SPM Unit 4 Notes
SPM Unit 4 Notes
Creating Framework
After the project starts its execution, the project must be carefully monitored to ensure the
project’s progress.
Monitoring process focuses on comparing the actual output with the expected one and
reviews the schedule to fit on target.
Regular monitoring of the project is needed to have more control over the project.
Always the expected outcomes are compared with the actual ones and analyzed whether
there is any slack in the planned process.
Project control is a continuous process of monitoring the progress of the project plan and
it also includes re-planning of activities if necessary.
The experience gained from the current project can be taken as an input over future
project establishment of activities.
Generally, revising the planning strategy is due to:
Delay in completion of the project within the target time
Quality factors
Inadequate functionality in adopting newer techniques
Actual estimation is above the estimated one.
A typical project control cycle is depicted below:
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Start
Publish
Initial Plan
Gather
project
Information
Compare Publish
progress vs revised Plan
targets
Satisfactory Take
? NO remedial
action
YES
Project Completed ?
NO
YES
End Project
Review
project
Document
conclusions
End
Project steering committee or the Project Board has the overall responsibility of the
project’s progress in achieving the target.
Project manager has the day-to-day responsibility of governing the development of the
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project. These managers assign individual responsibilities to different teams under a team
leader.
PROJECT BOARD
PROJECT MANAGER
Intermediate products that are achieved can specify a milestone in the development of the
project.
Worked Hours
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Project Activity Description Hours Percentage Scheduled Estimated
Code this of Completio Completion
week Completio n
n
Non-worked hours
Code Description Hours Comment & Authorization
this
week
Weekly Timesheet
Weekly timesheets contain the breakdown activities and holds information about the
scheduled and estimated completion time of individuals and do not contain the project
completion dates.
Reporting Risk
Risk reporting uses a traffic light method concept and consists of the following steps:
Identify the first level elements for assessment
Break the first level elements into second level elements
Assess the second level elements and mark the color as
Green – on target
Amber – not on target but recoverable
Red – not on target and difficult to recover
Review all the second level elements to reach the first level assessments
Review both first and the second level assessments to produce an overallassessment
This method only focuses on non-achievement factors and do not mention about any
delay in the development process.
Assessment forms can be used to evaluate the overall status of the project.
Critical activities denoted by red color must be reconsidered during the revision of
project schedule.
Visualizing Progress
Review Meetings . . .
The progress reports of the activity are normally represented as a shaded activity bar
which indicates the percentage of activity completion.
A Slip chart provides an alternative view of Gantt chart by providing a visual indication
of those activities which are not on schedule.
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The chart indicates that, the more there is a bend in the line the greater the variation in the
project plan.
If the slip line deviates more towards the non-achievement of project objectives, then it
has to be reconsidered.
Planned Week 15 16 17 18
Work Days M T W T F M T W T F M T W T F M T W T F
Code & Test Module 1
Review Meetings . . .
The same figure used to represent Gantt chart is modified to Slip chart and depicted
below:
Slip Chart
Additional slip lines can be included at regular intervals as they are build p which
provides the project manager a clear idea about the projects progress.
Ball Chart Technique
Ball charts are represented in the form of circles that indicate the start and the end point
completion of activities.
Initially, the circles contain the original scheduled dates and when revisions are done, the
second dates are introduced inside the circle until the activity is started or completed.
Circles of bar chart will at most contain only two dates the original and the revised one or
the original and the actual dates.
Ball charts are pictorially shown as below:
9/5/10
12/5/10
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Code Module 2
System
Integration
Ball Chart
An activity is denoted by a red circle (colored darker in the figure) when the start and
the end dates are later than the target dates whereas green circle (colored lighter in the
figure) denotes that the activity is ahead of its schedule.
The color to the circles reminds the project team about the status of each activity.
In general, all the three types of chart techniques do not show clearly the slippage in the
project completion date for the project life cycle. This is overcome by timeline charts.
