Software Project Management
Software Project Management
Software Project Management
What is Project?
A project is a group of tasks that need to complete to reach a clear result. A project
also defines as a set of inputs and outputs which are required to achieve a goal.
In software Project Management, the client and the developers need to know the
length, period and cost of the project.
1. Time
2. Cost
3. Quality
Stakeholders are those with an interest in your project's outcome. They are
typically the members of a project team, project managers, executives,
project sponsors, customers, and users. Stakeholders are people who will
be affected by your project at any point in its life cycle, and their input can
directly impact the outcome. It's essential to practice good stakeholder
management and continuously communicate to collaborate on the project.
Internal stakeholders are those within your organization. They can include
top management, project team members, your own manager, your peers or
co-workers, a resource manager, and internal customers.
External stakeholders are not part of your organization but might include
external customers, government entities, contractors, and subcontractors,
as well as suppliers.
The project manager usually creates the stakeholder management plan.
Going through the process of creating a plan also helps you analyze your
stakeholders and better understand them. This can help you better
anticipate their needs and proactively address any concerns.
documenting the list of all the project goals, tasks, deliverables, deadlines,
With the scope in the project management defined right in the beginning, it
becomes much easier for project teams to manage and make the required
changes.
clients is one of the most challenging tasks. With a definite project scope,
managers can easily stay on track and ensure that all the deadlines are
Effective project scope management gives a clear idea about the time, labor,
details all the boundaries of the project while also establishing the
defines all the procedures that need to be followed for verifying and
decisions.
2. Collecting requirements
The next step is to work out stakeholder requirements and expectations. You
This is a rather important step because more often than not, stakeholders
At the end of the collection requirements stage, you should have the
following:
Stakeholder requirements
Business requirements
Project requirements
description of the service or product that you are trying to deliver through the
project. You will then have a project scope statement that you can then refer
important to note down what is out of the project scope. Any kind of
inclusions to the scope would then have to go through the entire change
control process to ensure the team is only working on things that they are
With a defined scope, you get a reference point for your project team and
anyone else involved. In case there is something that is not involved in the
which needs to be done in the project and then assigns all the tasks to the
team members. It lists the deliverables that need to be completed and their
assign and prioritize project tasks which will make it easier to track the entire
5. Validating scope
In this step, the scope and deliverables that you have recorded need to be
Scope validation needs to be done before starting the project to ensure that if
6. Controlling scope
Project managers need to ensure that as the project begins, it always stays
within the defined scope. In case there are some things that need to change,
Project Manager
A project manager is a character who has the overall responsibility for the planning,
design, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of a project. A project
manager represents an essential role in the achievement of the projects.
A project manager is a character who is responsible for giving decisions, both large
and small projects. The project manager is used to manage the risk and minimize
uncertainty. Every decision the project manager makes must directly profit their
project.
A project manager must lead his team and should provide them direction to make
them understand what is expected from all of them.
2. Medium:
The Project manager is a medium between his clients and his team. He must
coordinate and transfer all the appropriate information from the clients to his team
and report to the senior management.
3. Mentor:
He should be there to guide his team at each step and make sure that the team has
an attachment. He provides a recommendation to his team and points them in the
right direction.
Responsibilities of a Project Manager:
1. Managing risks and issues.
2. Create the project team and assigns tasks to several team members.
3. Activity planning and sequencing.
4. Monitoring and reporting progress.
5. Modifies the project plan to deal with the situation.
Organizational Behaviour & People Management: Selecting the Right Person for the Job:
• Create a job holder profile Using the job specification, a profile of the person
needed to carry out the job is constructed. The qualities, qualifications, education
and experience required would be listed.
• Examine CVs These should be read carefully and compared to the job holder profile
- nothing is more annoying for all concerned than when people have CVs which
clearly indicate that they are not eligible for the job and yet they are called for
interview.
https://www.bmc.com/blogs/software-project-management/
motivation:
The third concern that we noted from Taylor was that of motivating people to work.
We are now going to look at some different models of motivation that have been
proposed.
Piece-rates are where workers are paid a fixed sum for each item they produce. Day-
rates refer to payment for time worked.
