The Four P’s
Four P's of Software Project Management
The effective software project management
focuses on four P's.
• The People
• The Product
• The Process
• The Project
1
The People
The following categories of people are involved in the
software process.
• Senior Managers
• Project Managers
• Practitioners
• Customers
2
• EndInformation
Users Technology Project Management, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007
Senior Managers define the business issue. Project
Managers plan, motivate, Organize and control the
practitioners who do the Software work. Practitioners
deliver the technical skills that are necessary to
engineer a product or application. Customer specifies
the requirements for the software to be developed.
End Users interact with the software once it is
released.
3
Information Technology Project Management, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007
The Product
Before a software project is planned, the product
objectives and scope should be established, technical and
management constraints should be identified. Without this
information it is impossible to define a reasonable cost,
amount of risk involved, the project schedule etc. A
software project scope must be unambiguous and
understandable at the management and technical levels.
To develop a reasonable project plan we have to
functionally decompose the problem to be solved.
4
Information Technology Project Management, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007
The Process
Here the important thing is to select an
appropriate process model to develop the
software. There are different process models
available. They are Water fall model, Iterative
water fall model, Prototyping model, Evolutionary
model, RAD(Rapid Application Development) model,
Spiral model. In practice we may use any one of
the above models or a combination of the above
5
models.
Information Technology Project Management, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007
The Project
In order to manage a successful software
project, we must understand what can go wrong
(so that problems can be Avoided)and how to do it
right. A project is a series of steps where we
need to make accurate decision so as to make a
successful project.
6
Information Technology Project Management, Fifth Edition, Copyright 2007
