Project Management

1. Project Management • Why do projects fail? • Technical Reasons • inexperience with language/environment • last minute efforts • lack of standards • fantasy factor • lack of configuration control • failure to follow review/inspection processes

2. Reasons for Failed Projects continued • Personal Factors • motivation • heavy load • failure to admit need for assistance (ego) • opinionated individuals (ego) • Management Factors • poor team selection • lack of team growth • poor coordination of team meetings • struggles for leadership (ego) • poor communication

3. Project Management Concepts: 4 P’s • People • Recruitment, training, organization, team development • Product • Define project scope and design of product • Process • Establish framework for software development • Project • Understand complexities of project development

4. Process Management • Select process model • provides framework for activities • Process decomposition • Task sets - scheduling, milestones, deliverables, QA points • Umbrella activities • Software QA • SW Configuration management • Measure

5. People Management • People work in groups • Want a good balance of skills, experience and personalities • Group is a team not just collection of individuals • Group standards, work closely, egoless

6. People Management • Team Building • clear purpose and commitment • open communication and support, shared leadership, and constructive feedback • focus on behaviors and not personalities • Stages of Team Development • forming (awareness) • storming (conflict) • norming (cooperation) • performing (accomplishing)

7. People Management • Team Empowerment • self-governing • decision-making latitude: leader decides “what” is to be done, team sets intermediate deadlines, team determines own organizational structure • leader “hands-off” until needed • Self-Evaluation of Team • schedule slips, causal analysis of team difficulties, done as a team and individually

8. People Management • Project Managers • Solve technical and non-technical problems using people on their teams • Motivate people • Satisfy Needs: social, esteem, self-realization • Plan and organize their work • Ensure work is being done properly

9. 3 Team Organizations • DD - democratic, decentralized • task coordinators, group consensus • CD - controlled, decentralized • defined leader, problem solving group • CC - controlled, centralized • Top-level problem solving and communication between leader and team members

10. 3 Team Organizations • Centralized (CD or CC) – simple problems • Decentralized (DD) – more and better solutions for difficult problems • CC or CD - very large problems when subgrouping easily accommodated (to reduce communication paths) • DD – problems with low modularity when higher volume of communication necessary • DD – high morale and job satisfaction (long team life) • CC and CD – produce fewer defects

11. Two Examples • Chief Programmer Team Concept (CD) • senior engineer (design, implementation, install), backup engineer(validation), tech staff, librarian (configuration mgmt and finalizing documentation), support (clerical/tech writers), specialists • Risks? • Structure Open Team (DD) • project is a joint effort • egoless programming • thorough reviews • side-by side work • Risks?

12. Problem Management • Problem: • objectives and scope must be defined • alternative solutions explored • technical and management constraints (deadlines, budge, personnel) identified • with information define cost estimates, assess risks, breakdown tasks, and create schedule

13. Problem Management Activities (1-4) • Define scope/objectives, alternative solutions, constraints • Metrics: • collect information to define cost estimates, assess risks, breakdown tasks, and create schedule • measure product to assure quality • Cost Estimation: • provides info for remaining activities (manpower, project duration, $) • Risk analysis: • identify, assess, prioritize, management, resolve and monitor

14. Problem Management Activities (5-6) • Scheduling: • evolve or plan in advance, establish milestones, determine task dependencies, assign resources • Tracking and Control • note each task in schedule, assess impact of delayed task, redirect resources, modify delivery commitments

15. Determining Software Scope • Function tasks and performance • Quantitative data stated explicitly (#users, size of list, response time) • constraints and/or limitations noted • mitigating factors described • interfaces • reliability issues

16. Task Network • Graphic, shows task sequences and dependencies Design Coding Integration Testing Analysis/Specs Tests Developed Unit Testing • REFINE

17. Scheduling Methods and Tools • PERT (program evaluation and review technique) • Uses • effort estimates, decomposition of product function, process model, project type, task set, task network • determine critical paths, time estimates, boundary times (earliest and latest start times, earliest and latest end times, float times) • produce a timeline or GANTT chart • should also allocate resources • Microsoft Project : PERT and GANTT charts

18. Project Management Phases (POMA) • Planning • Organizing • Monitoring • Adjusting

19. Project Monitoring • Monitoring or Tracking • conduct periodic status meetings: report progress and problems • evaluate results of all reviews • milestones accomplished by scheduled date? • Compare dates • informal meetings on subjective assessments • visualize and report • use charts, histograms, Pareto diagram,

20. Project Adjusting • Adjusting • light if everything going well • if not: diagnose problem, reassign resources, redefine schedule

21. Project Plan • IS A DELIVERABLE • TURN IN TO ME!