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LECTURE 5: SOFTWARE PROJECT

MANAGEMENT

Software Engineering

1 Introduction

• The “software crisis” of the 1960s and 1970s was so called because of a string of high profile software project failures: over budget, overdue, etc.
• The crisis arose in part because the greater power available in computers meant that larger software projects were tackled with techniques developed on much smaller projects.
• Techniques were needed for software project management. Good project management cannot guarantee success, but poor management on significant projects always leads to failure.

• Software projects have several properties that make them very different to other kinds of engineering project. - The product is intangible. Its hard to claim a bridge is 90% complete if there is not 90% of the bridge there. It is easy to claim that a software project is 90% complete, even if there are no visible outcomes. - We don’t have much experience. Software engineering is a new discipline, and so we simply don’t have much understanding of how to engineer large scale software projects. - Large software projects are often “bespoke”. Most large software systems are one-off, with experience gained in one project being of little help in another. - The technology changes very quickly. Most large software projects employ new technology; for many projects, this is the raison d’etre.

• Activities in software project management: - project planning; - project scheduling; - risk management; - managing people.

2 Project Planning

• The biggest single problem that afflicts software developing is that of underestimating resources required for a project.
• Developing a realistic project plan is essential to gain an understanding of the resources required, and how these should be applied.
• Types of plan: - Software development plan. The central plan, which describes how the system will be developed. - Quality assurance plan. Specifies the quality procedures & standards to be used. - Validation plan. Defines how a client will validate the system that has been developed.

- Configuration management plan. Defines how the system will be configured and installed. - Maintenance plan. Defines how the system will be maintained. - Staff development plan. Describes how the skills of the participants will be developed.

• We will focus on software development & quality assurance plan.

2.1 The Software Development Plan

• This is usually what is meant by a project plan.
• Specifies the order of work to be carried out, resources, responsibilities, and so on.
• Varies from small and relatively informal to large and very formal.
• Developing a project plan is as important as properly designing code: On the basis of a project plan, contracts will be signed and careers made or broken...
• Important not to: - overestimate your team’s ability; - simply tell clients what they want to hear; - be pressured by developers (“we can do that in an afternoon!”)

2.2 Structure of Development Plan

1. Introduction

brief intro to project — references to requirements spec

2. Project organisation

intro to organisations, people, and their roles

3. Risk Analysis

what are the key risks to the project?

4. Hardware and software resources

what h/ware and s/ware resources will be required for the project and when?

5. Work breakdown

the project divided into activities, milestones, deliverables; dependencies between tasks etc

6. Project schedule

actual time required — allocation of dates

7. Reporting and progress measurement

mechanisms to monitor progress.

2.3 Work Breakdown

• There are many ways of breaking down the activities in a project, but the most usual is into: - work packages; - tasks; - deliverables; - milestones.

• A workpackage is a large, logically distinct section of work: - typically at least 12 months duration; - may include multiple concurrent activities; - independent of other activities; - but may depend on, or feed into other activities; - typically allocated to a single team.
• A task is typically a much smaller piece of work: A part of a workpackage. - typically 3–6 person months effort; - may be dependent on other concurrent activities; - typically allocated to a single person.

• A deliverable is an output of the project that can meaningfully be assessed. Examples: - a report (e.g., requirements spec); - code (e.g., alpha tested product).

Deliverables are indicators (but only indicators) of progress.

• A milestone is a point at which progress on the project may be assessed. Typically a major turning point in the project. EXAMPLES: - delivery of requirements spec; - delivery of alpha tested code.

• Usually... - work packages are numbered WP1, WP2,... ; - tasks are numbered T1.1, T1.2, etc, the first number is the number of the workpackage; the second is a sequence number. - deliverables are numbered D1.1, D1.2, etc - milestones are numbered M1, M2 etc.

• For each workpackage & task, it is usual to document: - brief description; - earliest start date; - earliest end date; - total person months effort; - pre-requisite WPs or tasks; - dependent WPs or tasks; - who is responsible.

2.4 Critical Paths

• The pre-requisites and dependencies of WPs and tasks determine a critical path: the sequence of dependencies in the project.
• The critical path is the sequence of activities that takes the longest time to complete.
• Any delay to an activity in the critical path will cause delays to the overall project.
• Delays to activities not on the critical path need not necessarily cause overall delays.

3 Gantt Charts & Activity Networks

• Gantt charts are a kind of bar chart: - time plotted on x axis - bars on y axis for each activity.

• An activity network is a labelled graph, with: - nodes corresponding to activities, - arcs labelled with estimated times; - activities are linked if there is a dependency between them.

4 Risks

When planning a project, it is critically important to know what the key risks are, and is possible plan for them:

• staff turnover;
• management change;
• hardware unavailability;
• requirements change;
• specification delays;
• size underestimate;
• technology change;
• product competition.

5 Quality Assurance

• Many organisations make use of a quality assurance plan, which sets out standards to be maintained during project development.
• – Documentation standards:

∗ what documents; ∗ format & content;

- Coding standards: ∗ class/method/variable naming conventions; ∗ comment standards (e.g., javadoc); ∗ testing conventions;