SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

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The job pattern of an IT company engaged in software development can be seen split in two parts:

Software Creation
Software Project Management

A project is well-defined task, which is a collection of several operations done in order to achieve a
goal forexample, softwaredevelopmentanddelivery. A Project can be characterized as:

Every project may has a unique and distinct goal.

Project is not routine activity or day-to-day operations.
Project comes with a start time and end time.
Project ends when its goal is achieved hence it is a temporary phase in the lifetime of an
organization.
Project needs adequate resources in terms of time, manpower, finance, material and
knowledge-bank.

Software Project
A Software Project is the complete procedure of software development from requirement
gathering to testing and maintenance, carried out according to the execution methodologies, in a
specified period of time to achieve intended software product.

Need of software project management

Software is said to be an intangible product. Software development is a kind of all new stream in
world business and there’s very little experience in building software products. Most software
products are tailor made to fit client’s requirements. The most important is that the underlying
technology changes and advances so frequently and rapidly that experience of one product may
not be applied to the other one. All such business and environmental constraints bring risk in
software development hence it is essential to manage software projects efficiently.

The image above shows triple constraints for software projects. It is an essential part of software
organization to deliver quality product, keeping the cost within client’s budget constrain and
deliver the project as per scheduled. There are several factors, both internal and external, which
may impact this triple constrain triangle. Any of three factor can severely impact the other two.

Therefore, software project management is essential to incorporate user requirements along with
budget and time constraints.

Software Project Manager

A software project manager is a person who undertakes the responsibility of executing the
software project. Software project manager is thoroughly aware of all the phases of SDLC that the
software would go through. Project manager may never directly involve in producing the end
product but he controls and manages the activities involved in production.

A project manager closely monitors the development process, prepares and executes various
plans, arranges necessary and adequate resources, maintains communication among all team
members in order to address issues of cost, budget, resources, time, quality and customer
satisfaction.

Let us see few responsibilities that a project manager shoulders -

Managing People
Act as project leader
Lesion with stakeholders
Managing human resources
Setting up reporting hierarchy etc.

Managing Project
Defining and setting up project scope
Managing project management activities
Monitoring progress and performance
Risk analysis at every phase
Take necessary step to avoid or come out of problems
Act as project spokesperson

Software Management Activities

Software project management comprises of a number of activities, which contains planning of
project, deciding scope of software product, estimation of cost in various terms, scheduling of
tasks and events, and resource management. Project management activities may include:

Project Planning
Scope Management
Project Estimation

Project Planning
Software project planning is task, which is performed before the production of software actually
starts. It is there for the software production but involves no concrete activity that has any direction
connection with software production; rather it is a set of multiple processes, which facilitates
software production. Project planning may include the following:

Scope Management
It defines the scope of project; this includes all the activities, process need to be done in order to
make a deliverable software product. Scope management is essential because it creates
boundaries of the project by clearly defining what would be done in the project and what would not
be done. This makes project to contain limited and quantifiable tasks, which can easily be
documented and in turn avoids cost and time overrun.

During Project Scope management, it is necessary to -

Define the scope

Decide its verification and control
Divide the project into various smaller parts for ease of management.
Verify the scope
 Control the scope by incorporating changes to the scope

Project Estimation
For an effective management accurate estimation of various measures is a must. With correct
estimation managers can manage and control the project more efficiently and effectively.

Project estimation may involve the following:

Software size estimation

Software size may be estimated either in terms of KLOC KiloLineofCode or by calculating

number of function points in the software. Lines of code depend upon coding practices and
Function points vary according to the user or software requirement.

Effort estimation

The managers estimate efforts in terms of personnel requirement and man-hour required to
produce the software. For effort estimation software size should be known. This can either be
derived by managers’ experience, organization’s historical data or software size can be
converted into efforts by using some standard formulae.

Time estimation

Once size and efforts are estimated, the time required to produce the software can be
estimated. Efforts required is segregated into sub categories as per the requirement
specifications and interdependency of various components of software. Software tasks are
divided into smaller tasks, activities or events by Work Breakthrough Structure WBS. The
tasks are scheduled on day-to-day basis or in calendar months.

