Project Management

Tom Kelliher, CS 319

Oct. 2, 1998

Announcements

I have templates, statements of intent. Document accessing problems? Diaries.

From Last Time

1. What did we do last time?

Outline

Management activities, project planning, Activity organization, project scheduling.

Assignment

Read Chapter 28.

Project Management

Software has to be delivered:

1. on time.

2. within budget.

3. with acceptable performance.

4. with sufficient reliability.

How does software management differ from other types of management?

1. The product is intangible.

2. There is no standard building process.

3. Large projects are one-of-a-kind --- different from everything else.

Management Activities

The standard set:

1. Proposal writing.

2. Project costing.

3. Project planning and scheduling.

4. Project monitoring and reviews.

5. Personnel selection and evaluation.

6. Report writing and presentations.

Notes:

1. Informal vs. formal monitoring.

2. Changes in organizational strategies during the course of a project.

3. Staffing issues:
   1. Budget may not cover highly-paid staff.

   2. Sufficiently experienced staff may not be available anywhere.

   3. The organization may wish to develop the skills of inexperienced staff.

Project Planning

Majority of manager's time devoted to project planning.

Project plans:

1. Quality plan: quality procedures and standards used.

2. Validation plan: approach, resources, and schedule.

3. Configuration management plan: procedures and structures.

4. Maintenance plan: predict requirements, costs, and effort.

5. Staff development plan: staff skills and experience growth.

Project planning process:

Establish project constraints
Make initial assessments of project parameters
define project milestones and deliverables
while project is not finished and not dead
{
   draw up a schedule
   initiate activities according to schedule
   wait for a while
   review project progress
   revise estimates of project parameters
   update the project schedule
   re-negotiate project constraints and deliverables
   if ( problems)
      initiate technical review and possible revision
}

Components of a Project Plan

1. Introduction: objectives and constraints.

2. Project organization: organization, people, and roles.

3. Risk analysis: possible risks, likelihoods, reduction strategies.

4. Hardware and software resource requirements: prices and delivery schedules.

5. Work breakdown: activities, milestones, deliverables.

6. Project schedule: dependencies, time, personnel resources.

7. Monitoring and reporting mechanisms: how, when, and what of management reports.

Activity Organization

1. Milestone: end point of some process activity. Result in the presentation of a formal progress report to management. Must be measurable. (80% completion is not measurable).

   To establish milestones: break process into activities. Associate outputs with activities.

   Milestones should not be too frequent.

   Waterfall model allows for straightforward definition of milestones.

2. Deliverable: a project result delivered to the customer. Deliverables are milestones; converse not true.

Project Scheduling

Rule of thumb: ``Estimate and double (anticipated problems). Then, double that (unanticipated problems).''

Must estimate: time, resources, risks.

A schedule is a set of charts showing:

1. Work breakdown.

2. Activity dependencies.

3. Personnel assignments.

Critical path.

Schedule slips outside the critical path need not be critical.

Types of charts/figures:

1. Task duration and dependency chart.

2. Activity network, showing milestones, activities, dependencies, durations

3. Activity bar chart, showing start date, end date, slip times.

4. Staff allocation vs. time chart.

Exercises

3.7, 9, and 10.