Software Engineering II

Project Management
Software Project Management Concepts
 Project Management
• Software Projects – factors that influence results:

– size – system constraints

– delivery deadline – user requirements
– budgets and costs – available resources
– application domain
– technology to be
implemented
Project Management Concerns

product quality?
risk assessment?
measurement?
cost estimation?
project scheduling?
customer communication?
staffing?
other resources?
project monitoring?
 Scope

Resources Schedule
 Why Projects Fail?
• changing customer requirements
• ambiguous/incomplete requirements
• an unrealistic deadline is established
• an honest underestimate of effort
• predictable and/or unpredictable risks
• technical difficulties
• miscommunication among project staff
• failure in project management
 Team Leaders
• MOI model of leadership - Weinberg
– Motivation:
• The ability to encourage technical people to
produce their best
– Organization:
• The ability to mold the existing processes (or
invent new ones) that will enable the initial
concept to be translated into a final product
– Idea or innovation:
• The ability to encourage people to create and
feel creative
 The Software Team Organization

• Democratic decentralized (DD)

• Controlled decentralized (CD)
• Controlled centralized (CC)
 The Software Team Organization

• Democratic decentralized (DD)

– No permanent leader
– Task coordinators are appointed for short duration
– Decisions on problems and approach are made by
group consensus
– Communication among team is horizontal
 The Software Team Organization

• Controlled decentralized (CD)

– Defined leader who coordinates specific tasks
– Problem solving remains a group activity
– Communication among subgroups and individuals
is horizontal. Vertical communication along the
control hierarchy also occurs.
 The Software Team Organization

• Controlled centralized (CC)

– Top level problem solving and internal team
coordination are managed by the team leader
– Communication between the leader and team
members is vertical.
 The Project

Reel’s five step approach for successful

projects
1) Start on the right foot
• Understand the problem, set realistic objectives, build
the right team, provide the needed infrastructure
2) Maintain momentum
3) Track progress
4) Make smart decisions
5) Conduct a postmortem analysis
 To Get to the Essence of a Project -
W5HH Principle
1) WHY is the system being developed?
2) WHAT will be done?
3) By WHEN?
4) WHO is responsible for a function?
5) WHERE are they organizationally located?
 W5HH Principle (cont.)

6) HOW will the job be done technically and managerially?

7) HOW MUCH of each resource (e.g., people, software,
tools, database) will be needed?
 Critical Practices in Project
Management
1) Formal risk analysis
2) Empirical cost and schedule estimation
3) Metrics-based project management
4) Earned value tracking
5) Defect tracking against quality targets
6) People aware project management
Summary of Today’s Lecture