Project management Organizing, planning and scheduling...

©Ian Sommerville 1995 Modified by Spiros Mancoridis 1998 Software Engineering, 5th edition. Chapter 3 Slide 1

Project management

◆ Organizing, planning andscheduling software projects


Objectives

◆ To introduce software project management and todescribe its distinctive characteristics.

◆ To discuss project planning and the planningprocess.

◆ To show how graphical schedule representationsare used by project management.


Topics covered

◆ Management activities

◆ Project planning

◆ Activity organization

◆ Project scheduling


◆ Concerned with activities involved in ensuringthat software is delivered:• on time

• on schedule

• in accordance with the requirements of the organizationsdeveloping and procuring the software

Software project management


◆ Software engineering is an economic activityand therefore is subject to economic,non-technical constraints.

◆ Well-managed projects sometimes fail. Badlymanaged projects inevitably fail.

◆ The objective of this lecture is to introducemanagement activities rather than teach you tobe managers.

◆ You can only learn to manage by managing

Why is management important?


◆ The product is intangible.

◆ The product is uniquely flexible.

◆ The software development process is notstandardized.

◆ Most software projects are “one-off” projects.

Software management distinctions


◆ Proposal writing

◆ Project costing

◆ Project planning and scheduling

◆ Project monitoring and reviews

◆ Personnel selection and evaluation

◆ Report writing and presentations

Management activities


◆ These activities are not peculiar to softwaremanagement.

◆ Many techniques of engineering projectmanagement are equally applicable to softwareproject management.

◆ Technically complex engineering systems tendto suffer from the same problems as softwaresystems.

Management commonalities


Project staffing

◆ May not be possible to appoint the ideal people towork 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 organization may wish to develop employee skills on asoftware project.


Project planning

◆ Probably the most time-consuming projectmanagement activity.

◆ Continuous activity from initial concept throughto system delivery.

◆ Plans must be regularly revised as newinformation becomes available.


Project plan structure

◆ Introduction

◆ Project organization

◆ Risk analysis

◆ Hardware and software resource requirements

◆ Work breakdown

◆ Project schedule

◆ Monitoring and reporting mechanisms


Activity organization

◆ Activities in a project should be organized toproduce tangible outputs for management tojudge progress.

◆ Milestones are the end-point of a process activity.

◆ Deliverables are project results delivered tocustomers.

◆ The waterfall process allows for thestraightforward definition of progress milestones.


Milestones and deliverables

Evaluationreport

Prototypedevelopment

Requirementsdefinition

Requirementsanalysis

Feasibilityreport

Feasibilitystudy

Architecturaldesign

Designstudy

Requirementsspecification

Requirementsspecification

ACTIVITIES

MILESTONES


Project scheduling

◆ Split project into tasks and estimate time andresources required to complete each task.

◆ Organize tasks concurrently to make optimaluse of workforce.

◆ Minimize task dependencies to avoid delayscaused by one task waiting for another tocomplete.

◆ Dependent on project managers intuition andexperience.


Scheduling problems

◆ Estimating the difficulty of problems and hencethe cost of developing a solution is hard.

◆ Productivity is not proportional to the number ofpeople working on a task.

◆ Adding people to a late project makes it laterbecause of communication overheads.

◆ The unexpected always happens. Always allowcontingency in planning.


Bar charts and activity networks

◆ Graphical notations used to illustrate the projectschedule.

◆ Show project breakdown into tasks. Tasks shouldnot be too small. They should take about a weekor two.

◆ Activity charts show task dependencies and thethe critical path.

◆ Bar charts show schedule against calendar time.


Task durations and dependenciesTask Duration

(days)Dependencies

T1 8T2 15T3 15 T1T4 10T5 10 T2, T4T6 5 T1, T2T7 20 T1T8 25 T4T9 15 T3, T6T10 15 T5, T7T11 7 T9T12 10 T11


Activity network

start

T2

M 3T6

Finish

T1 0

M 7T5

T7

M 2T4

M 5

T8

4/7/94

8 day s

1 4/7/94 1 5 d ay s

4/8/94

1 5 d ay s

2 5/8/94

7 day s

5/9/94

10 days

1 9/9/94

1 5 d ay s

1 1/8/94

2 5 d ay s

1 0 d ay s

2 0 d ay s

5 d ays2 5/7/94

1 5 d ay s

2 5/7/94

1 8/7/94

1 0 d ay s

T1

M 1 T3T9

M 6

T1 1

M 8

T1 2

M 4


Activity time-line4/7 11/7 18/7 25/7 1/8 8/8 15/8 22/8 29/8 5/9 12/9 19/9

T4

T1T2

M1

T7T3

M5T8

M3

M2T6

T5M4

T9

M7T10

M6

T1 1M8

T12

Start

Finish


Staff allocation4/7 11/7 18/7 25/ 1/8 8/8 15/8 22/8 29/8 5/912/9 19/9

T4

T8 T11

T12

T1

T3

T9

T2

T6 T10

T7

T5

Fred

Jane

Anne

Mary

Jim


Key points

◆ Good project management is essential for projectsuccess.

◆ The intangible nature of software causesproblems for management.

◆ Managers have diverse roles but their mostsignificant activities are planning, estimating andscheduling.

◆ Planning and estimating are iterative processeswhich continue throughout the course of aproject.


◆ A project milestone is a predictable state wheresome formal report of progress is presented tomanagement.

◆ Activity charts and bar charts are graphicalrepresentations of a project schedule.

Key points

Project management Organizing, planning and scheduling...

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