Session 1 Introduction, Fundamentals, Classic Mistakes

• “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge PMBOK® Guide”, Project Management Institute, 2000 • PMI – Project Management Institute, www.pmi.org • Related course “ Software En

Software Project Management

Session 1: Introduction, Fundamentals,

• “Rapid Development”, Steve McConnell

• “Information Technology Project Management”, Kathy Schwalbe

• “Rita PMP Exam Prep 2005 fifth edition”, Rita Mulcahy, PMP

• “Software Project Management in Practice”, Pankaj Jalote

• “A Guide to the Project Management Body of

Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)”, Project Management

Institute, 2000

• PMI – Project Management Institute, www.pmi.org

• Related course “ Software Engineering”

The Field Part 2

• Average PM salary $81,000

• Contract rates for PM’s can match techies

• PMI certification adds avg 14% to salary

• PMI certs, 1993: 1,000; 2002: 40,000

Job Fundamentals

• Skills required

• PM Positions and roles

• The process

Project Management Skills

Project Manager Positions

• Project Administrator / Coordinator

• Assistant Project Manager

• Project Manager / Program Manager

• Executive Program Manager

• V.P Program Development

Software Project Management

Management

Project Management

Software Project Management

– 1990-93: Re-engineering, self-directed teams

– 1996-99: Risk mgmt, project offices

Project Management

• What’s a project?

• PMI definition

– A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken

to create a unique product or service

• Progressively elaborated

– With repetitive elements

• A project manager

Characteristics of Projects

• Temporary endeavor

• Unique product or service

• Performed by people

• Constrained by limited resources

- Budget, time, staff

• Planned, executed, and controlled

• Have their own organization

Core Activities and Project Management

Project Management

• Definition of Project Management (PM):

Project Management is the application of

knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.

Typical Core Activities in IT-Projects

• Design of a graphical user interface

• Installation of a local area network

• Integration test of all system components

• Training of users on a new application

• Implementation of a set of Java classes

• Documentation of design decisions and

code

Typical Project Management Activities

• Communication with team, clients,

management

• Effort estimations

• Planning activities and assigning resources

• Comparing actual performance to plan

• Risk analysis

• Negotiation with subcontractors

Project vs Program Management

• What’s a ‘program’?

• Mostly differences of scale

• Often a number of related projects

• Longer than projects

• Definitions vary

• Ex: Program Manager for MS Word

PM Tools: Software

• Low-end

– Basic features, tasks management, charting

– MS Excel, Milestones Simplicity

Tools: Gantt Chart

Tools: Network Diagram

PMI’s 9 Knowledge Areas

The Triple Constraint

The Triple Constraint

More Competing Objectives

Project Success

• Definition:

A project is successful if the specified results are

delivered in the required quality and within the

predetermined time and resource limits.

• Computer scientists tend to focus on scope and quality

only

- The development of a technically perfect application is not a success if the cost exceeds the price clients are willing to pay

- Excellent project results often are worthless if they come

Project Integration Management

• Ensure that various elements of the project are

properly coordinated

- Estimate cost of staffing alternatives

- Determine effects of a scope change on schedule

• Make tradeoffs among competing objectives and

alternatives

• Primarily task of project manager since he / she is

responsible for seeing the overall “big picture”

Project Integration Management Processes Flow Diagram

Integration Management Processes

• Project plan development

– Integrates various planning outputs (time, cost, risk, etc.)

– Produces a formal, consistent document to manage project execution

• Project plan execution

- Produces actual work results

• Integrated change control

- Determines that a change has occurred

- Manages the changes as they occur

Four Project Dimensions

• People

• Process

• Product

• Technology

• “It’s always a people problem” Gerald Weinberg,

“The Secrets of Consulting”

• Developer productivity: 10-to-1 range

- Improvements:

- Team selection

- Team organization

– Motivation

People 2

• Other success factors

– Matching people to tasks

– Career development

– Balance: individual and team

– Clear communication

Process 2

• Customer orientation

• Process maturity improvement

• Rework avoidance

• The “tangible” dimension

• Product size management

• Product characteristics and requirements

• Feature creep management

• Often the least important dimension

• Language and tool selection

• Value and cost of reuse

• Determine requirements

• Determine resources

• Select lifecycle model

• Determine product features strategy

Project Phases

• All projects are divided into phases

• All phases together are known as the

Project Life Cycle

• Each phase is marked by completion of

Deliverables

• Identify the primary software project phases

Lifecycle Relationships

Seven Core Project Phases

Project Phases A.K.A.

Phases Variation

Concept Exploration

System Exploration

Requirements

Design Implementation

Installation

Operations and Support

Maintenance

People-Related Mistakes Part 1

People-Related Mistakes Part 2

• Noisy, crowded offices

• Customer-Developer friction

• Unrealistic expectations

• Politics over substance

• Wishful thinking

People-Related Mistakes Part 3

• Lack of effective project sponsorship

• Lack of stakeholder buy-in

• Lack of user input

Process-Related Mistakes Part 1

Process-Related Mistakes Part 2

• Wasted time during fuzzy front end

• Shortchanged upstream activities

• Inadequate design

• Shortchanged quality assurance

Process-Related Mistakes Part 3

• Insufficient management controls

• Frequent convergence

• Omitting necessary tasks from estimates

• Planning to catch-up later

• Code-like-hell programming

– Beware the pet project

• Push-me, pull-me negotiation

• Research-oriented development

• Switching tools in mid-project

• Lack of automated source-code control