Timeline Charts
Timeline usually records and displays the target changes during the project life cycle.
The chart represents the planned time along the horizontal axis and the actual time along
the vertical axis.
A line down the horizontal axis represents the scheduled activity completion dates and
the slip in the line indicates a delay in the respective activities.
This timeline chart is used to calculate the duration of execution of the project as a part of
post-implementation review.
Planned Time / Week Numbers
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Actual Time / Week Number
MTWTF
MTWTF MTWTF MTWTF MTWTF MTWTF MTWTF MTWTF MTWTF
ing system
1
User requirements
n offline layout
Issue Tender
Draft tender
2
4
5
7
8
9
Timeline Chart
Cost Monitoring
Planned Cost
Time in Weeks
Revised Estimate
Original Total
Cost
Time Now
Original
Estimate
Time in Weeks
An assigned value to each task or work package based on original cost forecasts yields
earned value for the project.
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The assigned value is the original budgeted cost value and termed as a planned value
(PV) or budgeted cost of work schedule (BCWS).
Earned value(EV)denotes the total value credited to a project at any point. It is also
termed as budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP).
Baseline Budgets
To setup an earned value analysis, the first step is to create a baseline budget. The
baseline budget shows the forecast growth of the project plan in earned value with respect
to time.
Common ways of measuring earned value in software development process is persons-
hours or work-days.
An 0/100 technique can be used to get the creditability of earned value.
A typical baseline budget chart is given below and it depicts the scheduled completion of
all activities involved in the development of the project
200
150
100
50
0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100
Elapsed Days
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Baseline Budget Chart
Monitoring Earned Value
The next step in earned value analysis is to monitor the project progress.
Monitoring process indicates the completion of tasks and includes the activity start and
milestone achievement of the project.
The actual cost (AC)is calculated by the actual cost of each task and is also called as
actual cost of work performed (ACWP).
Certain inferences can be obtained from the earned chart such as:
Schedule variance (SV) : the difference between the earned value and the
planned value indicates the degree of the completed work with the planned.
Cost variance (CV):the difference between the earned value and the actual cost
of a completed work results in cost variance. A positive CV value indicated that
the project is under control and a negative CV denotes that the actual cost
incurred is much more than the planned one.
The diagram depicts the earned value analysis along with the schedule and cost
variance.
Cumulative Cost
100
Baseline
90 Time Now Budget (PV)
80
Actual Cost
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70
Budget Cost
60 Variance Variance
SV (cost)
50
40 Earned Value
30 SV (time)
20
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Month Number
Earned Value with Variances
Performance Ratios
Performance ratios defines two index values namely Cost Performance Index (CPI) and
Schedule Performance Index (SPI).
Cost performance index and Schedule performance index values are calculated by the
formulas,
CPI = Earned value / Actual Costs
SPI = Earned value / Planned value
When these indices refers to a greater value it means that the work is completed better
than planned and if the value is less, it means that the work is more costlier than planned.
Project Tracking
Prioritizing Monitoring
The list of priorities defined in the level of monitoring are:
Critical path activities: These denote those activities in the critical path that are
delayed in project completion date.
Activities with no free float: These delayed activities will have a delay in
subsequent ones but still stick on target. These activities can have a serious effect on
the resource schedule because the subsequent activities have to wait for its
completion.
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Activities with less than a specified float: If there is a very little float in the activity
say less than one week, these activities must be monitored very closely.
High risk activities: These high risks are identified in the risk management plan
itself and these results in over spending.
Activities using critical resources: Critical activities are very expensive and are
available only for a limited period and require high level of monitoring.
Getting back Project on Target
Projects are subjected to delays and unexpected events.
The project manager must ensure that the project scheduled end dates are unaffected at
any circumstances.
To maintain the project within the completed time, duration of some activity of the
project can be delayed or shorten to fit into the time limit.
The strategies involved in getting back the project to target are;
Critical path shortening
Reconsidering precedence requirements
Critical Path Shortening
Delayed projects can often be brought back on track by shortening activity times on the
critical path.
