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Software Project
A Software Project is the complete procedure of software development from
requirement gathering to testing and maintenance, carried out according to the
execution methodologies.

Need of software project management

Software is said to be an intangible product. Most software products are tailor made
to fit client’s requirements. The most important is that the underlying (basic)
technology changes and advances so frequently and rapidly that experience of one
product may not be applied to the other one. All such business and environmental
constraints bring risk in software development hence it is essential to manage
software projects efficiently.

The image above shows triple constraints for software projects. It is an essential
part of software organization to deliver quality product, keeping the cost within
client’s budget constrain and deliver the project as per scheduled. There are several
factors, both internal and external, which may impact this triple constrain triangle.
Any of three factor can severely impact the other two.
Therefore, software project management is essential to incorporate user
requirements along with budget and time constraints.

Software Project Manager

A software project manager is a person who undertakes the responsibility of
executing the software project. Software project manager is thoroughly aware of all
the phases of SDLC that the software would go through. Project manager may
never directly involve in producing the end product but he controls and manages the
activities involved in production.
A project manager closely monitors the development process, prepares and
executes various plans, arranges necessary and adequate resources, maintains
communication among all team members in order to address issues of cost, budget,
resources, time, quality and customer satisfaction.
Let us see few responsibilities that a project manager shoulders -
Managing People

 Act as project leader

 Liaison with stakeholders
 Managing human resources
 Setting up reporting hierarchy etc.

Managing Project

 Defining and setting up project scope

 Managing project management activities
 Monitoring progress and performance
 Risk analysis at every phase
 Take necessary step to avoid or come out of problems
 Act as project spokesperson

Software Management Activities

Software project management comprises of a number of activities, which contains
planning of project, deciding scope of software product, estimation of cost in various
terms, scheduling of tasks and events, and resource management. Project
management activities may include:

 Project Planning
 Scope Management
 Project Estimation

Project Planning
Software project planning is task, which is performed before the production of
software actually starts. It is there for the software production but involves no
concrete activity that has any direction connection with software production; rather it
is a set of multiple processes, which facilitates software production. Project planning
may include the following:

Scope Management
It defines the scope of project; this includes all the activities, process need to be
done in order to make a deliverable software product. Scope management is
essential because it creates boundaries of the project by clearly defining what would
be done in the project and what would not be done. This makes project to contain
limited and quantifiable tasks, which can easily be documented and in turn avoids
cost and time overrun.
During Project Scope management, it is necessary to -
  Define the scope
 Decide its verification and control
 Divide the project into various smaller parts for ease of management.
 Verify the scope
 Control the scope by incorporating changes to the scope

Project Estimation
For an effective management accurate estimation of various measures is a must.
With correct estimation managers can manage and control the project more
efficiently and effectively.
Project estimation may involve the following:

 Software size estimation

Software size may be estimated either in terms of KLOC (Kilo Line of Code)
or by calculating number of function points in the software. Lines of code
depend upon coding practices and Function points vary according to the user
or software requirement.

 Effort estimation
The managers estimate efforts in terms of personnel requirement and man-
hour required to produce the software. For effort estimation software size
should be known. This can either be derived by managers’ experience,
organization’s historical data or software size can be converted into efforts by
using some standard formulae.

 Time estimation
Once size and efforts are estimated, the time required to produce the
software can be estimated. Efforts required is segregated into sub categories
as per the requirement specifications and interdependency of various
components of software. Software tasks are divided into smaller tasks,
activities or events by Work Breakthrough Structure (WBS). The tasks are
scheduled on day-to-day basis or in calendar months.
The sum of time required to complete all tasks in hours or days is the total
time invested to complete the project.

 Cost estimation
This might be considered as the most difficult of all because it depends on
more elements than any of the previous ones. For estimating project cost, it
is required to consider -

o Size of software
o Software quality
o Hardware
o Additional software or tools, licenses etc.
 o Skilled personnel with task-specific skills
o Travel involved
o Communication
o Training and support

Project Estimation Techniques

We discussed various parameters involving project estimation such as size, effort,
time and cost.
Project manager can estimate the listed factors using two broadly recognized
techniques –

Decomposition Technique

This technique assumes the software as a product of various compositions.