Exercise 11.2
Even where work practices are stable and output can be easily related to reward,
people paid by the amount they produce will not automatically maximize their output
in order to maximize their income. The amount of output will often by constrained by
'group norms', informal, even unspoken, agreements among colleagues about the
amount to be produced.
Rewards have to be related in a simple and direct way to the work produced. Where a
computer system is being produced, this is not easy. It is difficult to isolate and
quantify work done, especially as system development and support is very much a
team effort. Typical is the sentiment expressed by one member of staff in a study of
software support work practices:
'This support department does well because we're a team, not because we're all
individuals. / think it's the only way the support team can work successfully.'
In practice, the project leader must realise that people are likely to be motivated by
different things at different stages of their life. For example, salary increases, while
always welcome, probably have less of an impact on the more mature employee who
is already relatively well-paid, than on a new and lowly-paid trainee. Older team-
members might place more value on qualities of the job such as being allowed
relative autonomy when they do their work, which shows respect for their judgment
and sense of responsibility.
Exercise 11.3
Newspapers often report on the vast sums of money that are paid to the top
executives of many companies. Does this mean that these people are at a low level
in the Maslow hierarchy of motivation? Do they really need all this money to be
motivated? What do you think that the significance of these salaries really is?
Certain things about a job might make you dissatisfied. If the causes of this
dissatisfaction are removed, this does not necessarily make the job more exciting.
On the basis of research into job satisfaction that Herzberg and his associates
carried out there seemed to be two sets of factors about a job that were of
importance:
• hygiene or maintenance factors, which can make you dissatisfied if they are not
right, for example, the level of pay or the working conditions;
• motivators, which make you feel that the job is worthwhile, like a sense of
achievement or the nature of the work itself.
Identify three incidents or times when you felt particularly pleased or happy about
Exercise 11.4 something to do with your work or study. Identify three occasions
when you were particularly dissatisfied with your work or study. Compare your
findings with those of your colleagues and try to identify any patterns.
Amanda and Brigette will need to be aware of how the day-to-day ups and downs of
system development affect motivation. A model of motivation developed by Vroom
and his colleagues illustrates this. It identifies three influences on motivation:
• expectancy, the belief that working harder will lead to a better performance;
Motivation will be high when all three factors are high. A zero level for any one of the
factors can lead to a lack of motivation.
Imagine that you are trying to get a software package supplied by a third party to
work. If you realize that you will never get it to work because of a bug in it, you will
give up. No matter how hard you work you will not be able to do any better (zero
expectancy).
If you are working on a package for a user and, although you think you can get it to
work, you discover that the user has started employing an alternative package and
no longer needs this one, then you will probably feel you are wasting your time and
give up (zero instrumentality).
Given that the users really do want the package, your reward in this set of
circumstances might simply be a warm feeling that you have helped your colleagues
and that they are grateful to you. If in fact, when the users employ the package all
they do is complain and hold you responsible for any shortcomings, then you will
probably avoid getting involved if they later ask for help implementing a different
package (low perceived value of reward).
Managers should try to group together the elements of the tasks that need to be
carried out so that they form meaningful and satisfying assignments. Oldham and
Hackman suggest that the satisfaction that a job gives is based on five factors. The
first three factors make the job 'meaningful' to the person who is doing it:
• skill variety, the number of different skills that the job holder has the opportunity to
exercise;
• task identity, the degree to which your work and its results are identifiable as
belonging to you;
• task significance, the degree to which your job has an influence on others. The
other two factors are:
• autonomy, the discretion you have about the way that you do the job;
• feedback, the information you get back about the results of your work.
Couger and Zawacki found that programmers in general rated their jobs lower on
these factors than other professions, while systems analysts and analyst-
programmers rated them higher. Computer development people experienced about
the same level of meaningfulness in their work as other, non-IT, professionals, but
had lower perceptions of the degree of responsibility and knowledge of results of
their work.
In practical terms, activities should be designed so that, where possible, staff follow
the progress of a particular product and feel personally associated with it.
• Setting specific goals These goals need to be demanding and yet acceptable to
staff. Involving staff in the setting of goals helps to gain acceptance for them.
