Project Managment

Question 1

What is software project management?

Answer 1

Concerned with activities involved in ensuring that software is delivered on time and on schedule and in accordance with the requirements of the organizations developing and procuring the software.
•Project management is needed because software development is always subject to budget and schedule constraints that are set by the organization developing the software.

Question 2

What are the success criteria for a software project?

Answer 2

• Deliver the software to the customer at the agreed time.
• Keep overall costs within budget.
• Deliver software that meets the customer’s expectations.
• Maintain a coherent and well-functioning development team.

Question 3

What factors influence software project management?

Answer 3

• Company size
• Software customers
• Software size
• Software type
• Organizational culture
• Software development processes
• These factors mean that project managers in different organizations may work in quite different ways.

Question 4

What are four things a manager can control?

Answer 4

–Resources(can get more dollars, facilities, personnel)
–Time(can increase schedule, delay milestones, etc.)
–Product(can reduce functionality -e.g. scrub requirements)
–Risk(can decide which risks are acceptable)

Question 5

What is the approach to any management?

Answer 5

–Understand the goals and objectives
•quantify them where possible
–Understand the constraints
•if there is uncertainty, use probability estimates
–Plan to meet the objectives within the constraints
–Monitor and adjust the plan
–Preserve a calm, productive, positive work environment

Question 6

What are some universal management activities?

Answer 6

• Project planning
• Risk management
• People management
• Proposal writing.
• Project planning and scheduling.
• Project costing.
• Project monitoring and reviews.
• Personnel selection and evaluation.
• Report writing and presentations.

Question 7

What is project planning?

Answer 7

• Probably the most time-consuming project management activity.
• Continuous activity from initial concept through to system delivery. Plans must be regularly revised as new information becomes available.
• Various different types of plan may be developed to support the main software project plan that is concerned with schedule and budget.

Question 8

What does project plan do?

Answer 8

The project plan sets out:
–The resources available to the project;
–The work breakdown;
–A schedule for the work.
•Introduction.
•Project organisation.
•Risk analysis.
•Hardware and software resource requirements.
•Work breakdown.
•Project schedule.
•Monitoring and reporting mechanisms.

Question 9

How are activities in a project organized?

Answer 9

• Activities in a project should be organized to produce tangible outputs for management to judge progress.
• Milestonesare the end-point of a process activity.
• Deliverablesare project results delivered to customers.
• The waterfall process allows for the straightforward definition of progress milestones.

Question 10

How to organize project scheduling for a project?

Answer 10

• Split project into tasks and estimate time and resources required to complete each task.
• Organize tasks concurrently to make optimal use of workforce.
• Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays caused by one task waiting for another to complete.
• Dependent on project managers intuition and experience.

Question 11

What are some problems with scheduling?

Answer 11

• Estimating the difficulty of problems and hence the cost of developing a solution is hard.
• Productivity is not proportional to the number of people working on a task.
• Adding people to a late project makes it later because of communication overheads.
• The unexpected always happens. Always allow contingency in planning.

Question 12

What is risk management?

Answer 12

Risk management is concerned with identifyingrisks and drawing up plansto minimize their effect on a project.
1.Risk Assessment
2.Risk Control
•A risk is a probability that some adverse circumstance will occur.
–Project risks affect schedule or resources;
–Product risks affect the quality or performance of the software being developed;
–Business risks affect the organisation developing or procuring the software.

Question 13

What are the ways to classify risk?

Answer 13

There are two dimensions of risk classification
–The type of risk (technical, organizational, ..)
–What is affected by the risk:
•Project risks affect scheduleor resources;
•Product risks affect the quality or performance of the software being developed;
•Business risks affect the organization developing or procuring the software.

Question 14

What is risk management process?

Answer 14

• Risk identification
• Risk analysis
• Risk planning
• Risk monitoring

Question 15

What is risk identification?

Answer 15

•May be a team activities or based on the individual project manager’s experience.
•A checklist of common risks may be used to identify risks in a project
–Technology risks.
–People risks.
–Organisational risks.
–Requirements risks.
–Estimation risks.

Question 16

What is risk analysis?

Answer 16

• Assess probability and seriousness of each risk.
• Probability may be very low, low, moderate, high or very high.
• Risk effects might be catastrophic, serious, tolerable or insignificant.