There are two main models -

 Line of Code Estimation is done on behalf of number of line of codes in the

software product.
 Function Points Estimation is done on behalf of number of function points in
the software product.

Empirical Estimation Technique

This technique uses empirically derived formulae to make estimation.These

formulae are based on LOC or FPs.

 Putnam Model
This model is made by Lawrence H. Putnam, which is based on Norden’s
frequency distribution (Rayleigh curve). Putnam model maps time and efforts
required with software size.

 COCOMO
COCOMO stands for COnstructive COst MOdel, developed by Barry W.
Boehm. It divides the software product into three categories of software:
organic, semi-detached and embedded.

Project Scheduling
Project Scheduling in a project refers to roadmap of all activities to be done with
specified order and within time slot allotted to each activity. Project managers tend
to define various tasks, and project milestones and arrange them keeping various
factors in mind. They look for tasks lie in critical path in the schedule, which are
necessary to complete in specific manner (because of task interdependency) and
strictly within the time allocated. Arrangement of tasks which lies out of critical path
are less likely to impact over all schedule of the project.
For scheduling a project, it is necessary to -

 Break down the project tasks into smaller, manageable form

 Find out various tasks and correlate them
 Estimate time frame required for each task
 Divide time into work-units
 Assign adequate number of work-units for each task
 Calculate total time required for the project from start to finish

Resource management
All elements used to develop a software product may be assumed as resource for
that project. This may include human resource, productive tools and software
libraries.
The resources are available in limited quantity and stay in the organization as a pool
of assets. The shortage of resources hampers the development of project and it can
lag behind the schedule. Allocating extra resources increases development cost in
the end. It is therefore necessary to estimate and allocate adequate resources for
the project.
Resource management includes -

 Defining proper organization project by creating a project team and allocating

responsibilities to each team member
 Determining resources required at a particular stage and their availability
 Manage Resources by generating resource request when they are required
and de-allocating them when they are no more needed.

Project Risk Management

Risk management involves all activities pertaining to identification, analyzing and
making provision for predictable and non-predictable risks in the project. Risk may
include the following:

 Experienced staff leaving the project and new staff coming in.
 Change in organizational management.
 Requirement change or misinterpreting requirement.
 Under-estimation of required time and resources.
 Technological changes, environmental changes, business competition.

Risk Management Process

There are following activities involved in risk management process:

 Identification - Make note of all possible risks, which may occur in the
project.
  Categorize - Categorize known risks into high, medium and low risk intensity
as per their possible impact on the project.
 Manage - Analyze the probability of occurrence of risks at various phases.
Make plan to avoid or face risks. Attempt to minimize their side-effects.
 Monitor - Closely monitor the potential risks and their early symptoms. Also
monitor the effects of steps taken to mitigate or avoid them.

Project Execution & Monitoring

In this phase, the tasks described in project plans are executed according to their
schedules.
Execution needs monitoring in order to check whether everything is going according
to the plan. Monitoring is observing to check the probability of risk and taking
measures to address the risk or report the status of various tasks.
These measures include -

 Activity Monitoring - All activities scheduled within some task can be

monitored on day-to-day basis. When all activities in a task are completed, it
is considered as complete.
 Status Reports - The reports contain status of activities and tasks completed
within a given time frame, generally a week. Status can be marked as
finished, pending or work-in-progress etc.
 Milestones Checklist - Every project is divided into multiple phases where
major tasks are performed (milestones) based on the phases of SDLC. This
milestone checklist is prepared once every few weeks and reports the status
of milestones.

