Introduction to-project-management-dabc

Introduction to Project Management

Sanjay Koul
sanjayk@cdac.in

What is a Project?
 A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to
produce a unique product or service
Characteristics of Unique
Temporary Projects
 Temporary – Definitive beginning and end
 Unique – New undertaking, unfamiliar ground

 A project is a set of activities which are networked in an
order and aimed towards achieving the specific goals .
Upon the completion of all the activities the goals of the
project would have been achieved.
 A project is undertaken to achieve a purpose

 Management
- Management is the technique of understanding the
problems, needs and controlling the use of resources,
such as cost, time, manpower, materials, etc.
 Project management
– It is an art of controlling the cost, time, manpower,
and hardware and software resources involved in a
project.
 Project Cycle
– A project cycle basically consists of the various
activities of operations, resources and the limitations
imposed on them.

 Process
– A process is part of the project which consists of simple
and routine instructions to achieve a desired result of any
activity of the project. A process is responsible to bring
about the changes in the input fed to the process and
gives out desired outputs as results of the process.
 Resource
– It refers to manpower, machinery, money and materials
required in the project.
 Scope
– It refers to the various parameters that affect the project
in its planning, formulation and executions.
 Project Cost
– It is the budgeted expenditure of the project.

Project Success

Customer Requirements Completed within
satisfied/exceeded allocated time frame

Completed within Accepted by the customer
allocated budget

Project Failure

Poor Requirements
Scope Creep
Gathering

Unrealistic planning and Lack of resources
scheduling

Project Management
Project Management is the application of skills,
knowledge, tools and techniques to meet the needs and
expectations of stakeholders for a project.

The purpose of project management is prediction and
prevention, NOT recognition and reaction.

Relationship with other management disciplines is
essential for a project to be successful. Supporting
disciplines includes law, strategic planning, logistics,
human resource management and domain knowledge

The Project Manager (PM)
 A project manager is a person who manages the
project. The project manager is responsible to carry
out all the tasks of a project. Responsibilities of the
project manager are:
 Budgeting and cost control
 Scheduling tasks
 Allocating resources
 Tracking project expenditures
 Ensuring technical quality
 Manage relations with the customer and company

Role of a Project Manager
People
Process Responsibilities
Responsibilities

• Project issues
• Disseminating project information • Implementing standard processes
• Mitigating project risk • Establishing leadership skills
• Quality • Setting expectations
• Managing scope • Team building
• Metrics • Communicator skills
• Managing the overall work plan

Types of Project Managers
• Hands-off versus hands-on managers
 Most of the hands-off managers are non-technical managers who took up software project
management.
 Only a handful of the managers sit with the engineers and try to debug the software or at
least suggest alternative approaches to solve a problem, particularly during the coding
phase.

• Democratic versus anarchic managers
 To develop a congenial
atmosphere in which the team members can give vent to their
creative abilities, a democratic approach is the most ideal approach.
However, one needs to be careful, freedom means responsibility, not carelessness

 Proactive versus reactive managers
 Reactive managers react to events. When an engineer comes and tells about a
problem, he will try to resolve it.
 A proactive manager takes the initiative to find the status both informally and formally.
Informally, during coffee breaks, lunch breaks or at social gatherings, he gets the different
viewpoints of the team members on the status and uses this information to carry out
formal reviews.

Who will be a Good Software Engineer?
People with good problem solving abilities, good
communication skills and team spirit make good
software engineers.

Not surprisingly, many organizations recruit people
based on an aptitude test (to test the problem solving
abilities) and not based on knowledge of programming
languages or operating systems.

How does project management benefit you?
You will have goal clarity and measurement
Your resources will be coordinated
Your risks will be identified and managed
You will increase the possibilities of time savings
You will increase the possibilities of cost savings
You will increase the possibilities of achieving the
agreed outcome
You will increase the possibilities to deliver projects
successfully

Triple Contraint

Time

Quality

Cost Scope

Triple Contraint
Increased Scope = increased time + increased cost

Tight Time = increased costs + reduced scope

Tight Budget = increased time + reduced scope.

Key Areas of Project Management

Scope Management
Issue Management
Cost Management
Quality Management
Communications Management
Risk Management
Change Control Management

Scope Management

 Primarily it is the definition and control of what IS and
IS NOT included in the project.