• Providing feedback Not only do goals have to be set but staff have to have regular
feedback about how they are progressing.
• Job design Jobs can be altered to make them more interesting and give staff more
feeling of responsibility.
Two measures are often used to enhance job design - job enlargement and job
enrichment.
• Job enlargement The scope of the job is increased so that the member of Job
enlargement and job staff carries out a wider range of activities. It is the opposite of
increasing enrichment are based on specialization. For example, a programmer in a
maintenance group might be the work of F. Herzberg. given responsibility for
specifying minor amendments as well as carrying out the actual code changes. It is
significant that Couger and Zawacki found that programmer/analysts had a higher
degree of job satisfaction than programmers.
• Job enrichment In this case, the job is changed so that the holder carries out tasks
that are normally done at a higher, managerial, level. Staff might be given
responsibility for ordering consumables, for scheduling their work or for quality
control. With a programmer in a maintenance team, they might be given authority to
accept requests for changes which involved less than five days' work without the
need for their manager's approval.
Behavioural models:
There are several models of behaviour that the project manager can draw upon in his or her work. These include
Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, Herzberg’s Hygiene theory and McGregor’s theory X and theory Y as applied
to project management. All these behavioural models point to the ability of the project manager to motivate
the people in the team towards the common goal of ensuring the success of the project.
Maslow’s need hierarchy theory postulates that people do not work for money or security alone. According to
this theory, once a person fulfils the basic needs of money and security, he or she tends to seek actualization of
their potential and engage in what he called “self-actualization”.
Maslow’s hierarchy theory argues that there are 5 different stages of human needs that motivate the behaviour:
physiological needs, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, self-actualization.
Thus, this theory holds that once an individual reaches a certain stage in life or a position, the pay and other
benefits matter less to him or her than the quality of the work that they are doing.
When we apply this theory to the real world issues of management, we find that the Project Manager has to
ensure that he or she does not concentrate on raising the perks alone to achieve optimal performance from his
team members but also keeps giving challenging work to the team members to fulfil their potential. According
to our experience and from talking to seasoned project managers, we have found that most team members take
great pride in their work and hence challenging assignments are one way of motivating them.
Of course, there has been much criticism of this theory in recent years and experts have pointed to several
inconsistencies in this theory and application. The most notable example is that of the skyrocketing executive
compensation that belies the hypothesis of Maslow’s theory. This is one clear instance of the fact that pay
matters more than other variables and job satisfaction alone does not motivate people. In my opinion, it is a fact
that people tend to get motivated by perks as well as promise of rewards, monetary and otherwise. So, it is up to
the Project Manager to use the notion of reward judiciously without compromising quality or alienating other
team members.
If we take a look at Herzberg’s theory of hygiene, the factors that contribute to the success of the individual can
be divided into presence and absence of hygiene factors. The definition is that the presence of good working
conditions and salary are things that do not motivate people by themselves. The absence of such factors de-
motivates the individual. Thus, the idea here is that hygiene factors are those that do not contribute by their
presence but contribute negatively by their absence.
Thus, the project manager cannot be complacent with the fact that he or she has provided optimal working
conditions for the team members and expect them to perform at their full potential. The manager also needs to
understand that it is his responsibility to take the lead in motivating the team members by holding regular one-
one meetings and ensuring that their grievances are heard and accepted.
The Theory X and Theory Y holds that people need to be supervised and told what to do (X) and people would
work with little supervision and thus do not need to be told what to do (Y). These are the opposing views of the
theory of motivation and behaviour. Thus these conflicting and competing views reflect human nature and
model the behaviour accordingly.
Stress management:
Imaging the project deadline is 2 weeks away and there are still some
critical issues to be resolved. To make it worse, one of your key team
members has been hospitalized. Customer is unhappy and
management is requesting for a daily review. The source of stress in
Project Management can be many and varied. Some common sources
are listed below:
1. Unrealistic timeline
2. Working in a matrix system which PM does not have the full
control of the resources
3. Lack of resources – human and/or equipment
4. Proliferation of virtual teams and cross cultural influences
5. Inter-group conflict in organization
6. Project environment
And the list goes on.