The sum of time required to complete all tasks in hours or days is the total time invested to
complete the project.

Cost estimation

This might be considered as the most difficult of all because it depends on more elements
than any of the previous ones. For estimating project cost, it is required to consider -

Size of software
Software quality
Hardware
Additional software or tools, licenses etc.
Skilled personnel with task-specific skills
Travel involved
Communication
Training and support

Project Estimation Techniques

We discussed various parameters involving project estimation such as size, effort, time and cost.

Project manager can estimate the listed factors using two broadly recognized techniques –

Decomposition Technique
This technique assumes the software as a product of various compositions.

There are two main models -

Line of Code Estimation is done on behalf of number of line of codes in the software
product.
 Function Points Estimation is done on behalf of number of function points in the software
product.

Empirical Estimation Technique

This technique uses empirically derived formulae to make estimation.These formulae are based
on LOC or FPs.

Putnam Model

This model is made by Lawrence H. Putnam, which is based on Norden’s frequency

distribution Rayleighcurve. Putnam model maps time and efforts required with software size.

COCOMO

COCOMO stands for COnstructive COst MOdel, developed by Barry W. Boehm. It divides the
software product into three categories of software: organic, semi-detached and embedded.

Project Scheduling
Project Scheduling in a project refers to roadmap of all activities to be done with specified order
and within time slot allotted to each activity. Project managers tend to tend to define various tasks,
and project milestones and them arrange them keeping various factors in mind. They look for
tasks lie in critical path in the schedule, which are necessary to complete in specific manner
becauseoftaskinterdependency and strictly within the time allocated. Arrangement of tasks which lies out
of critical path are less likely to impact over all schedule of the project.

For scheduling a project, it is necessary to -

Break down the project tasks into smaller, manageable form

Find out various tasks and correlate them
Estimate time frame required for each task
Divide time into work-units
Assign adequate number of work-units for each task
Calculate total time required for the project from start to finish

Resource management
All elements used to develop a software product may be assumed as resource for that project. This
may include human resource, productive tools and software libraries.

The resources are available in limited quantity and stay in the organization as a pool of assets. The
shortage of resources hampers the development of project and it can lag behind the schedule.
Allocating extra resources increases development cost in the end. It is therefore necessary to
estimate and allocate adequate resources for the project.

Resource management includes -

Defining proper organization project by creating a project team and allocating

responsibilities to each team member
Determining resources required at a particular stage and their availability
Manage Resources by generating resource request when they are required and de-allocating
them when they are no more needed.

Project Risk Management

Risk management involves all activities pertaining to identification, analyzing and making
provision for predictable and non-predictable risks in the project. Risk may include the following:

Experienced staff leaving the project and new staff coming in.
Change in organizational management.
 Requirement change or misinterpreting requirement.
Under-estimation of required time and resources.
Technological changes, environmental changes, business competition.

Risk Management Process

There are following activities involved in risk management process:

Identification - Make note of all possible risks, which may occur in the project.
Categorize - Categorize known risks into high, medium and low risk intensity as per their
possible impact on the project.
Manage - Analyze the probability of occurrence of risks at various phases. Make plan to
avoid or face risks. Attempt to minimize their side-effects.
Monitor - Closely monitor the potential risks and their early symptoms. Also monitor the
effects of steps taken to mitigate or avoid them.

Project Execution & Monitoring

In this phase, the tasks described in project plans are executed according to their schedules.

Execution needs monitoring in order to check whether everything is going according to the plan.
Monitoring is observing to check the probability of risk and taking measures to address the risk or
report the status of various tasks.

These measures include -

Activity Monitoring - All activities scheduled within some task can be monitored on day-to-
day basis. When all activities in a task are completed, it is considered as complete.
Status Reports - The reports contain status of activities and tasks completed within a given
time frame, generally a week. Status can be marked as finished, pending or work-in-progress
etc.
Milestones Checklist - Every project is divided into multiple phases where major tasks are
performed milestones based on the phases of SDLC. This milestone checklist is prepared once
every few weeks and reports the status of milestones.