Managing the scope of the project
Project scope management constitutes 'the
processes to ensure that the project includes all
of the work required, and only the work
required, to complete the project successfully.‘
Project scope has several purposes:
 It defines what work is needed to complete the
project objectives
 It determines what is included in the project
 It serves as a guide to determine what work is not
needed to complete the project objectives
 It serves as a point of reference for what is not
included in the project

Planning Activities
• Choice of Development life cycle model

• Choice of Execution model

• Planning of Reviews

• Process Auditing

• Project Planning Document Preparation

Issue Management

 Issues are restraints to accomplishing the deliverables of
the project.
 Typically identified throughout the project and logged
and tracked through resolution.

Issue… already impacting the cost, time or quality

Rope not thick

Issue Management

 Issues are restraints to accomplishing the deliverables of
the project.
 Issues are typically identified throughout the project and
logged and tracked through resolution.
 In this section of the plan the following processes are
depicted:
 Where issues will be maintained and tracked
 The process for updating issues regularly
 The escalation process
 The vehicle by which team members can access documented
issues

Cost Management

 This process is required to ensure the project is
completed within the approved budget and includes:

Resources Budget
people
equipment
materials
Quantities
Timing

Cost Management
 This process is required to ensure the project is
completed within the approved budget and includes:
 Resource Planning - The physical resources required
(people, equipment, materials) and what quantities are
necessary for the project
 Budget
 Budget estimates
 Baseline estimates
 Project Actuals

Quality Management

 Quality Management is the process that insure the
project will meet the needs

“conformance to requirements” - Crosby

“fitness for use” - Juran

“the totality of characteristics of an
entity that bear on its ability to
satisfy stated and implied need’ - ISO 8402:1994

Communications Management
 This process is necessary to ensure timely and appropriate
generation, collection, dissemination, and storage of
project information using:
 Communications planning
 Information Distribution
 Performance Reporting
 for the Project Meetings (Team, OSC, ESDefine
the schedule C), Status Meetings and Issues Meetings to
be implemented

Team Structures
• Democratic team or ego-less team

• Hierarchical team

• Controlled Decentralized team

• Single-person army

Democratic team

• Team size is small, less than 10 members.

• All major decisions are arrived at through consensus.

• Regular interaction amongst all the team members.

• The senior-most person acts as the coordinator who will
interface with the client for all administrative and
managerial work.



Hierarchical team

• There will be a Project Manager who will
be responsible for all project activities.

• A number of Project Leaders report to the Project
Manager, each Project Leader is responsible for a
module.

• A number of engineers report to each Project Leader.
The engineers are responsible for sub-modules.

Controlled Decentralized team
There will be a project manager who is responsible
for the total project.
A number of Project Leaders report to the Project
Manager. Each Project Leader is responsible for a
module.
A team of engineers act as a democratic team and
any decision related to this group is taken
collectively. The senior most engineer in the group
will act as the Project Leader

One-Person Army
• In this team structure, there will be only one
person who will work on the project.

• This person will report to the project manager
periodically.

• For prototype development of a high-end creative
products, this is a good model.

• Many products were initially developed by a
single-person armies: UNIX and C being the best
example

Rules of the Team Game
• Software development is a team effort, even if the
individuals are excellent, if they do not work as a
cohesive team, the project will not succeed.

• The team members should interact with each other
regularly.

• The team members should communicate with the
Project Manager/Leader regularly.

• Formal review meetings should be held periodically and
all the team members have to openly discuss all the
issues.