I find five interpersonal skills and/or attitudes that help reduce stress
taken from “Tangible Tips for Handling the Endless Stress in Project
Management” by Steven Flannes, Ph.D., Principal, Flannes &
Associates below to be really helpful in managing stress in Project
Management:
It is in everyone's interest to have a high standard of health and safety for all projects.
The project engineer or manager is typically liable for health and safety recording, or
tracking. They may or may not be the workplace health and safety officer. There are
usually targets/requirements to be met throughout the project. Often appreciation is
there for achieving goals and targets with zero health and safety incidents.
There are many tracking all recording tools available. improvements always required.
Weekly meetings or monthly meetings, should be conducted reporting on any
incidents or potential incidents that may occur on this project. it's at that meeting that
any enhancements are also tabled., and discussed. because the project manager, you're
searching for all style team, construction team, delivery of the project in a safe and
orderly manner.
Right or wrong, any accident that happens beneath your management (your project
management) may be a reflection on your project management skills. it's then up to
you to correct, manage the method of the incident and have it corrected as presently as
possible. This ability can facilitate dissipate any misconceptions concerning your
project management skills. That is the Importance of health and safety in project
management!
smart project managers implement healthiness and safety guidelines and methodology
well before the project has started, and ensures they're adhered to, usually by way of a
"work Place Health and Safety Officer" Health and safety management is a
specialized field, that sometimes requires further training.
The level of training requirements differs greatly depending on which country you are
operating in, and the level of supervision you are willing to oversee. Either way, you
look at it, Safety is everyone's business, and we all have the right to travel range in
precisely the same method we have a tendency to arrive. though this article is written
for project managers or engineers, it will be applied to multiple industries.
Some ethical and Professional concerns:
https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/issues-in-professional-ethics-in-software-project-
management/
team organizations and structure:
https://www.itechgurus.org/blog/organization-structure-of-project-management/16
https://www.greycampus.com/blog/project-management/common-types-of-organizational-
structures-in-project-management
leadership styles:
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/project-management-leadership-
styles
module 2: project planning and evaluation:
https://www.openproject.org/blog/prince2-with-openproject/
7 principles:
Business justification
Manage by steps
Manage by exception
7 themes:
Progress
Change
Plan
Risks
Quality
Organization
Business case
7stages:
Starting a project
Initiating a project
Directing a project
Controlling a stage
Closing up a project
Pmbok:
There’s a list of every project expense and what the expected benefits will be after
successfully executing the project. From that, you can calculate the cost-benefit
ratio (CBR), return on investment (ROI), internal rate of return (IRR), net present
value (NPV) and the payback period (PBP).
if the cost is 50 percent of the benefits and the payback period is not more than a
year, then the action is worth taking.
Create a business case for your project and state its goals and objectives.
Before you can know if the project is right, you need to compare it to similar past
projects to see which is the best path forward. You can quickly check their success
metrics such as their return on investment, internal rate of return, payback period
and benefit-cost ratio.
List all stakeholders in the project. They’re the ones affected by the costs and
benefits. Describe which of them are decision-makers.
You need to decide on the metrics you’ll use to measure all costs and benefits.
Some of them will have a dollar value, while others will need other metrics. Also,
how will you be reporting on those metrics?
Look over what the costs and benefits of the project are, assign them a monetary
value and map them over a relevant time period. It’s important to understand that
CBA estimates the monetary value of present and future costs and benefits.
6. What Is the Common Currency?
As mentioned in the last step, you can’t compare the current monetary value of
costs and benefits with future rates. That’s why you’ll have to calculate the time
value of money, discount rate, and the net present value of cash flows.
However, in some cases, the benefits of a project are not measurable in monetary
value. If you find yourself in that position, you should do a cost-effectiveness
analysis.
The discount rate is used to calculate the present value of the future cash flows
coming in or out of your project.
The final step after collecting all this data is to make the choice that is
recommended by the CBA, which is the one with the highest benefit-cost ratio.
