Chapter 2

Question 1

What do you understand by top level course of a project?

Answer 1

It is a diagram that shows the basic steps during a project’s lifecycle.

Question 2

Highlight the top level course of a project

Answer 2

Project idea => Project initiation => Project initialization => kick off => project execution ========> touch down

Project execution steps:

Requirements analysis => System specification => sign off => System design => sign off => implementation => testing and integration => sign off

Project idea: A project starts with an idea which in many cases leads to a pilot study.

Question 3

The most important task during project initiation is

Answer 3

Project tendering. In most cases the company that wants the IT system will not be able to build the system, they have to tender for the development of the system for them.

Here the requirements initially identified during feasibility study have to be refined and concretized, the next step in the solicitation process is to send out Request For Proposal (RFP).

Question 4

What is business case of a project?

Answer 4

It is a justification that the project will pay off.

Question 5

Pilot study activity

Answer 5

One of the major part of the study is to establish the business case for the project.

The results of all the activities that happens during the pilot study will be formulated in a project concept.

Question 6

Project initialization

Answer 6

It is the most important phase of a project, during this step everything is prepared for project execution. This includes all technical activities such as building up project infrastructure as well as all organizational activities such as finalizing the project charter or project staffing.

It should be done by designated project leader or project manager.

Question 7

Most important tasks in project initialization are?

Answer 7

1. Clarify project goals, formulate a project charter, and obtain your project’s sponsor formal approval.
2. Clarify the quality criteria for the project
3. Set up the project organization
4. Develop the project work breakdown structure
5. Validate or perform a cost estimation
6. Set up a project schedule
7. Establish the project infrastructure
8. Set up controlling structures
9. Consolidate and put all these down in project handbook.

Question 8

What do you understand by project infrastructure? What are the things to consider when setting up a project infrastructure?

Answer 8

The project infrastructure covers all auxiliary things that the project team needs to do their work.

Things to consider when setting up a project infrastructure

1. Rooms: make sure the project team is not spread across different locations.
2. Means for work: computers, printers, telephones etc
3. Software development environments: computers, middleware, and network infrastructure.
4. File sharing: A common workspace where all team members can store the produced artifacts.
5. Software tools and user guides: A lot of tools are needed in a project, you have to define a proper guideline on how these tools should be used. Examples of tools here
   • Office software
   • Software development tools
   • Tools for managing the development process
   • Communication tools such as email, WIKI etc

Question 9

What is project handbook?

Answer 9

It is a book that contains everything relevant to a project either directly in the handbook or as a reference to the most important documents on the common file share.
It is the entry point for every new team member joining the project team.

Question 10

What are the things a project handbook should contain?

Answer 10

They include:
1. Project business background: the background should address the following
- Short description of the project’s history and the underlying business case.
- Brief summary of the project’s scope
- References to important project documents
- List of deliverables to be produced by the project
- Your customer’s quality criteria

2. The project’s work breakdown structure
3. Risks
4. Project organization: it contains the project’s organizational charts as well as the project’s escalation channels.
5. Mailing Lists
6. Meetings
7. Planning: it shows a top level view of your project including the most important milestones of your project.
8. Controlling information
9. Quality management
10. File share structure and naming conventions
11. Other internal handbooks
12. Miscellaneous information

Question 11

One thing to be mindful of for a project handbook

Answer 11

The handbook should be adequate for the project and must be continually updated.

Technical means for managing the project handbook can be a word document, PowerPoint presentation, or a wiki.

Question 12

What is project kick off meeting?

Answer 12

It is a meeting that signals the start of the project, here the project leader or project manager informs the team about the project’s objectives and what else has been achieved during project initialization

Question 13

Highlight the things that needs to be introduced during project kickoff meeting

Answer 13

They are:

1. Project objectives and project charter: what shall be achieved by the project, what are the underlying business case, what are the deliverables etc
2. Project structure and work breakdown structure
3. Project approach: iterative or waterfall approach
4. Important standards for teamwork: regular meetings, communication standards, escalation paths etc
5. Project organization: organizational charts, most important roles, key players in the team.
6. Collaboration guidelines

Question 14

What happens during project touch down meeting?

