1. Software Project Management Week 1 Lecture 2
Content from:
Applied software project management (Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene)
Software Project Management (Bob Hughes & Mike Cotterell
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2. Management Management may involve:
planning — deciding what is to be done
organizing — making arrangement
staffing — selecting the right people
directing — giving instructions
monitoring — checking on progress
controlling — taking action to remedy hold-ups
innovating — coming up with new solutions
representing — liaising with users
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3. Problems with Software Projects from Management Point of View
Thayer, Pyster and Wood Survey
Poor estimates and plans
Lack of quality standards and measures
Lack of guidance about making organizational decisions
Lack of techniques to make progress visible
Poor role definition-who does what?
Incorrect success criteria
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4. Students Survey (on a Computing and Information System Course)
Inadequate specification of work
Management ignorance of IT
Lack of knowledge of application area
Lack of standards
Lack of up-to-date documentation
Preceding activities not completed on time-including late delivery of equipment.
Lack of communication between users and technicians
Lack of communication leading to duplication of work.
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5. Students Survey (on a Computing and Information System Course)
Lack of commitment-especially when a project is tied to one person who then moves
Narrow scope of technical expertise
Changing statutory requirements
Changing software environment
Deadline pressure
Lack of quality control
Remote management
Lack of training.
(POOR COMMUNICATION)
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6. Problems faced by Customers (1996 Survey)
The US Internal Revenue system was to abandon its tax system modernization programme after having spent $4 billion.
The state of California spent $1 billion on its non functional welfare database.
The 339 pound million UK air traffic control system was reported as being two years behind schedule.
A discount stock brokerage company had 50 ppl. working 14 hours or more a day to correct clerically 3 months of record- the report commented that the new system had been rushed into operation without enough testing.
AND MANY MORE
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7. Why these Projects Failed?
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8. Why Do Software Projects Fail?
People begin programming before they understand the problem
Everyone likes to feel that they’re making progress
When the team starts to code as soon as the project begins, they see immediate gains
When problems become more complex (as they always do!), the work gets bogged down
In the best case, a team that begins programming too soon will end up writing good software that solves the wrong problem
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Applied Software Project Management

9. Why Do Software Projects Fail?
The team has an unrealistic idea about how much work is involved.
From far away, most complex problems seem simple to solve
Teams can commit to impossible deadlines by being overly optimistic and not thinking through the work
Few people realize the deadline is optimistic until it’s blown
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10. Why Do Software Projects Fail?
Defects are injected early but discovered late.
Projects can address the wrong needs
Requirements can specify incorrect behavior
Design, architecture and code can be technically flawed
Test plans can miss functionality
The later these problems are found, the more likely they are to cause the project to fail
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11. Why Do Software Projects Fail?
Programmers have poor habits – and they don’t feel accountable for their work.
Programmers don’t have good control of their source code
Code written by one person is often difficult for another person to understand
Programmers don’t test their code, which makes diagnosing and fixing bugs more expensive
The team does not have a good sense of the overall health of the project.
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12. Why Do Software Projects Fail?
Managers try to test quality into the software.
Everyone assumes that the testers will catch all of the defects that were injected throughout the project.
When testers look for defects, managers tell them they are wasting time.
When testers find defects, programmers are antagonized because they feel that they are being personally criticized.
When testers miss defects, everyone blames them for not being perfect.
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13. Setting Objectives
Project objectives should be clearly defined for successful project.
Managers and Team members should know what constitutes a successful project
Different specialists and different stakeholders, all should agree on well defined objectives.
For more than 1 user groups, project authority ( held by project steering committee or project board) needs to be established (overall authority over what needs to be accomplished)
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14. Project Steering Committee
Overall responsibility of setting, monitoring and modifying objectives.
Contains representatives from user, development and management group.
PM responsible for running project on day to day basis, but has to report to this committee on regular basis.
The committee can purpose changes to project objectives and resources.
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15. Setting Sub objectives and Goals.
To achieve objectives we divide it into sub objectives and goals. (Football Match Analogy)
Goals are steps into achieving goals
Objective must be in control of individuals.
“software application to be produced must pay for itself by reducing staff costs over 2 years” Is it a business objective or Developer Objective?
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16. Measures of Effectiveness
Objectives should be concrete and well defined, should be obvious to all whether it the project successful or not.
Measure of effectiveness telling how successful the project was.
Objective, to remove customer complaints by 50% Versus to improve customer relations?
For example: Mean time between Failure measure of software reliability.
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17. Stakeholders Have Stake or interest in the project.
Should be identified as early as possible.
Project leader should be aware that not everyone has same objectives and motivations.
Stakeholders Type
Internal to project team
External to project team but in the same organization
External to the organization
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18. The Business Case Justification for a project.
Cost Benefit Analysis in Feasibility Study.
Quantification of benefits via business model (how the new application can generate claimed benefits)
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19. Requirement Specification
Functional requirements
what the system is to do
systems analysis and design methods aims to provide these
Quality requirements
How system has to do it (non functional requirements)
other attributes of the system e.g response time; usability; reliability
Resource/time requirements
cost
Time
Trade-offs between the different factors
All requirements must be consistent with the business case.
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20. The Project Control Cycle
real world
actions
collect
data
define
objectives
data
process data
implement
information
make
decisions
modelling
decisions
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21. Problem
Paul is the manager of a software development section, on Tuesday at 10:00 he has meeting with their group manager about the staffing requirement for coming year. Paul has already drafted a document ‘bidding’ for staff. This is based on the work planned for his section for the next year. Document is discussed at meeting, at 2:00, Paul has meeting with his senior staff regarding an important project his section is taking, One of the programming staff just had an accident and will be in hospital for some time. It is decided that project can be kept on schedule by transferring another team member from less urgent work to this project. A temporary replacement is to e brought in to do the less urgent work, but this may take a week or so to arrange. Paul has to phone both the personnel manager about getting a replacement and the user for whom the less urgent work is being done explaining why it is likely to be delayed.
Identify which of the eight management responsibilities listed above Paul was responding to at different points during his day.
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