Cost-Benefit Analysis Example
Now let’s put that theory into practice. For our cost-benefit analysis example, we’ll
do an assessment of a project that involves delivering a product as its main goal.
Costs
Direct costs: These are all the costs that are directly related to
the manufacturing of the product. Such as materials,
equipment, labor, etc.
1. Payback Method
2. Present Value Method
3. Net Present Method
4. Net Benefit Method
5. Break Even Method
6. Cash Flow Analysis
1. Payback Method
Payback analysis defines the time required to recover the money spent on
a project.
Formula
The present value method compared the present value to future values by
considering the time value of invested money. The present value analysis
determines how much money it is worthwhile investing now, in order to
receive a given return in some year’s time.
Formula
P=F/(1+r/100)
This method takes into consideration the time value of money & attempts to
calculate the return on investment by introducing the factor of the time
element.
The net present values of all inflows& outflows of cash occurring during the
entire life of the project are determined separately for each year by
discounting these flows by the firm’s cost of capital.
In the Break-Even Method, the costs of current & new systems are
compared to find the time when both are equal. This point is called a break-
even point. The breakeven point is the time at which the cost of the new
system equals the cost of the current one.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/selection-process-parameters-for-a-software-life-cycle-model/
sdlc:
https://www.javatpoint.com/software-engineering-software-development-life-cycle
https://www.javatpoint.com/software-engineering-sdlc-models
effort estimation:
https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-is-effort-estimation/
contract management:
Activity planning:
https://www.javatpoint.com/software-project-management-activities
Critical Path method (CPM):
https://www.productplan.com/glossary/pert-chart/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/project-evaluation-and-review-technique-pert/
https://www.techtarget.com/searchsoftwarequality/definition/PERT-chart
sequencing and scheduling activities:
https://hmhub.in/scheduling-and-sequencing/#:~:text=Sequencing%20is%20the%20order%20of,the
%20manufacturing%20time%20and%20cost.
network diagrams:
https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-is-a-network-diagram-in-project-
management/
https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/network-diagrams-free-tools
https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/arrow-diagrams-activity-on-node-activity-on-arrow
risk management – risk identification and prioritization
"risk" is a problem that could cause some loss or threaten the progress of the project, but
which has not happened yet.
Risk identification:
The project organizer needs to anticipate the risk in the project as early as possible
so that the impact of risk can be reduced by making effective risk management
planning.
Types of risk:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/different-types-of-risks-in-software-project-development/
Many methods are used for identifying risks, some are mentioned below.
Brainstorming with project team
Document Analysis and historical diagrams
Evaluation of risk lists and lessons learned from similar projects
Risk Checklists with risk categories and risks
Risk identification methods:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/methods-for-identifying-risks/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/risk-management-steps-in-software-engineering/
https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/risk-management-process-steps
Resource Allocation:
https://www.float.com/resources/resource-scheduling-in-project-management/
cost scheduling:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/cost-and-schedule-estimating-process/
resource levelling:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/management_concepts/resource_leveling.htm
module 4: monitoring and control
https://www.srividyaengg.ac.in/coursematerial/CSE/104834.pdf
https://www.gristprojectmanagement.us/software-2/creating-the-framework.html
collecting data :
https://www.gristprojectmanagement.us/software-2/collecting-the-data.html
review:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/software-engineering-software-review/
reporting:
https://kissflow.com/project/project-management-report/
feedback:
https://www.gitkraken.com/blog/feedback-loops-agile-development
visualizing progress:
https://citizenchoice.in/course/software-project-management/Chapter%204/3-visualizing-progress
cost management:
https://www.ecosys.net/knowledge/project-cost-management/
https://www.edureka.co/blog/earned_value_analysis_in_project-management/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/earned-value-management-evm/
prioritizing monitoring:
https://www.gristprojectmanagement.us/software-2/prioritizing-monitoring.html
more questions:
https://www.srividyaengg.ac.in/questionbank/CSE/QB104831.pdf
https://www.srividyaengg.ac.in/questionbank/CSE/QB104832.pd
module 5: project closure and quality management:
project closure:
Tie Up Loose Ends: Make sure everything is in order (e.g., all vendors and workers
are properly paid) and paperwork is complete.
