Project Planning Stages and Software Pricing

• Project planning is about breaking down work into assigned parts, anticipating issues, and making solutions.
• Project plans communicate how project work is done to the team/customers and help track progress.

Planning Stages

• The proposal stage happens when bidding for a contract to develop or give a software system
• The project startup phase is when planning team members and breaking the project into increments
• Throughout the project, plans are modified based on experience and progress info.

Proposal Planning

• Planning might be needed even with only basic software needs.
• Planning aims to give info to set a system price for customers.

Software Pricing

• Estimates find the cost for the developer to make a software system
• Hardware, software, travel, training and effort costs are considered
• Development cost does not determine customer price
• Broader factors like organizational, economic, political ,and business things dictate price.

Factors Affecting Software Pricing

• Market opportunity: A low price may be offered for a new market segment, hoping for later profits with new products from experience.
• Cost estimate uncertainty: If unsure of the cost estimate, organizations might increase the price via contingency.
• Contractual terms: Customers who let developers keep source code ownership for reuse may see lower prices.
• Requirements volatility: An organization may lower prices to get a contract if changes are likely, then charge high prices for said changes.
• Financial health: Developers in financial trouble may reduce prices to be chosen, preferring low profits to ceasing business.

Plan-Driven Development

• Plan-driven (or plan-based) development is when the software engineering development plan is detailed.
• Plan driven development uses engineering project management and is traditional for big software projects.
• Project plans record who does what for the schedule and work items.
• Management supports decisions and measures advancement.

Plan-Driven Development: Pros and Cons

• Early planning factors in organizational issues and finds potential problems before they start.
• Decisions might need updates due to environment changes when developing/using the software.

Project Plans

• Project plans in plan-driven dev setup project resources, work breakdown, and a work schedule.
• Project plans include sections on Intro, Project org, Risk analysis, Hardware/software needs, Work breakdown, Project schedule, and Monitoring/reporting.

Project Plan Supplements

• Quality plans define what procedures and standards are needed in a project
• Validation plans describe the resources and schedule schedule for system validation.
• Configuration management plans describe what procedures and structures are to be used.
• Maintenance plans predict how much will be needed during maintenance.
• Staff development plans define the skills and experiences team members need to develop.

The Planning Process

• Project planning is iterative and starts with an initial plan when starting.
• Plans always change
• New info and project team changes mean plans should always be checked regularly to accommodate new requirements.
• Changing business goals affect project plans, maybe changing the whole project.

Project Scheduling

• Project scheduling decides how project tasks will be done, plus when/how tasks happen.
• The estimate is the needed calendar time, the required effort and who will work on tasks.
• Resources are also given per task, like server disk space , hardware time and travel budget.

Project Scheduling Activities

• Projects are split into tasks, with an estimated time and the sources to finish it
• Tasks are organized concurrently to maximize the utilization of the workforce.
• Delay is minimized by reducing task dependencies that are caused by another task to be complete.
• It depends on the project manager's intuition that is based on relevant experience.

Milestones and Deliverables

• Milestones are schedule markers to assess progress, such as system handover for testing.
• Deliverables are work delivered to customers, like a requirements doc.

The Project Scheduling Process

• The scheduling process includes identifying activities, activity dependencies, estimate resources for activities, allocate people to activities and create project charts like gantt charts.

Scheduling Problems

• It is hard to determine the problem's complexity and determining the solution cost .
• Adding people to a late project makes issues worse
• Productivity is not equal to the number of people assigned to the same task
• Unexpected things happen, always plan for it.

Schedule Representation

• Charts normally illustrate the project schedule.
• Graphic shows project breakdown into tasks. Tasks should take a week or two.
• Bar charts are standard for schedules, with activities/resources versus time.

Tasks, Durations, and Dependencies

• The table on slide 11 shows an example of some tasks given different durations and dependencies

Activity Bar Chart

• Example of activity bar chart on slide 11 showing the task allocations over time.

Staff Allocation Chart

• The staff allocation chart is shown on slide 12 in calendar format, displaying when staff carry out tasks.

Agile Planning

• Agile dev methods are iterative, giving software in increments.
• Increments unlike plan-driven aren't planned in advance but decided during development
• Decisions depend on advancement and the customer's wishes.
• Customer has flexibility to alter their own priorities to make changes

Agile Planning Stages

• Release planning is when deciding what features should be included in the system, done months in advance.
• Iteration planning is planning the next system increment, typically 2-4 weeks of the team working.

Planning in XP

• Planning using Extreme Programming includes features and the customer approval. This features Story identification, Initial estimation, Release planning, Iteration planning and Task planning.
• The development in increment loop includes test scenarios, requirements, acceptance tests and small releases which restarts the loop with Stories.

Story-Based Planning

• XP system specs come from user stories that show what system features there should be
• Teams read the stories and rate the time to code.
• Release planning collects stories for features in a release, and order implemented.
• Stories are chosen for iterations based on iteration delivery time.

Key Points

• The price is based on the market and org
• Plan-driven development uses the complete project plan that defines activities, manpower, schedule and assignment.
• Scheduling involves making graphical representations of bar charts that indicates duration.
• XP planning involves the whole team in project planning. Functionality changes, not deadlines.