Critical path is determined by the overall duration of the project.
By increasing the resources for the critical path activities results in completion of the
activity before time and the resources can be prolonged for a longer duration.
At the same time, the resources used must be effectively allocated to all the activities so
that no resources are idle at any point of time.
Swapping of critical and non- critical activities can also be used to shorten the time limit
and bring the project back to target.
One disadvantage of shortening critical path is that, it produces many more paths while
shortening which can become critical.
A precedence constraint activity can be sub-divided into a component that can start
immediately.
Altering these constraints would have a major impact on the quality factors, the risk
involved, which can cause a delay in carrying out the activities.
Change Control
Change control implies the authority to approve and rank the changes. It combines the
automated tool with human to provide a mechanism for control of change.
Any changes or alteration done to a single document often implies changes to other
documents as well.
Change request is evaluated to assess the technical aspect of configuration items and the
budget.
Role of Chang Control Manager
The responsibilities of change control manager or the configuration librarian are:
Identification of configuration items that are subjected to change control.
All project documentation and software products must be maintained in the
central repository.
A formal set of procedures have to be setup to have control over changes.
Maintenance of library items in the repository
If user accepts, copies of master are chosen User do not accept the change
For every change that is implemented, the scope of the developing project must be very
carefully monitored and controlled.
The changes made should not make the system to be inconsistent by affecting the
estimating factors.
After baseline changes the state of the software is defined by the most recent baseline
and the changes that were made. Some of the common baselines are functional or requirements
baseline, design baseline, and product or system baseline. Functional or requirement baseline is
generally the requirements document that specifies the functional requirements for the software.
Design baseline consists of the different components in the software and their designs. Product
or system baseline represents the developed system.
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It should be clear that a baseline is established only after the product is relatively stable.
Though the goal of SCM is to control the establishment and changes to these baselines, treating
each baseline as a single unit for the purpose of change is undesirable, as the change may be
limited to a very small portion of the baseline.
Configuration control
Most of the decisions regarding the change are generally taken by the configuration
control board (CCB), which is a group of people responsible for configuration management,
headed by the configuration manager. For smaller projects, the CCB might consist of just one
person. A change is initiated by a change request.
The reason for change can be anything. However, the most common reasons are requirement
changes, changes due to bugs, platform changes, and enhancement changes. The CR for change
generally consists of three parts. The first part describes the change, reason for change, the SCIs
that are affected, the priority of the change, etc.
The second part, filled by the CM, describes the decision taken by the CCB on this CR,
the action the CM feels need to be done to implement this change and any other comments the
CM may have. The third part is filled by the implementer, which later implements the change.
Status accounting and auditing
For status accounting, the main source of information is the CRs and FRs themselves.
Generally, a field in the CR/FR is added that specifies its current status. The status could be
active, complete, or not scheduled. Information about dates and efforts can also be added to the
CR, the information from the CRs/FRs can be used to prepare a summary, which can be used
by the project manager and the CCB to track all the changes.
Managing Contracts
Introduction
The acquisition and supply process are depicted for pre-contract and post-contract as
follows:
The success of a contract requires considerable amount of time management.
An ISO 12207 standard defined for acquisition and supply of software defines five major
processes namely,
Acquisition
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Supply
Operation
Maintenance
Development
ACQUIRER SUPPLIER
Initiation
Pre -
Request for proposal Initiation cont
ract
Contract
Post
Planning
-
cont
ract
Supplier Monitoring Execution
The initiation activity starts with the acquirer describing the preparation for the invitation
to tender.
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System requirements are broader and are not related to software alone but depends on the
changes in the organizational environment.
Software requirements specifically relate to the software components within the delivered
system and can be extracted from broader system requirements.
Request for proposal of the project contains the system requirements, scope of the
system, instruction for the bidders, list of software products, subcontractors detail and
other technical constraints.