Risk Management
 Risk identification and mitigation strategy
 Risk update and tracking
 Whenif new risks arise

Risk… POTENTIAL negative impact to project

Tree – location, accessibility, Weather
ownership

Risk Management
 Top 10 risk items [Boehm]

• Personnel pitfalls
• Unrealistic schedules and objectives
• Developing wrong interface functions
• Wrong user interface
• Gold plating
• Continuous stream of requirements changes
• Shortfalls in externally furnished/purchased
components
• Shortfalls in externally performed tasks
• Real time performance
• Straining computer science capabilities

Change Control Management
Define how changes to the project scope
will be executed

Scope Change Technical Specification Changes

Schedule changes

All changes require collaboration and buy in via the project sponsor’s signature
prior to implementation of the changes

Change Control Management
Define how changes to the project scope
will be executed
 Formal change control is required for all of the following
1. Scope Change
2. Schedule changes
3. Technical Specification Changes
4. Training Changes
 All changes require collaboration and buy in via the
project sponsor’s signature prior to implementation of the
changes

Quality Management
 Quality Management is the process that insure the
project will meet the needs via:
 Quality Planning, Quality Assurance, and Quality
Control
 ClearlyDefined Quality Performance Standards
 How those Quality and Performance Standards are
measured and satisfied
 How Testing and Quality Assurance Processes will ensure
standards are satisfied
 Continuous ongoing quality control

The Training Program
• The training program has to cover

– Rules and regulations of the organization
– Client details and scope of the project
– Communication skills
– Team work
– Software Development tools
– Application domain
– Software Engineering Principles
– Quality standards to be followed

Choice of Execution Model
 Off-shore development
– Projects with clear requirements and subcontractor
has the capability in the specific area; maintenance
projects

• On-site development
– Projects without clear requirements/changing
requirements; and constant interaction with client is
required.

• On-site cum off-shore development
– If the project can be partly done using off-shore
execution model.

Coding Guidelines
• Layout of the code should be in such a way
that it is easy to read and understand.

• Names of files, classes, functions, variables
etc. should be meaningful.

• Exceptions should be handled.

• Internal (on-line) documentation should be
embedded in the code.

• Function size to be limited to 40/50 lines

Coding Standards

• Every organization should have a set of coding
standards for each programming language used,
indicating:

– Backup mechanism

– Naming conventions

– Internal documentation to be included.

Initiation Phase

 Define the need
 Return on Investment Analysis
 Make or Buy Decision
 Budget Development

Definition Phase

 Determine goals, scope and project constraints
 Identify members and their roles
 Define communication channels, methods, frequency
and content
 Risk management planning

Planning Phase

 Resource Planning
 Work Breakdown Structure
 Project Schedule Development
 Quality Assurance Plan

Implementation Phase

 Execute project plan and accomplish project goals
 Training Plan
 System Build
 Quality Assurance

Deployment Phase

 User Training
 Production Review
 Start Using

Closing Phase
 Contractual Closeout
 Post Production Transition
 Lessons Learned

Work Breakdown Structure

 For defining and organizing
the total scope of a project
 First two levels - define a set
of planned outcomes that
collectively and exclusively
represent 100% of the project
scope.
 Subsequent levels -
represent 100% of the scope of
their parent node

Project Management Tools
 PERT Chart- designed to
analyze and represent the
tasks involved in completing a
given project

 Gantt Chart -
popular type of bar
chart that
illustrates a project
schedule

Critical Path Analysis CPA (Network
Analysis)
Critical Path Analysis (CPA) is a project management tool
that:
 Sets out all the individual activities that make up a larger
project.
 Shows the order in which activities have to be undertaken.
 Shows which activities can only taken place once other
activities have been completed. Shows which activities can
 be undertaken simultaneously, thereby reducing the overall
time taken to complete the whole project.
 Shows when certain resources will be needed – for example,
a crane to be hired for a building sit

Critical Activities
Critical activities are activities that cannot run
late. For critical activities:
Latest finish — Earliest start = length of activity

2
3 4
A(3) B(8)

1 1 42 42
D(12)
1 3
2 2 5
E(10)
0 0 C(7)
F(20)

4
22 22
The green arrows mark the critical activities,
which form the critical path. The critical path(s)
must form a continuous route from the start node
to the finish node.

Postmortem Analysis
 The 5 angles of postmortem analysis
– Processes
– People
– Technology
– Management
– Money

Need for project management
Project management is necessary because –
a) a project requires huge investments which should not
go waste
b) a loss in any project would have direct or indirect
impact on the society
c) prevent failures in projects
d) scope of the project activity may undergo a change
e) technology used may change during the course of
project execution
f) consequences of negativity in project related problems
could be very serious
g) changes in economic conditions may affect a project

Introduction to-project-management-dabc

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