Introduction to Project

Management
Module 4
• 1.1 Introduction
• Whether the management of software project is really that different
from that of other projects?
• To answer this, we need to know key idea about the planning,
monitoring, and control of software project.
• All projects are about meeting objectives. Like any other project, a
software project must satisfy real needs.
• To do this we must identify the project’s stakeholders and their
objectives. Ensuring that their objectives are met is the aim of project
management.
• However we cannot know that a project will meet it’s objectives in
the future unless we know the present state of the project.
• 1.2 Why is Software Project Management Important
• Unfortunately, projects are not always successful.
• Standish Group in the U.S. analyzed 13,522 projects and concluded that only
a third of them were successful; 82 percent were late and 43 percent
exceeded their budget.
• The reason for these project shortcomings is often the management of
projects.
• 1.3 What is a Project?
• The dictionary definition put a clear emphasis on the project being a
‘planned’ activity.
• 1.3 What is a Project?

• ‘Jobs’ – repetition of very well-defined and well understood tasks with

very little uncertainty
• ‘Exploration’ – e.g. finding a cure for cancer: the outcome is very
uncertain
• ‘Projects’ – in the middle!
• 1.3 What is a Project?
• Following are the characteristics of projects which makes it different:
• Non-routine
• Planned
• Aiming at a specific target
• Predetermined time span
• Work carried out for a customer
• Involving several specialisms
• Temporary work group creation to carry out a task
• Made up of several different phases
• Constrained by time and resources
• Large and/or complex
• 1.3 What is a Project?
• Following are the characteristics of projects which makes it different:
• Non-routine
• Planned
• Aiming at a specific target
• Predetermined time span
• Work carried out for a customer
• Involving several specialisms
• Temporary work group creation to carry out a task
• Made up of several different phases
• Constrained by time and resources
• Large and/or complex
• 1.4 Software Projects versus Other Type of Project?
• Many techniques in general project management also apply to software project
management.
• But few characteristics of software projects which make them particularly
difficult:
• Invisibility: With software, progress is not immediately visible
• Complexity: Per dollar, software products contain more complexity than other engineered
artefacts
• Conformity: Software developers have to conform to the requirements of human clients
• Flexibility: Software systems are particularly subject to change
• 1.5 Contract Management and Technical Project Management
• 1.6 Activities Covered by Software Project Management
• A software project is not only concerned with the actual writing of software. In
fact, where a software application is bought in “of the shelf”, there may be no
software writing as such, but this is still fundamentally a software project
because so many of the other activities associated with software will still be
present.
How do we
Feasibility study
do it?

Is it worth
doing? Plan
Do it!

Project excution

Figure 1.2 The feasibility study/plan/execution cycle

• 1.6 Activities Covered by Software Project Management
• 1.7 Plans, Methods and Methodologies
• A plan for an activity must be based on some idea of a method of work.
• While testing some software one could assume that you would need to:
• Analyze the requirements for the software
• Devise and write test cases that will check that each requirement has been satisfied
• Create test scripts and expected results for each test case
• Compare the actual results and the expected results and identify discrepancies.
• A method relates to a type of activity in general, a plan takes that method and
converts it to real activities, identifying for each activity:
• Its start and end dates
• Who will carry it out
• What tools and materials- including information- will be needed
• Output from one method might be the input to another. Group of methods or
techniques are often grouped into methodologies such as object-oriented
design.
• 1.8 Some Ways of Categorizing Software Projects
• Changes to the characteristics of software project: Code reusability, time, and
customer involvement.
• Compulsory versus voluntary users
• Information systems versus embedded systems
• Software products versus services
• Outsourced projects
• Objective-driven development
• 1.9 Project Charter
• Project charter is and important high-level document that authorizes the
starting of a project and use of the required resources.
• Besides, it outlines the project objectives, deliverables and the resources
required.
• It also documents the aspects that are out of scope, and identifies the main
stakeholders, their roles and responsibilities.
• Project charter document is usually developed for all types of projects,
irrespective of whether it is an in-house project or a project undertaken on
behalf of some customers.
• It is signed and issued by member of the top management of the company who
also takes up the role of the sponsor of the project.
• 1.9 Project Charter
• The project charter is usually a short document that is only a couple of pages long and
typically contains the following:
• Overall objectives of the project and the broad items that are within the scope of the project and
those that are out of scope.
• The time schedule in terms of the start date and the expected completion date of the project.
• The important stakeholders and their responsibilities towards the project.
• Overview of the resources that will be needed for the project and the overall budget.
• Major risks to the project and the broad strategies that can be adopted for overcoming those.
• 1.10 Stakeholders
• These are people who have a stake or interest in the project. In general, they could be
users/clients or developers/implementers.
• They could be:
• Internal to the project team- Within the project team
• External to the project team but within same organization- Outside the project team, but within
the same organization
• External to both project team and the organization- Outside both the project team and the
organization
• 1.11 Setting Objectives
• Stakeholders are those who actually own the project. They control the financing
of the project. They also set the objectives.
• These objectives should define what the project team must achieve for project
success. Although different stakeholders have different motivations, the project
objectives identify the shared intensions for the project.
• Objectives focus on desired outcomes of the project rather than the tasks within
it. They are the post-conditions of the project.
• Project authority needs to be explicitly identified with overall authority over the
project.
• This authority is often a project steering committee with overall responsibility
for setting, monitoring and modifying objectives.
• 1.11 Setting Objectives
• The mnemonic SMART is sometimes used to describe well-defined objectives:
• S – specific, that is, concrete and well-defined
• M – measurable, that is, satisfaction of the objective can be objectively judged
• A – achievable, that is, it is within the power of the individual or group
concerned to meet the target
• R – relevant, the objective must relevant to the true purpose of the project
• T – time constrained: there is defined point in time by which the objective
should be achieved
• 1.12 The Business Case
• Most projects need to have a justification or business case: the effort and
expense of pushing the project through must be seen to be worthwhile in terms
of benefits that will eventually be felt.
• The qualification of benefits will often require the formulation of a business
model which explains how the new application can generate the claimed
benefits.
• 1.13 Project Success and Failure
• The project plan should be designed to ensure project success by preserving the
business case for the project.
• We can distinguish between project objectives and business objectives. The
project objectives are the targets that the project team is expected to achieve.
• This include delivering agreed functionalities, required level of quality, delivering
project on time within budget.
• 1.13 Project Success and Failure
• While project managers have considerable control over development costs, the
value of the benefits of the project deliverables is dependent on external factors
such as number of customers.
• Customer relationship can also be built up over a number of projects.
• 1.14 What is Management?
• Management involves following activities:
• Planning – deciding what is to be done.
• Organizing – making arrangements.
• Staffing – selecting the right people for the job etc.
• Directing – giving instruction.
• Monitoring – checking on progress.
• Controlling – taking action on remedy hold-ups.
• Innovating – coming up with new solutions.
• Representing – liaising with clients, users, developer, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
• 1.14 What is Management?
• Much of the project manager’s time is spent on only three of the eight
identified activities, i.e. project planning, monitoring and control.
• The time period during which these activities are carried out is indicated in the
following figure.