Project Communication Management

Effective communication plays vital role in the success of a project. It bridges gaps
between client and the organization, among the team members as well as other
stake holders in the project such as hardware suppliers.
Communication can be oral or written. Communication management process may
have the following steps:

 Planning - This step includes the identifications of all the stakeholders in the
project and the mode of communication among them. It also considers if any
additional communication facilities are required.
 Sharing - After determining various aspects of planning, manager focuses on
sharing correct information with the correct person on correct time. This keeps
every one involved the project up to date with project progress and its status.
 Feedback - Project managers use various measures and feedback
mechanism and create status and performance reports. This mechanism
ensures that input from various stakeholders is coming to the project manager
as their feedback.
  Closure - At the end of each major event, end of a phase of SDLC or end of
the project itself, administrative closure is formally announced to update every
stakeholder by sending email, by distributing a hardcopy of document or by
other mean of effective communication.
After closure, the team moves to next phase or project.

Configuration Management
Configuration management is a process of tracking and controlling the changes in
software in terms of the requirements, design, functions and development of the
product.
IEEE defines it as “the process of identifying and defining the items in the system,
controlling the change of these items throughout their life cycle, recording and
reporting the status of items and change requests, and verifying the completeness
and correctness of items”.
Generally, once the SRS is finalized there is less chance of requirement of changes
from user. If they occur, the changes are addressed only with prior approval of
higher management, as there is a possibility of cost and time overrun.

Baseline

A phase of SDLC is assumed over if it baselined, i.e. baseline is a measurement

that defines completeness of a phase. A phase is baselined when all activities
pertaining to it are finished and well documented. If it was not the final phase, its
output would be used in next immediate phase.
Configuration management is a discipline of organization administration, which
takes care of occurrence of any change (process, requirement, technological,
strategical etc.) after a phase is baselined. CM keeps check on any changes done
in software.

Change Control

Change control is function of configuration management, which ensures that all

changes made to software system are consistent and made as per organizational
rules and regulations.
A change in the configuration of product goes through following steps -
 Identification - A change request arrives from either internal or external
source. When change request is identified formally, it is properly
documented.
 Validation - Validity of the change request is checked and its handling
procedure is confirmed.
 Analysis - The impact of change request is analyzed in terms of schedule,
cost and required efforts. Overall impact of the prospective change on
system is analyzed.
  Control - If the prospective change either impacts too many entities in the
system or it is unavoidable, it is mandatory to take approval of high
authorities before change is incorporated into the system. It is decided if the
change is worth incorporation or not. If it is not, change request is refused
formally.
 Execution - If the previous phase determines to execute the change request,
this phase take appropriate actions to execute the change, does a thorough
revision if necessary.
 Close request - The change is verified for correct implementation and
merging with the rest of the system. This newly incorporated change in the
software is documented properly and the request is formally is closed.

Project Management Tools

The risk and uncertainty rises multifold with respect to the size of the project, even
when the project is developed according to set methodologies.
There are tools available, which aid for effective project management. A few are
described -

Gantt Chart

Gantt charts was devised by Henry Gantt (1917). It represents project schedule with
respect to time periods. It is a horizontal bar chart with bars representing activities
and time scheduled for the project activities.

PERT Chart

PERT (Program Evaluation & Review Technique) chart is a tool that depicts project
as network diagram. It is capable of graphically representing main events of project
in both parallel and consecutive way. Events, which occur one after another, show
dependency of the later event over the previous one.
Events are shown as numbered nodes. They are connected by labeled arrows
depicting sequence of tasks in the project.

Resource Histogram

This is a graphical tool that contains bar or chart representing number of resources
(usually skilled staff) required over time for a project event (or phase). Resource
Histogram is an effective tool for staff planning and coordination.

Critical Path Analysis

This tools is useful in recognizing interdependent tasks in the project. It also helps
to find out the shortest path or critical path to complete the project successfully. Like
PERT diagram, each event is allotted a specific time frame. This tool shows
dependency of event assuming an event can proceed to next only if the previous
one is completed.
The events are arranged according to their earliest possible start time. Path
between start and end node is critical path which cannot be further reduced and all
events require to be executed in same order.