Chapter 3 Project Management Parts of this presentation is extracted from Ian Sommerville’s slides located at http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/sommerville Sommerville SE 8: Chapter 5, Chapter 26

Objectives Know the principal tasks of software managers Understand the need for planning in all software projects Understand how graphical presentations can be used for project schedules Understand the risk management process in software projects

Overview Why Software project management? Project Management Activities Team formation Project planning and scheduling Cost estimation

Do you Agree or Disagree Good management guarantees project success Bad management usually result in project failure Good management can not guarantee project success. Bad management usually results in project failure.

Why? Project management is needed because software development is always subject to budget and schedule constraints.

Software project management is difficult than other engineering project management because: The product is intangible. The software development process is not standardised. Many software projects are 'one-off' projects The role of the project manager encompasses many activities including: * Planning and Defining Scope * Activity Planning and Sequencing * Resource Planning * Developing Schedules * Time Estimating * Cost Estimating * Developing a Budget * Controlling Quality * Managing Risks and Issues * Creating Charts and Schedules * Risk Analysis * Benefits Realisation * Scalability, Interoperability and Portability Analysis * Documentation * Team Leadership * Strategic Influencing * Customer Liaison

Project Management Activities Proposal writing/ Report writing and presentations.  writing and communication skills (covered in other courses) Team formation ( personal selection and evaluation) Project planning and scheduling. Project cost estimation. Project monitoring and reviews. (covered in QA chapter) Report writing and presentations

Team Formation A project manager success starts with creating the best team possible and having the right people in the right roles. 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 there are shortages of trained staff. More on people management in Chapter 25.

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 plans may be developed to support the main software project plan that is concerned with schedule and budget.

Types of Project Plans

Objective of project plans The project plan sets out: The resources available to the project; The work breakdown; A schedule for the work. It’s all about estimation, how much..

Structure of a project plan Introduction ( objectives, constraints) Project organisation (team organisation) Risk analysis. Hardware and software resource requirements. Work breakdown (project activities, milestones and deliverables of each activity) Project schedule.(dependencies between activities, time needed to reach each milestone and the allocation of people to activities) Monitoring and reporting mechanisms.(define the reports that should be produced, when they should be produced and the project mechanism used)

Risk Management Risk identification: Analyze the risk : what can go wrong Analyze the risk : determine the likelihood that it will occur and the damage it will do if it does occur Prioritize risks by probability and impact Develop plan and monitor to manage risks with high probability and high impact

Risk Identification

Risk Analysis & Prioritization I

Risk Analysis & Prioritization II

Risk Planning and Monitoring 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;

Example Replace potentially defective components with bought-in components of known reliability Defective Components Risk avoidance Strategy Reorganize team so that there is more overlap of work and people therefore understand each others job Staff illness Minimization strategy Prepare a briefing document for senior management showing how the project is making a very important contribution to the goals of the business Organizational financial problems Contingency plan

Work breakdown 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. To establish milestones the software process must be broken down into basic activities with associated outputs.

Milestones and Deliverables

Activity : Work breakdown As a team Project :Organizing a party Identify the milestones and the deliverables of this project

Task Milestone Deliverable Choosing a date and time Date and time Choosing guests List of guests Selecting venue Name of venue Reserving venue Reservation number Invoice Sending guest invitations Invitation card Selecting catering company Name of company Selecting beverages, food, and dessert. Menu A milestone is something that identifies the end of a task, a deliverable is something delivered to the customer or beneficiary.

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.

Project Scheduling Process

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 critical path. Bar charts show schedule against calendar time.

Example (Activity network) Dependencies Duration (days) Activity 1 T1 2 T2 T1,T2 3 T3 5 T4 T5

T1 T3 T5 start T2 End T4

Task duration and dependencies

Activity Network 23 8 8 35 10 55 30

Activity Calculate the start and the finish of each activity in the activity network shown in the previous slide Compare your answer with the text book p 102 More explanation can be found in the following site (some figures used in this slides are taken from this site) http://syque.com/quality_tools/toolbook/Activity/do.htm

Activity bar chart

Project Cost Estimation (chapter26) There are three parameters involved in computing the total cost of a software development project Hardware and software costs including maintenance Travel and training costs Effort costs (paying software engineers) For most projects, the dominant cost in software development is effort cost.

Project cost estimation techniques Algorithmic cost modeling Expert judgment Estimation by analogy Parkinson’s law Pricing to win For large projects it is advisable to use several cost estimation techniques and compare the results