The criteria for selecting the supplier will have to done very carefully by the acquirer
done by joint reviews, verification and validation.
As the supplier delivers, the acquirer conducts the review tests and is satisfied accepts the
software and sign-off as completed.
Supply Process
The supplier process activities will need to undertake in response to the request of
supplier.
Initiation: The process is started when a request for a proposal from an acquirer and
the supplier initiates the work.
Response Preparation: The response is prepared with expert knowledge drawn from
various people.
Contract: Every activity is handled well, then the acquirer accepts the supplier and the
details of the contract are negotiated and signed.
Planning: A detailed plan is developed of how the work has to be carried out.
Execution and Control: The detailed plan can be executed and the development
process is invoked. The supplier must monitor and have control over the product
quality in identifying, analyzing and providing resolutions.
Review and Evaluation: The acquirer reviews the progress of product information
which are needed to be accessed.
Delivery and Completion: Post-delivery process has to be defined in view of the
management plans.
Types of Contract
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Services are the external resources that are required for setting up a new system.
Based on the supply of a completed software package the contracts can be classified as
Bespoke system: This kind of system is developed for an individual that is created
from scratch.
Off-the-shelf: This package denotes what the user buys as it is and called as
shrink-wrapped software.
Customized off-the-shelf: This system represents a basic core system that is
modified based on the requirements of the client.
Based on how the payment is made to the supplier, the contracts can be classified as,
Fixed price contracts: Here, the price is fixed when the contract is signed. There
will be no changes in the contract terms and the payment must be made towards
the end of the work.
Advantages of Fixed price contracts
Customer expenditure is well-known.
Motivation of the supplier towards delivering the product with cost-
effective.
Disadvantages of Fixed price contracts
Supplier absorbs the risk in original estimate and allows higher prices to
allow contingency which is added as a margin quoted in the tender.
Requirements once defined are difficult to modify which can cause
friction between supplier and customer.
Initially, the supplier will quote low price but as requirements are put
forward, the supplier demands a higher price.
Threat to the quality of the system can occur if the price is fixed.
Time and Materials contracts: Here, the customer is charged with a fixed rate
per unit of effort. This also estimates the overall cost based on the customer’s
requirements and it is not based on the final payment.
Advantages of Time and Materials contracts
Changing requirements can be done very easily.
The customer is not worried about the price pressure.
Disadvantages of Time and Materials contracts
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Evaluation of proposals
This evaluation has to be done in a planned manner. The process of evaluation includes:
Scrutiny of the proposal documents
Questioning supplier representatives
Giving demonstrations
Visiting the site of the development process
Conducting practical tests.
Project and quality management: The quality that is expected by the management
for the project can be influenced by conducting review meetings and obtaining the
progress information of the project.
Timetable: A schedule is drawn to describe the different tasks and activities that
has to be carried out during the development process.
Price and payment method:Payment must be made based on the price that has
been defined in the agreement ensuring that the goods and services are satisfactory.
Miscellaneous legal requirements: A contract must be defined within the legal
jurisdiction stating the liabilities that are applied to sub contractors involved in the
process. Liquidated damages can cause financial losses where the customer suffers
if the supplier is not able to oblige.
Contract Management
Contract management studies and monitors the conversation between the supplier and the
customer while the contracted work is being carried out.
Customer can make changes to the future direction of the project and make decisions.
The entire project will require representative of the supplier and the customer to interact
with each other at different points in the development process.
Activities involved in contract management include:
Identifying customer approval;
Negotiating successfully;
Project deliverables;
Managing change;
Decision making;
Legal obligations;
Business laws.
Certain software suppliers are concerned with pre-acceptance testing where the user tests
the system than the developer.
The supplier will not like to retain their staff to a specific project after its completion.
Customer finds that the modifications needed by them are handled only by the junior level
staffs that are not aware of the delivered product.
All the payment to the supplier solely depends on the acceptance testing.
Every bug that is raised must be fixed within the period of warranty.