Project Management - Lecture 01

Many large software projects failed in the 1960's and 1970s. The delivered software was to late, unreliable, cost too much etc. Some projects were abandoned" All these problem contributed to software crisis. The software crisis was mainly caused by the use of insufficient management and the software development techniques and tools which were suitable for small scale projects but did not scale up to large projects'

Project management is broadly similar to the overall management function of an organization. this however restricted in scope and is mainly concerned with managing individuality identifiable activities of relatively short time duration (usually less than l year)

Project management involves :

• Identifying project objectives
• Identifying Project deadlines
• The forming of project teams (ie : Selecting members, identifying talents and skills, etc)
• prioritizing project requirements and obtaining the maximum possible set of resources at the minimum possible cost
• Scheduling of activities and assigning of tasks
• implementing Plans
• Appraise Project Performance

What is Project Management ?
Project management is the process of planning, organizing, and managing tasks and resources to accomplish a defined objective, usually within constraints on time, resources, or cost

Overview of software project management?

Software managers primarily responsible for software project management. This main activity varies tremendously. It depends on the organization, the nature of the project etc. there are however, two main generic activities such as

Project planning and scheduling - to identify task, mile stones and deliverable and to draw up a project schedule.

Project control and monitoring - to ensure that the work is carried out to the required standards, on time and within budget.

There are several important sub activities related to project planning and control: These include:

• Staff management plan
• Estimation plan(cost, time, staffing)
• Quality management plan
• Configuration management plan( especially important for software maintenance projects).

Software project management is different from other types of engineering project management in number of ways.

• They are intangible. The project manager is dependent on documentation to review the progress of the project.
• We do not have a clear understanding of the software process and there is no standard process for a product in software
• Large software systems are often one off projects(they are distinct from previous projects, so historical experience is of limited value).