Software Project Management: The Manager's View

ABSTRACT

As businesses become more dependent on information technology for

their operations, IS managers are under increasing pressure to deliver quality

applications software on time and within budget. Thus, in addition to their

technical skills, they must master the necessary management skills to lead and

control software development projects.

The purpose of this tutorial is to present the fundamental concepts of

modern project management and show how these concepts can be applied to

software development projects. The tutorial presents a broad overview of current

software project management practices that evolved over the years from a

variety of complex projects. The subject is presented from the manager's rather

than from the developer's perspective. The focus is on large and complex

projects because these projects are the most challenging and in need of an

effective project management discipline.

Keywords: Project management, software development, project planning,

project control, team building, critical success factors.

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Software Project Management: The Manager's View by J. Jurison

I. INTRODUCTION

Projects are not new. People have been working on projects since the

early days of organized work. The Egyptian pyramids, the Greek Parthenon, and

the Great Chinese Wall are examples of major projects of historic importance.

What is new is the way we manage projects. Project management as a special

form of management evolved from the work done on large-scale military projects

where an organized approach was necessary to manage the complex

interrelationships among an enormous number of different tasks performed by

many different specialists. In recent years project management emerged as a

major new form of management to deal with the complexities of knowledgebased

teamwork in organizations facing rapidly changing business environments.

Project management provides managers with powerful methods and tools for

planning, organizing, and managing team-based activities for accomplishing

specific objectives.

No other management activity can benefit more from effective project

management than software development. Practically all software development

efforts are undertaken as projects. These projects are generally complex and

their development takes place in a dynamic environment where business

conditions and technologies change during the project. Users are often unsure of

their needs and frequently change requirements midway through the project. As

a result, the software industry is plagued by cost overruns, late deliveries, poor

reliability, and user dissatisfaction (Abel-Hamid and Madnick, 1991).

Why is managing projects so difficult? Why are we seeing so many project

failures, especially in software development? Some of the difficulties stem from

the inherent nature of the product, others are management related. Among the

common software related problems are:

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Software Project Management: The Manager's View by J. Jurison

* Intangibility. Software, unlike hardware, is intangible. As a result, software

is difficult to manage because it contains no visible milestones to measure

progress and quality.

* Complexity. The sheer complexity of software makes it difficult for people

to comprehend it, creating not only technical, but management problems

as well.

* Volatility of requirements. Software requirements are under constant

pressure for change. Because software can be changed more easily than

hardware, change is a way of life in software development.

Among the management-related difficulties the following are most

frequently cited in the project management literature:

* Poorly defined goals and specifications

* Lack of project plan

* Unrealistic deadlines and budgets

Although some projects fail for technical reasons, most project failures are

caused by people who ignore the principles of good project management. The

purpose of this tutorial is to present these principles and show how they can be

applied to the development of information systems.

The paper is organized as follows. Section II presents an introduction to

project management, defines the key dimensions of project management, and

describes the project life cycle. The process of project planning is described in

Section III. It covers project definition, cost and schedule estimating, and risk

assessment. Section IV addresses the issues of project organization. It describes