Scenario Oriented Project Management Knowledge Reuse within a Risk Analysis Process Márcio de Oliveira Barros Cláudia Maria Lima Werner Guilherme Horta Travassos COPPE / UFRJ

Software Project Management  Complex software development is a risk job –Too many software projects are concluded costly and behind schedule than planned, specially large projects  Project Management –Project management is determinant to project success –Most project management techniques that are used today date from the early 1950’s –There has been little advancements in PM techniques when compared to development techniques

Scenario Based PM  Scenario analysis in project management –Scenario based project management (SBPM) is a set of techniques that allow a manager to test a project sensibility to unexpected events and actions –The manager defines project expect behavior, such as activities distribution through schedule, planned cost and quality (project model) –The manager reuses and creates scenarios describing events, actions or policies that can affect the project (scenario models) –Scenarios and project models are integrated to evaluate scenario impact upon the project

SBPM Architecture Project Model Scenarios develops analyzes P M Simulation Environment builds

Behavior Evaluation  Models are described in system dynamics (SD) –System dynamics is a modeling technique to describe complex systems, focusing on their structural aspects –Models are mathematically formulated using extended system dynamics constructors –Project models are evaluated through simulation, with or without integrated scenario models  We are proposing some extension to SD –Higher model representation level –Element attributes representation –Separating facts from assumptions

PM Knowledge Representation  Scenarios hold project management knowledge –Scenarios can be organized in an organization-wide knowledge base to project managers –Scenarios allow formal documentation of assumptions and proven information about project management –Senior project managers can create scenarios allowing less experienced managers to share their knowledge by retrieving and reusing such models –During application development, the manager retrieves the scenarios that he believes can affect his project and evaluates their impact upon the project behavior

PM Knowledge Reuse  Knowledge sharing resembles a reuse process –Scenario models are the reusable artifact –Two-staged development process –“Development for reuse” and “Development with reuse” IdentifyDocumentPack Development for Reuse Reusable Artifacts BrowseUnderstandAdapt Development with Reuse Need for reusable artifacts

PM Knowledge as Scenarios  Advantages –Scenarios are formal representations that can be directly evaluated upon a project model –Due to system dynamics, scenarios capture non-linear relationships among project elements –There is a framework for PM knowledge sharing and reuse (based on the generic reuse process) –There is a technique for scenario evaluation and we are currently developing tools to support this technique  Disadvantages –Math is good for computer evaluation, but not for human analysis. Scenarios need complementary information to help selection and understanding

Risk Archetypes  Standard information structure –Describes a potential problem that can occur along several development projects –The information structure documents the experience of forecasting, identifying and resolving such problems –It wraps scenario models that are used to describe the impact of the problem and its resolution strategies –It allows navigation among risk archetypes and has criteria for problem selection based on the application or development process characteristics

Development Sharing as Reuse  Development for reuse –Risk management for risk identification –Identifying, modeling, and documenting risk archetypes  Development with reuse –Risk management for application development –Selecting, understanding, and adapting risk archetypes  Feedback –Applications might need some archetypes that are not already developed, feeding the risk identification process with needs

Experimental Validation  The proposed techniques are under evaluation  Preliminary studies –Observational study upon documenting the risks of an application domain using risk archetypes to (financial market risk management software)  First major experiment –Quasi-experiment to evaluate the application of the proposed techniques in software project management

Conclusions  Scenarios are useful for PM knowledge representation  Scenarios have higher representation capabilities than traditional PM models, such as PERT  There is a framework to support scenario sharing and reuse  Experimental results show promising results

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