Answer 14

During the meeting you take a retrospective look at the project and learn from it for your next project. What went wrong? What went right? These findings should be conserved and brought back to the company’s knowledge management.

Also, to improve on cost estimation you need to perform final costing here by comparing the estimated amount during the start of the project and the actual costs for each tasks in the project’s time sheet.

Question 15

Identify four basic areas of activities that will take place in every project

Answer 15

1. Requirement analysis / System specifications
2. System design
3. Implementation
4. Testing and Integration

Question 16

The outcome of requirement analysis / system specification is a document containing

Answer 16

1. A list of requirements: this list will contain functional requirements and non functional requirements
2. A description of the business solution
3. This solution will build the business architecture

Question 17

What happens during system design?

Answer 17

During system design we take a closer look at how the system should work on technical level.

Question 18

What are the typical contents of a system design document ?

Answer 18

1. Technical system overview: Outside view shows the technical interfaces to other systems, inside view describes the components the system consists of
2. Description of the software architecture
3. System architecture : describes which hardware will be used, what networks , and the middleware and operating systems used.
4. Implementation blueprint

Question 19

What implementation should address

Answer 19

The implementation of the software does not only cover the coding, it includes developer testing and documentation.

Question 20

Draw the schema of the waterfall model ( project schedule with Gantt diagram)

Answer 20

requirements analysis
& System specification
⤵️
System design
⤵️
Implementation
⤵️
Test & Integration

————————————————>
project start project goal

Question 21

What happens during the sign off activity in waterfall Gantt diagram

Answer 21

It is an explicit activity that requires some time for the customer to read and review a document.

During this time the project should be prepared to answer questions regarding the concept.

Question 22

Highlight agile manifesto core statements

Answer 22

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

Question 23

Name the two kinds of iterative approaches we have

Answer 23

1. Evolutionary approach and
2. Incremental approach

Question 24

Different between evolutionary approach and incremental approach

Answer 24

In evolutionary approach, every iteration includes the requirements analysis and system specifications activity which makes it difficult to fix the project scope because it changes each time requirements analysis is performed. With this approach you can’t determine your project’s progress.

But for incremental approach? requirements analysis and system specification are done once at the beginning of the project after which you can build increments of your software, iterating system design, implementation, and testing and integration. It allows for better feedback from the customer. Also project scope is fixed at the beginning making it easier to track the project progress.

Question 25

What do you understand by project stage?

Answer 25

it is the result of an iteration that is delivered to the customer to be used.

Question 26

What do you understand by scrum

Answer 26

it is an iterative approach performed by self-organized team with strong participation from the business and has a strict formal framework.

Question 27

What do you understand by daily Scrum?

Answer 27

it is a 15 minutes stand-up meeting held every day to reflect on the software development status and progress.

Question 28

Show the organisation of the scrum development team

Answer 28

🧑‍💼 ↔️ 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧
product owner team

====================
scrum master

Development team: they are responsible for delivering the product, the team is self-organised and consists of 3 - 9 team members. The team estimates the efforts and plans the development.

Product owner: they represent the product’s stakeholders. Their job is to make all business-related decisions regarding the product.

Scrum master: their main task is to support and coach his team, remove impediments and take care of formal scrum framework.

Question 29

highlight the mandatory processes in scrum framework

Answer 29

1. Planning sessions
2. Reviews
3. Retrospective

Documentation

Question 30

Most remarkable aspects of scrum

Answer 30

• it is an evolutionary approach and it somehow contradicts the concept of a project because it doesn’t give guarantee on when the project will be finished and what the result will be.

From practical experience, scrum always leads to good results.

• Another remarkable aspect is the change in the role of project manager, there is no equivalent in scrum.
• The development team is cross functional, including all disciplines necessary for the product development.

Question 31

Most important thing in project management

Answer 31

is to preserve common sense. Never do something that you believe is wrong just because a development model tells you so.