Question 17

What is risk planning?

Answer 17

•Consider each risk and develop a strategy to manage that risk.
•Avoidance strategies
–The probability that the risk will arise is reduced;
•Minimisation strategies
–The impact of the risk on the project or product will be reduced;
•Contingency plans
–If the risk arises, contingency plans are plans to deal with that risk;

Question 18

What is risk monitoring?

Answer 18

• Assess each identified risks regularly to decide whether or not it is becoming less or more probable.
• Also assess whether the effects of the risk have changed.
• Each key risk should be discussed at management progress meetings.

Question 19

What are different measures?

Answer 19

Types of Metric
–algorithmic vs. subjective
–process vs. product
•➜Good metrics are:
–simple (to collect and interpret)
–valid (measure what they purport to measure)
–robust (insensitive to manipulation)
–prescriptive
–analyzable
•➜5 types of scale
–nominal (=, ≠ make sense; discrete categories)
–ordinal (, =, make sense; e.g. oven temps: cool, warm, hot, very hot)
–interval (+, -, , = make sense; e.g. temperature in centigrade)
–ratio (x, ÷, +, -, , = make sense; e.g. temperature in Kelvin)
–absolute (a natural number count)

Question 20

What are people management factors?

Answer 20

• Consistency
• Respect
• Inclusion
• Honesty

Question 21

What is need satisfaction in software development project?

Answer 21

•In software development groups, basic physiological and safety needs are not an issue.
•Social
–Provide communal facilities;
–Allow informal communications e.g. via social networking
•Esteem
–Recognition of achievements;
–Appropriate rewards.
•Self-realization
–Training -people want to learn more;
–Responsibility.

Question 22

What are some different personality types?

Answer 22

–Task-oriented people, who are motivated by the work they do. In software engineering.
–Interaction-orientedpeople, who are motivated by the presence and actions of co-workers.
–Self-orientedpeople, who are principally motivated by personal success and recognition.

Question 23

What are some designations in a software project?

Answer 23

• Project Manager is a Person who thinks nine women can deliver a baby in One month.
• Developeris a Person who thinks it will take 18 months to deliver a Baby.
• Onsite Coordinator is one who thinks the single woman can deliver nine babies in one month.
• Clientis the one who doesn’t know why he wants a baby.
• Marketing Manager is a person who thinks he can deliver a baby even if no man and woman are available.
• Resource Optimization Teamthinks they don’t need a man or woman; they’ll produce a child with zero resources.
• Documentation Teamthinks they don’t care whether the child is delivered, they’ll just document 9 months.
• Quality Auditoris the person who is never happy with the PROCESS to Produce a baby.
• Testeris a person who always tells his wife that this is not the Right baby
• HR manageris a person who thinks that a donkey can deliver a human baby in given 9 months

Question 24

What is the role of teamwork in the software project?

Answer 24

•Most software engineering is a group activity
–The development schedule for most non-trivial software projects is such that they cannot be completed by one person working alone.
•A good group is cohesive and has a team spirit. The people involved are motivated by the success of the group as well as by their own personal goals.
•Group interaction is a key determinant of group performance.
•Flexibility in group composition is limited
–Managers must do the best they can with available people.

Question 25

What are the advantages of a cohesive group?

Answer 25

–Group quality standards can be developed by the group members.
–Team members learn from each other and get to know each other’s work; Inhibitions caused by ignorance are reduced.
–Knowledge is shared. Continuity can be maintained if a group member leaves.
–Refactoring and continual improvement is encouraged. Group members work collectively to deliver high quality results and fix problems, irrespective of the individuals who originally created the design or program.

Question 26

What is group organization in software projects?

Answer 26

• Small software engineering groups are usually organised informally without a rigid structure.
• For large projects, there may be a hierarchical structure where different groups are responsible for different sub-projects.
• Agile development is always based around an informal group on the principle that formal structure inhibits information exchange

Question 27

How does an informal group on a sw project work?

Answer 27

• The group acts as a whole and comes to a consensus on decisions affecting the system.
• The group leader serves as the external interface of the group but does not allocate specific work items.
• Rather, work is discussed by the group as a whole and tasks are allocated according to ability and experience.
• This approach is successful for groups where all members are experienced and competent.