Project Communication Management

Effective communication plays vital role in the success of a project. It bridges gaps between client
and the organization, among the team members as well as other stake holders in the project such
as hardware suppliers.

Communication can be oral or written. Communication management process may have the
following steps:

Planning - This step includes the identifications of all the stakeholders in the project and the
mode of communication among them. It also considers if any additional communication
facilities are required.
Sharing - After determining various aspects of planning, manager focuses on sharing
correct information with the correct person on correct time. This keeps every one involved
the project up to date with project progress and its status.
Feedback - Project managers use various measures and feedback mechanism and create
status and performance reports. This mechanism ensures that input from various
stakeholders is coming to the project manager as their feedback.
Closure - At the end of each major event, end of a phase of SDLC or end of the project itself,
administrative closure is formally announced to update every stakeholder by sending email,
by distributing a hardcopy of document or by other mean of effective communication.

After closure, the team moves to next phase or project.

Configuration Management
Configuration management is a process of tracking and controlling the changes in software in
terms of the requirements, design, functions and development of the product.

IEEE defines it as “the process of identifying and defining the items in the system, controlling the
change of these items throughout their life cycle, recording and reporting the status of items and
change requests, and verifying the completeness and correctness of items”.

Generally, once the SRS is finalized there is less chance of requirement of changes from user. If
they occur, the changes are addressed only with prior approval of higher management, as there is
a possibility of cost and time overrun.

Baseline
A phase of SDLC is assumed over if it baselined, i.e. baseline is a measurement that defines
completeness of a phase. A phase is baselined when all activities pertaining to it are finished and
well documented. If it was not the final phase, its output would be used in next immediate phase.

Configuration management is a discipline of organization administration, which takes care of

occurrence of any change process, requirement, technological, strategicaletc. after a phase is baselined. CM
keeps check on any changes done in software.

Change Control
Change control is function of configuration management, which ensures that all changes made to
software system are consistent and made as per organizational rules and regulations.

A change in the configuration of product goes through following steps -

Identification - A change request arrives from either internal or external source. When
change request is identified formally, it is properly documented.

Validation - Validity of the change request is checked and its handling procedure is
confirmed.

Analysis - The impact of change request is analyzed in terms of schedule, cost and required
efforts. Overall impact of the prospective change on system is analyzed.

Control - If the prospective change either impacts too many entities in the system or it is
unavoidable, it is mandatory to take approval of high authorities before change is
incorporated into the system. It is decided if the change is worth incorporation or not. If it is
not, change request is refused formally.

Execution - If the previous phase determines to execute the change request, this phase take
appropriate actions to execute the change, does a thorough revision if necessary.

Close request - The change is verified for correct implementation and merging with the rest
of the system. This newly incorporated change in the software is documented properly and
the request is formally is closed.

Project Management Tools

The risk and uncertainty rises multifold with respect to the size of the project, even when the
project is developed according to set methodologies.

There are tools available, which aid for effective project management. A few are described -

Gantt Chart
Gantt charts was devised by Henry Gantt 1917. It represents project schedule with respect to time
periods. It is a horizontal bar chart with bars representing activities and time scheduled for the
project activities.
PERT Chart
PERT Program Evaluation & Review Technique chart is a tool that depicts project as network diagram. It is
capable of graphically representing main events of project in both parallel and consecutive way.
Events, which occur one after another, show dependency of the later event over the previous one.

Events are shown as numbered nodes. They are connected by labeled arrows depicting sequence
of tasks in the project.

Resource Histogram
This is a graphical tool that contains bar or chart representing number of resources usuallyskilledstaff
required over time for a project event orphase. Resource Histogram is an effective tool for staff
planning and coordination.
Critical Path Analysis
This tools is useful in recognizing interdependent tasks in the project. It also helps to find out the
shortest path or critical path to complete the project successfully. Like PERT diagram, each event
is allotted a specific time frame. This tool shows dependency of event assuming an event can
proceed to next only if the previous one is completed.

The events are arranged according to their earliest possible start time. Path between start and end
node is critical path which cannot be further reduced and all events require to be executed in
same order.
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