlying technology on which
the system is built is superseded by
new technology.
Product competition Business A competitive product is marketed
before the system 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
The risk management process

Risk Risk analysis Risk planning Risk

identification monitoring

List of potential Risk avoidance Risk

Prioritised risk and contingency
risks list assessment
plans
Risk identification
 Technology risks
 People risks
 Organisational risks
 Requirements risks (clear, complete,
consistence)

Estimation risks
Risks and risk types
Risk type Possible risks
Technology The database used in the system cannot process as
many transactions per second as expected.
Software components which should be reused contain
defects which limit their functionality.
People It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required.
Key staff are ill and unavailable at critical times.
Required training for staff is not available.
Organisational The organisation is restructured so that different
management are responsible for the project.
Organisational financial problems force reductions in the
project budget.
Tools The code generated by CASE tools is inefficient.
CASE tools cannot be integrated.
Requirements Changes to requirements which require major design
rework are proposed.
Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements
changes.
Estimation The time required to develop the software is
underestimated.
The rate of defect repair is underestimated.
The size of the software is underestimated.
Risk analysis
 Assess probability and seriousness of each risk
 Probability may be very low, low, moderate, high
or very high
 Risk effects might be catastrophic, serious,
tolerable or insignificant
Risk analysis
Risk Probability Effects
Organisational financial problems force Low Catastrophic
reductions in the project budget.
It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills High Catastrophic
required for the project.
Key staff are ill at critical times in the project. Moderate Serious
Software components which should be reused Moderate Serious
contain defects which limit their functionality.
Changes to requirements which require major Moderate Serious
design rework are proposed.
The organisation is restructured so that different High Serious
management are responsible for the project.
The database used in the system cannot process Moderate Serious
as many transactions per second as expected.
The time required to develop the software is High Serious
underestimated.
CASE tools cannot be integrated. High Tolerable
Customers fail to understand the impact of Moderate Tolerable
requirements changes.
Required training for staff is not available. Moderate Tolerable
The rate of defect repair is underestimated. Moderate Tolerable
The size of the software is underestimated. High Tolerable
The code generated by CASE tools is inefficient. Moderate Insignificant
Risk planning
 Consider each risk and develop a strategy to
manage that risk

Avoidance strategies
• The probability that the risk will arise is reduced
 Minimisation 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
Risk management strategies
Risk Strategy
Organisational Prepare a briefing document for senior management showing how the project is
financial problems making a very important contribution to the goals of the business.
Recruitment Alert customer of potential difficulties and the possibility of delays, investigate
problems buying-in components.
Staff illness Reorganise team so that there is more overlap of work and people therefore
understand each other’s jobs.
Defective Replace potentially defective components with bought-in components of known
components reliability.
Requirements Derive traceability information to assess requirements change impact, maximise
changes information hiding in the design.
Organisational Prepare a briefing document for senior management showing how the project is
restructuring making a very important contribution to the goals of the business.
Database Investigate the possibility of buying a higher-performance database.
performance
Underestimated Investigate buying in components, investigate use of a program generator.
development time
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
Risk factors

Risk type Potential indicators

Technology Late delivery of hardware or support software, many reported
technology problems
People Poor staff morale, poor relationships amongst team member,
job availability
Organisational organisational gossip, lack of action by senior management
Tools reluctance by team members to use tools, complaints about
CASE tools, demands for higher-powered workstations
Requirements many requirements change requests, customer complaints
Estimation failure to meet agreed schedule, failure to clear reported
defects
Key points
 Good project management is essential for project
success

The intangible nature of software causes problems for
management

Managers have diverse roles but their most significant
activities are planning, estimating and scheduling
 Planning and estimating are iterative processes
which continue throughout the course of a
project
Key points
 A project milestone is a predictable state where
some formal report of progress is presented to
management.
 Risks may be project risks, product risks or
business risks

Risk management is concerned with identifying
risks which may affect the project and planning
to ensure that these risks do not develop into
major threats

Explore and enlist top five risks?
• Cost
• Time
• Requirements are incomplete
• Employee leave

Why sometimes specification are complete?

Why specification are incomplete?
 Choose topic and explain risk mgmt.?

Limitation in risk?

Diff. b/w risk and uncertainty(when info is not complete/imperfect)

How to minimize/avoid risk?

What are risk avoidance strategy

Why risk are present in all s/w project