Unit 1 - Project Management PDF

Unit 1 - Project Management  Management Activities Proposal writing Project planning and scheduling Project cost Project monitoring and reviews Personnel selection and evaluation Report writing and presentations.  Proposal Writing The first stage in a sof...

Unit 1 - Project Management  Management Activities Proposal writing Project planning and scheduling Project cost Project monitoring and reviews Personnel selection and evaluation Report writing and presentations.  Proposal Writing The first stage in a software project may involve writing a proposal to win a contract to carry out the work. The proposal describes the objectives of the project and how it will be carried out. It usually includes cost and schedule estimates, and justifies why the project contract should be awarded to a particular organization or team. Proposal writing is a critical task as the existence of many software organizations depends on having enough proposals accepted and contracts awarded. Project Planning and scheduling Project planning is concerned with identifying the activities. milestones and deliverables produced by a project. A plan is drawn up to guide the development towards the project goals. Project Cost Cost estimation is a related activity that is concerned with estimating the resources required to accomplish the project plan.  Project Monitoring and Review Project monitoring is a continuing project activity. The manager must keep track of the progress of the project and compare actual and planned progress and costs. For example, daily discussions with project staff might reveal a particular problem in finding some software fault. Rather than waiting for a schedule slippage to be reported, the software manager might assign some expert to the problem or might decide that it should be programmed around.  Reviews During a project, it is normal to have a number of formal project management reviews They are concerned with reviewing overall progress and technical development of the project and checking whether the project and the goals of the organisation paying for the software are still aligned. review may be a decision to cancel a project.  Personnel selection and evaluation Project managers usually have to select people to work on their project. skilled staff with appropriate experience will be available to work on the project. Report writing and presentations Project managers are usually responsible for reporting on the project to both the client and contractor organizations. They have to write concise, coherent documents that abstract critical information from detailed project reports. They must be able to present this information during progress reviews.  Project Planning Effective management of a software project depends on thoroughly planning the progress of the project. Managers must anticipate problems that might arise and prepare tentative solutions to those problems. A plan, drawn up at the start of a project, should be used as the driver for the project. This initial plan should be the best possible plan given the available information. It evolves as the project progresses and better information becomes available. The project plan sets out the resources available to the project, the work breakdown and a schedule for carrying out the work. In some organizations, the project plan is a single document that includes the different types of plan.  Project Scheduling Project scheduling is one of the most difficult jobs for a project manager. Managers estimate the time and resources required to complete activities and organize them into a coherent sequence. Unless the project being scheduled is similar to a previous project, previous estimates are an uncertain basis for new project scheduling. Schedule estimation is further complicated by the fact that different projects may use different design methods and implementation languages. Project Scheduling Process  Project scheduling is one of the most difficult jobs for a project manager. Managers estimate the time and resources required to complete activities and organize them into a coherent sequence. Project scheduling involves separating the total work involved in a project into separate activities and judging the time required to complete these activities. Usually, some of these activities are carried out in parallel. Project schedules are usually represented as a set of charts showing the work breakdown, activities dependencies and staff allocations.  Risk Management Risk management involves anticipating risks that might affect the project schedule or the quality of the software being developed and taking action to avoid these risks. The results of the risk analysis should be documented in the project plan along with an analysis of the consequences of a risk occurring. Effective risk management makes it easier to cope with problems and to ensure that these do not lead to unacceptable budget or schedule slippage.  Categories of Risks Project risks are risks that affect the project schedule or resources. An example might be the loss of an experienced designer. Product risks are risks that affect the quality or performance of the software being developed. An example might be the failure of a purchased component to perform as expected. Business risks are risks that affect the organization developing or procuring the software. For example, a competitor introducing Ii new product is a business risk. Possible software risks The Risk Management Process  Stages of Risk Management 1. Risk identification Possible project, product and business risks are identified. 2. Risk analysis The likelihood and consequences of these risks are assessed. 3. Risk planning Plans to address the risk either by avoiding it or minimizing its effects on the project are drawn up. 4. Risk monitoring The risk is constantly assessed and plans for risk mitigation are revised as more information about the risk becomes available  Risk Identification Risk identification is the first stage of risk management. It is concerned with discovering possible risks to the project. Risk identification may be carried out as a team process using a brainstorming approach or may simply be based on experience. To help the process, a checklist of different types of risk may be used. There are at least six types of risk that can arise: Technology risks: Risks that derive from the software or hardware technologies that are used to develop the system. People risks: Risks that are associated with the people in the development team. Organizational risks: Risks that derive from the organizational environment where the software is being developed. Tools risks: Risks that derive from the CASE tools and other support software used to develop the system. Requirements risks: Risks that derive from changes to the customer requirements and the process of managing the requirements change. Estimation risks: Risks that derive from the management estimates of the system characteristics and the resources required to build the system.  Risk Analysis During the risk analysis process, you have to consider each identified risk and make a judgement about the probability and the seriousness of it. There is no easy way to do this-you must rely on your own judgement and experience, which is why experienced project managers are generally the best people to help with risk management. These risk estimates should not generally be precise numeric assessments but should be based around a number of bands: The probability of the risk might be assessed as very low (75%). The effects of the risk might be assessed as catastrophic, serious, tolerable or insignificant  Risk Planning The risk planning process considers each of the key risks that have been identified and identifies strategies to manage the risk. 1. Avoidance strategies (strategy for dealing with defective components) 2. Minimization strategies(Staff Illness) 3. Contingency Strategies(Organizational financial problems) Risk Management Strategies  Risk Monitoring Risk monitoring involves regularly assessing each of the identified risks to decide whether or not that risk is becoming more or less probable and whether the effects of the risk have changed. Risk Factors