• It shows that the project management is carried out over three well-defined
stages or processes, irrespective of the methodology used.
• 1.14 What is Management?
• In the project initiation stage, an initial plan is made. As the project starts, the project
is monitored and controlled to proceed as planned. Initial plan is revised periodically
to accommodate additional details and constraints about the project as they become
available.
• Initial project planning is undertaken immediately after feasibility study phase before
starting the requirements analysis and specification process. Initial planning involves
estimating several characteristics of a project. Once project execution starts,
monitoring and control activities are taken up to ensure that the project execution
proceeds as planned.
• Project planning is important responsibility of the project manager. Other
responsibility includes: Estimation, cost, duration, and effort.
• Effectiveness of all activities such as scheduling and staffing, which are planned at the
later stage, depends on the accuracy with which the above three project parameters
have been estimated.
• Project monitoring and control activities are undertaken after the initiation of
development activities.
• 1.15 Management Control
• Management, in general involves
setting objectives for a system and
then monitoring the performance of
the system.
• In figure 1.6, the real world is shown
as being rather formless. Especially
in the case of large undertaking,
there will be lot going on about
which management should be
aware.
• 1.15 Management Control
• Software development and project management life cycles:
• Software development life cycle denotes the stages through which a software is
developed. In figure 1.7, a SDLC is shown on terms of the set of activities that
are undertaken during a typical software development project, their grouping
into different phases and their sequencing.
• 1.15 Management Control
• Software development and project management life cycles:
• The activities carried out by the developers during SDLC as well as the PMLC are
grouped into number of phases. Typical set of phases and their sequencing in
the SDLC and the PMLC have been shown in figure 1.8.
• 1.16 Project Management Life Cycle
• Project Initiation: (W5HH) Why is the software being built? What will be done?
When will be it done? Who is responsible for a function? Where are they
organizationally located? How will the job be done technically and
managerially? How much of the resource is needed?
• Project bidding: Request for quotation, Request for proposal, and Request for
Information.
• Project Planning: Documents prepared by manager- Project plan, resource plan,
financial plan, quality plan, and risk plan.
• Project Execution
• Project Closure
• 1.17 Traditional versus Modern Project Management Practices:
• Assignment
Project Evaluation
• 2.4 Evaluation of Individual Projects
• Technical Assessment: Technical assessment of the proposed system consists of
evaluating whether the required functionality can be achieved with current
affordable technologies.
• Organizational policy, aimed at providing a consistent hardware/software
infrastructure, is likely to limit the technical solutions considered.
• The costs of the technology adopted must be taken into account in the cost-
benefit analysis.
• Cost-benefit analysis: Cost-benefit analysis comprises two steps:
• Identifying all of the cost and benefits of carrying out the project and operating the
delivered application.
• Expressing these costs and benefits in common units.
• Most direct costs are easy to quantify in monetary terms and can be categorized
as:
• Development costs, Setup costs, Operational costs.
• 2.4 Evaluation of Individual Projects
• Cash flow forecasting: As important as estimating the overall costs and benefits
of a project is producing a cash flow forecast which indicates when expenditure
and income will take place (Figure 2.1).
• We need to spend money, such as staff wages, during a project’s development.
Such expenditure cannot wait until income is received. Forecast is needed of
when expenditure, such as the payment of salaries, and any income are to be
expected.
• 2.5 Cost-benefit Evaluation Techniques
• Methods for comparing projects on the basis of their cash flow forecasts:

• Net Profit: The net profit of a project is the difference between the total costs
and the total income over the life of the project (Table 2.1).
• 2.5 Cost-benefit Evaluation Techniques
• Net Profit: The net profit of a project is the difference between the total costs
and the total income over the life of the project (Table 2.1).
• Payback period: The payback period is the time taken to break even or pay back
the initial investment. Normally, the project with the shortest payback period
will be chosen on the basis that an organization will wish to minimize the time
that a project is ‘in debt’.
• Return on investment:
• 2.5 Cost-benefit Evaluation Techniques
• Net present value:
• 2.6 Risk Evaluation
• Risk Identification and ranking: In any project evaluation we should identify the risks and
quantify their efforts.
• One approach is to construct a project risk matrix utilizing a checklist of possible risks and
classifying risks according to their relative importance and likelihood (Table 2.5).
• 2.6 Risk Evaluation
• Risk profile analysis using decision trees:

Figure 2.2 A Decision Tree