Software Project Management

Target Group: SE 3rd year

Instructor: Hailu Beshada (MSc)
 Why you need to study SPM?
▪Failure of many Software Projects. For instance,
✓Large amounts of money are spent on ICT e.g. UK
government in 2003-4 spent £2.3 billions on contracts for ICT
and only £1.4 billions on road building
✓Project often fail – Standish Group claim only a third of ICT
projects are successful. 82% were late and 43% exceeded their
budget.
✓Poor project management a major factor in these failures
✓The United States Internal Revenue System was to abandon its
tax system modernization program after having spent $4
billion;
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 Why you need to study SPM?
✓The state of California spent $1 billion on its non-functional
welfare database system;

✓The €339 million United Kingdom air traffic control system

was reported as being two years behind schedule;

✓A 1995 Standish Group study (CHAOS) found that only 16.2%

of IS projects were successful and over 31% were canceled
before completion, costing over $81 B in the U.S. alone

✓Worldwide cost of IT failure (revisited): $3 trillion

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 Causes of Project Management Failure
▪Bad Communications

▪Poor schedule or resource Management (mismanagement)

▪Weak requirements definitions (leads to inadequate planning)

▪Inadequate planning, assumptions, risks, or resources

▪Use of new or unproven technologies/methods

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 Causes of Project Management Failure
▪Ineffective (or nonexistent) quality controls

▪Managing multiple projects at once or multi-tasking resources

▪Supply chain failures

▪Scope creep or poor impact analysis

▪Lack of qualified resources

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Advantages of Using Formal SPM
▪ Better control of financial, physical, and human
resources
▪ Improved customer relations
▪ Shorter development times
▪ Lower costs

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Advantages of Using Formal SPM
▪ Higher quality and increased reliability
▪ Higher profit margins
▪ Improved productivity
▪ Better internal coordination
▪ Higher worker morale

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 What is Project?
▪A project is:

✓ well-defined task, which is a collection of several operations

done in order to achieve a goal.

✓a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product,

service, or result

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 Attributes of Projects
▪Projects come in all shapes and sizes.
▪The following attributes help us to define a project further:
✓unique purpose
✓temporariness
✓require resources, often from various areas
✓should have a primary sponsor and/or customer
✓involve uncertainty

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 Project Constraints
▪ Every project is constrained in different ways by its:
✓Scope goals: What is the project trying to accomplish?
✓Time goals: How long should it take to complete?
✓Cost goals: What should it cost?

▪ Increased scope typically means increased time and cost, a tight time
constraint could mean increased costs and reduced scope, and a tight
budget could mean increased time and reduced scope.

▪ It is the project manager’s duty to balance these three often

competing goals
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The Triple Constraints of Project

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 What is Project Management?
▪Project Management is:
✓the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources
to bring about the successful completion of specific project
goals and objectives.

✓the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to

project activities to meet project requirements.

• Knowledge, skills, goals and personalities are the factors that need to
be considered within project management.
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 Stages of Projects
▪Every project is unique, but you should find that if best
practices are followed, each one follows the five stages of
projects:
✓Initiation
✓Planning
✓Execution
✓Control and
✓Closure

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 Stages of Projects
▪Initiating:
✓Integration management: Developing a project charter

✓Stakeholder management: Identifying stakeholders

▪Planning:
✓Integration management: Developing a project management
plan
✓Scope management: Defining and managing scope, creating a
work breakdown structure (WBS), and requirements gathering
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 Stages of Projects
▪Planning:
✓Time management: Planning, defining, and developing
schedules, activities, estimating resources and activity durations

✓Costs management: Planning and estimating costs, and

determining budgets

✓Quality management: Planning and identifying quality

requirements

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 Stages of Projects
▪Planning:
✓Human Resource management: Planning and identifying
human resource needs

✓Communications management: Planning communications

✓Risk management: Planning for and identifying potential risks,

performing qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, and
planning risk mitigation strategies

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 Stages of Projects
▪Planning:
✓Procurement management: Planning for and identifying
required procurements

✓Stakeholder management: Planning for stakeholder

expectations
▪Executing:
✓Integration management: Directing and managing all work for
the project
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 Stages of Projects
▪Executing:
✓Quality management: Performing all aspects of managing
quality

✓Human resource management: Selecting, developing, and

managing the project team

✓Communications management: Managing all aspects of

communications

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 Stages of Projects
▪Executing:
✓Procurement management: Take action on securing necessary
procurements

✓Stakeholder management: Managing all stakeholder

expectations
▪Monitoring and Controlling:
✓Integration management: Monitoring and controlling the
project work and managing any necessary changes
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 Stages of Projects
▪Monitoring and Controlling:
✓Scope management: Validating and controlling the scope of the
project

✓Time management: Controlling the scope of the project

✓Costs management: Controlling project costs

✓Quality management: Controlling the quality of deliverables

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 Stages of Projects
▪Monitoring and Controlling:

✓Communications management: Controlling all team and

stakeholder communications

✓Procurement management: Controlling procurements

✓Stakeholder management: Controlling stakeholder

engagements
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 Stages of Projects
▪Closing:

✓Integration management: Closing all phases of the project

✓Procurement management: Closing all project procurements

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 The Role of Project Manager
▪Planning and Defining ▪Risk Analysis
Scope ▪Monitoring and Reporting
▪Developing Schedules Progress
▪Time and Cost Estimating ▪Strategic Influencing
▪Developing a Budget ▪Business Partnering
▪Creating Charts and ▪Working with Vendors
Schedules ▪Controlling Quality
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Project Management Framework

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 Project Stakeholders
▪Stakeholders are the people involved in or affected by project
activities.
▪These are people who have a stake or interest in the project, In
general, they could be users/clients or developers/implementers
▪Stakeholders include
✓the project sponsor and project team
✓support staff
✓customers
✓users
✓suppliers
✓opponents to the project

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Project Management Knowledge Areas
▪Knowledge areas describe the key competencies that
project managers must develop
✓4 core knowledge areas lead to specific project objectives
(scope, time, cost, and quality)
✓4 facilitating knowledge areas are the means through which
the project objectives are achieved (human resources,
communication, risk, and procurement management
✓1 knowledge area (project integration management) affects
and is affected by all of the other knowledge areas

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 PM Tools and Techniques
▪Project management tools and techniques assist project
managers and their teams in various aspects of project
management
▪Some specific ones include
✓Project Charter and WBS (scope)
✓Gantt charts, network diagrams, critical path analysis, critical
chain scheduling (time)
✓Cost estimates and earned value management (cost)

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