Show Appreciation for Supporting Departments: Give a hearty thanks to
everyone who helped with the project. Report back on the successful closure of the
project. For example, send a note saying you appreciated the space and resources
allocated for this work and you’ve left it in good shape for the next team.
Hold a Project Outcomes Meeting: Gather upper-level managers and supervisors
and thank them for giving the project the green light. Use this time to report on the
deliverables and summarize lessons learned, emphasizing the foundation laid for
future successes for the organization as a result.
Create a Repository of Digital Project Resources: Make these materials available
for future reference. If questions come up about this project or if a future project
manager seeks to learn from your processes and successes, these documents will
help.
Learning Phase
We want all projects to be both challenging and manageable, but sometimes not
everything goes as planned. Occasionally you encounter a glitch along the way. No
matter what happens during a project’s lifecycle, learning is always present. The
learning phase of project closure is time dedicated to team reflection on what you’ve
done, how you’ve done it, and what you’ve learned now that the project is complete.
There are multiple ways to focus project closure on learning and growth, both for the
organization as a whole and for individual team members. Doing so will likely lead to
greater satisfaction and meaning associated with doing project work.
Dedicate Time for Team Reflection: Consider what you’ve done, how you’ve done
it, and what you’ve learned now that the project is complete.
Document Lessons Learned: The learning phase brings lessons learned to the
forefront and documents them for the benefit of your team today and for future
reference when you or a colleague initiates a new project.
Respond to Questions about the Current Project: Now is the time to document
organizational and project memory that’s accessible to all relevant parties. One way
to ensure you’ve addressed all issues is to respond to questions about the current
project, then making that information accessible to all relevant parties.
Facilitate Discussion and Reflection in a Team Setting: The learning phase, just
like the other phases, mostly involves holding team discussions about the project.
Learning that takes place as a result of a team project helps to feed organizational
success. Just as important, the project can inform individual team members’
professional development and sense of mission. Now is the time to ask:
o Has the team member learned something specific about their interests and
talents and, therefore, their career goals?
People Phase
Take the time to commemorate what you’ve accomplished as a team. You’ve come
to know the team well and have a good sense of the team’s personality. Make the
most of the camaraderie you’ve developed to celebrate in a way that’s right for your
team within your organization.
Remember, the team made the project deliverables possible, and recognizing those
efforts and the need for emotional closure will leave everyone feeling good and
ready to move on, whatever comes next. Depending on the context, it may be
appropriate to invite the upper-level supervisor who gave the green light for the
project to participate, too.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/project-closure-report-definition-contents.html
software quality:
https://www.javatpoint.com/software-engineering-software-quality
http://softwareindustries-ifour.blogspot.com/2016/04/types-of-software-quality-models.html
https://www.javatpoint.com/software-engineering-software-metrics
https://www.gristprojectmanagement.us/software-2/product-versus-process-quality-
management.html
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/software-engineering-capability-maturity-model-cmm/
https://www.browserstack.com/guide/how-to-improve-software-quality
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/differences-between-quality-assurance-and-quality-control/
Quality Standards:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/iso-standards-in-software-engineering/
Iso 9126:
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/iso-iec-9126-in-software-engineering/
You’ve been asked to build software to support a low-cost video editing system. The system accepts
digital video as input, stores the video on disk, and then allows the user to do a wide range of edits to
the digitized video. The result can then be output to DVD or other media. Do a small amount of research
on systems of this type and then make a list of technology risks that you would face as you begin a
project of this type.
Answer:
The following activities are to be done in a low cost video editing system:
Following are some of the technology risks associated in developing a low cost video editing system:
1. Need to consider various formats of the digital video. The formats keep changing rapidly.
2. Need to consider various compression algorithms. There is a frequent change in the compression
algorithms.
4. Need to consider various modes of uploading or inputting the digital video. The modes of inputting
the digital video changes from time to time (via internet, direct from camera, direct from mobile, from
LAN, from analog tape, etc.).
5. Need to consider various media for storing the modified video (DVD, camera, mobile etc.).
Case tools:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/software_engineering/case_tools_overview.htm