Chapter 4

Software Project Management

ICT407| Software Engineering
By Muhammad I Mungadi
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,
in a specified period of time to achieve intended software product.
Need of software project management

• Software is said to be an intangible product. Software development is

a kind of all new stream in world business and there’s very little
experience in building software products.
• Most software products are tailor made to fit client’s requirements.
The most important is that the underlying 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.
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.
Responsibilities of a Project Manger
• 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:
• statement of work
• resource list
• work breakdown structure
• a project schedule
• risk plan.
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.
• 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.
Project Estimation

• 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.
Project Estimation

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

• 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.
Project Estimation Techniques

• 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.
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.
• 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.
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.
• Sharing - After determining various aspects of planning, manager focuses on sharing
correct information with the correct person on correct time.
• Feedback - Project managers use various measures and feedback mechanism and create
status and performance reports.
• 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.
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”.
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.
Change Control

• 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 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.