1. Project Management IS301 – Software Engineering Lecture #5 – 2003-09-09 M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP Dept of Computer Information Systems Norwich University mkabay@norwich.edu

2. 2 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Topics  Management Activities  Project Planning  Project Scheduling  Risk Management

3. 3 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Management Activities  Great variability in assignments  Main functions of managers involve analysis and communication  Planning – time horizon rises with status  Motivation – getting people to work well  Supervision & adaptation  Good written and oral expression essential for success  Communicate with team members  Communicate with managers  Pay attention to good grammar, spelling  Avoid vulgarity, blasphemy, obscenity

4. 4 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Guidelines for Success in Project Management  Never surprise your boss  Keep informed of all significant changes  Warn of possible problems  Keep in loop during problem solution  Always give credit to those who have  Helped you  Helped others  Done a good job  Surpassed expectations

5. 5 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Why Plan?  The value of time is not constant  An hour or a day spent planning for contingencies can save a minute in an emergency – and be fully worth the cost and effort  Without planning  You don’t know where you’re going  You don’t know where you are  You can’t avoid the pitfalls ahead  You can’t tell you’re in trouble until it’s too late  You can’t adapt to new circumstances intelligently

6. 6 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Overview of Planning  Analyze needs and contingencies  Quality  Testing (validation)  Configuration management  Maintenance  Staff development  Keep in mind  Budgets  Staffing  Reporting

7. 7 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Planning (cont’d)  Know the limits on resources  Define your goals  Define your tools  Iteratively  Check status  Fix problems  Foresee problems  Improve plan

8. 8 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Project Plan Document your intentions  Introduction  Project organization  Who does what  Risk analysis (see later)  What could go wrong  HW/SW requirements (tools)  Also physical plant needs  Work breakdown  What’s to be done by when  Schedule – detailed time-line  Monitoring, reporting methods

9. 9 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Milestones & Deliverables  “Are we there yet?”  How do you know how you’re doing if you don’t look at where you are?  Define stages and when you’re supposed to reach them  Use measurable objectives  Don’t use partial completion criteria (Why not?)  There can be too few milestones (Why?)  There can be too many milestones (Why?)

10. 10 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Project Scheduling  Foolish optimism is the single greatest threat to effective scheduling.  Must avoid rose-colored glasses  “No problem – I’m sure (s)he can do that even though it’s a stretch.”  Some people always base estimates on best knowledge – and then double the estimate to allow for unexpected problems  Keep in mind resource requirements  E.g., if you plan to use twice as much disk storage as you have, plan to acquire the new storage before you need it

11. 11 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Critical Path Analysis (Activity Networks) http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_99.htm REQUIRED READING: http://www.mindtools.com/critpath.html

12. 12 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)  Estimate 3 times for each activity  Shortest_time  Expected_time  Longest_time  Calculate estimated time as Shortest_time + 4 X expected_time + longest_time 6

13. 13 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Bar Charts (Gantt Charts)  See http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM _ 03.htm http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM _ 03.htm http://www.mindtools.com/media/Diagrams/Ppm3_2.gif

14. 14 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Introduction to Risk Management  Think about what can go wrong  Estimate likelihood as best as possible  If possible, use published or actuarial statistics  But many risks not tabulated (Why are they unknown?)  Think about how to reduce incidence  Think about how to reduce damage  Think about how to respond

15. 15 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Risk Identification  Critical employee leaves / promoted  Vacation time, sick time  New management / organization  Hardware / software unavailability  Or characteristics significantly different  Requirements, specifications delayed  Bad estimate of scope  Tools perform badly  Technology changes  (Competition first to market)* * For commercial projects

16. 16 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. The Mythical Man-Month  One of the best books ever written about project management  Frederick P. Brooks  Was project manager for OS/360  1000 person-years  Lists many of lessons learned  MUST reading for every MIS/project manager  One of most famous “laws” is “Adding personnel to a project that is late makes it later.”  (Why?)  Type “mythical man-month brooks” into book search (e.g., AMAZON)

17. 17 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Homework  Study Chapter 4 of Sommerville using the R- R-R cycle of SQ3R  Survey-Question Chapter 5 for Thursday  Study the resources at the MindTools site: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN _ PPM.htm  REQUIRED (7 points):  By Tuesday the 16 th of Sep 2003, complete Sommerville’s problems 4.1-4.7  OPTIONAL (1 point each):  By Tuesday the 23 rd of Sep 2003, complete any or all of problems 4.8-4.11  By Tuesday the 30 th of Sep 2003, write a one-page book report on Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month.

18. 18 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. Longer-Term Optional Homework Projects  Interested students can speak individually or in groups (teams encouraged) with the instructor  Decide how much effort and value to put on optional project  Describe project in 1 page with approximate time-line  Finish at least 3 weeks before end of term  Milestones to be determined together  Can analyze real systems using resources online or using interviews  Can apply to project management, implementation  May build a system if that’s what you want to do

19. 19 Copyright © 2003 M. E. Kabay. All rights reserved. DISCUSSION