Software Project Management

Session 7: Risk and Change Management

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 Today

• Risk Management
• Change Control
• Configuration Management

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 Risk Management
• Problems that haven’t happened yet
• Why is it hard?
• Some are wary of bearing bad news
– No one wants to be the messenger
– Or seen as “a worrier”
• You need to define a strategy early in your
project

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 Risk Management
• Definition of Risk: An uncertain event or
condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or
negative effect on a project objective.
• Identification, Analysis, Control
• Goal: avoid a crisis
• Thayer: Risk Mgmt. vs. Project Mgt.
– For a specific vs. all projects
– Proactive vs. reactive
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 Project Risk
• Characterized by:
– Uncertainty (0 < probability < 1)
– An associated loss (money, life, reputation, etc)
– Manageable – some action can control it
• Risk Exposure
– Product of probability and potential loss
• Problem
– A risk that has materialized
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 Types of Risks
• Schedule Risks
• Schedule compression (customer, marketing, etc.)
• Cost Risks
• Unreasonable budgets
• Requirements Risks
• Incorrect
• Incomplete
• Unclear or inconsistent
• Volatile

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 Types of Risks
• Quality Risks
• Operational Risks
• Most of the “Classic Mistakes”
– Classic mistakes are made more often

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 Types of Risks
Known risks
- Unclear requirements
- Inexperienced team
Unknown risks: Foreseen based on experience
- Difficult communication with customer
- Fluctuation within team
Unknowable risks: Cannot be foreseen
- Half of the team gets fish poisoning at first social
event
- Earthquake wipes out production plant
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 Miniature Milestones
• A risk-reduction technique
• Use of small goals within project schedule
– One of McConnell’s Best Practices (Ch. 27)
• Fine-grained approach to plan & track
• Reduces risk of undetected project slippage
• Pros
– Enhances status visibility
– Good for project recovery
• Cons
– Increase project tracking effort
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 Miniature Milestones
• Can be used throughout the development cycle
• Works with will hard-to-manage project activities
or methods
– Such as with evolutionary prototyping
• Reduces unpleasant surprises
• Success factors
– Overcoming resistance from those managed
– Staying true to ‘miniature’ nature
• Can improve motivation through achievements
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 Miniature Milestones
• Requires a detailed schedule
• Have early milestones
• McConnell says 1-2 days
– Longer is still good (1-2 weeks)
• Encourages iterative development
• Use binary milestones
– Done or not done (100%)

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 Change Control

Change CM
Control System
System
CM Tool

“Quality Software Project Management”, Futrell, Shafer, Shafer

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 Configuration Control
• A management support function
• Includes
• Program code changes
• Requirements and design changes
• Version release changes
• Essential for developed items
• Code, documentation, etc.
• Example
• The case of the code that used to work
– But didn’t in time for the demo

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Configuration Control Terminology
• Software Configuration Control Item (SCCI)
• a.k.a. Source Item (SI)
• Anything suitable for configuration control
• Source code, documents, diagrams, etc.
• Change Control: process of controlling changes
• Proposal, evaluation, approval, scheduling, implementation, tracking
• Version Control: controlling software version releases
• Recording and saving releases
• Documenting release differences
• Configuration Control: process of evaluating, approving
and disapproving, and managing changes to SCCIs.

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 SCM
• Software Configuration Management
• Formal engineering discipline
• Methods and tools to identify & manage
software throughout its use

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Configuration Control Needs
– Establish clearly defined mgmt. Authority
– Setup control standards, procedures and
guidelines
• All team members must be aware of these
– Requires appropriate tools and infrastructure
– Configuration Management Plan must be
produced during planning phase
• Often part of Software Development Plan

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 Maintenance
• SCM is very important during all phases
starting with Requirements
• Continues to be important during
Maintenance

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 Homework
• Reading “Project Human Resource
Management”
• Earned Value URL: See class web site
• Top 10 Risk List for your project

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 Questions?

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