Lecture 11: Project Management Software Engineering (CS320)

Software Engineering
(CS-320T)
Mr. Kashif Mughal

1 Sir Syed University of Engineering & Technology Prepared By: Kashif Mughal
Lecture 11: Project Management Software Engineering (CS320)

Topics covered

• Risk management
• Managing people
• Teamwork

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 Software project management
• Concerned with activities involved in ensuring that software is
delivered on time and on schedule and in accordance with the
requirements of the organisations 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
organisation developing the software.

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 Success criteria
• 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.

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 Software management distinctions

• The product is intangible.

• Software cannot be seen or touched. Software project managers cannot see
progress by simply looking at the artefact that is being constructed.
• Many software projects are 'one-off' projects.
• Large software projects are usually different in some ways from previous
projects. Even managers who have lots of previous experience may find it
difficult to anticipate problems.
• Software processes are variable and organization specific.
• We still cannot reliably predict when a particular software process is likely to
lead to development problems.

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 Factors influencing project management
• 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.

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 Universal management activities
• Project planning
• Project managers are responsible for planning. estimating and scheduling
project development and assigning people to tasks.
• Covered in Chapter 23.
• Risk management
• Project managers assess the risks that may affect a project, monitor these
risks and take action when problems arise.
• People management
• Project managers have to choose people for their team and establish ways of
working that leads to effective team performance.

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 Management activities
• Reporting
• Project managers are usually responsible for reporting on the progress of a
project to customers and to the managers of the company developing the
software.
• Proposal writing
• The first stage in a software project may involve writing a proposal to win a
contract to carry out an item of work. The proposal describes the objectives
of the project and how it will be carried out.

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 Risk management

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 Risk management
• Risk management is concerned with identifying risks and drawing up
plans to minimise their effect on a project.
• Software risk management is important because of the inherent
uncertainties in software development.
• These uncertainties stem from loosely defined requirements, requirements
changes due to changes in customer needs, difficulties in estimating the time
and resources required for software development, and differences in
individual skills.
• You have to anticipate risks, understand the impact of these risks on
the project, the product and the business, and take steps to avoid
these risks.
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 Risk classification
• There are two dimensions of risk classification
• The type of risk (technical, organizational, ..)
• what is affected by the risk:
• 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.

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 Examples of project, product, and business risks
Risk Affects Description
Staff turnover Project Experienced staff will leave the project before it is finished.
Management change Project There will be a change of organizational management with different
priorities.
Hardware unavailability Project Hardware that is essential for the project will not be delivered on
schedule.
Requirements change Project and product There will be a larger number of changes to the requirements than
anticipated.
Specification delays Project and product Specifications of essential interfaces are not available on schedule.
Size underestimate Project and product The size of the system has been underestimated.
CASE tool Product CASE tools, which support the project, do not perform as anticipated.
underperformance
Technology change Business The underlying technology on which the system is built is superseded
by new technology.
Product competition Business A competitive product is marketed before the system is completed.

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 The risk management process
• Risk identification
• Identify project, product and business risks;
• Risk analysis
• Assess the likelihood and consequences of these risks;
• Risk planning
• Draw up plans to avoid or minimise the effects of the risk;
• Risk monitoring
• Monitor the risks throughout the project;

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 The risk management process

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 Risk identification
• 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.
• Organizational risks.
• People risks.
• Requirements risks.
• Estimation risks.

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 Examples of different risk types
Risk type Possible risks
Estimation The time required to develop the software is underestimated. (12)
The rate of defect repair is underestimated. (13)
The size of the software is underestimated. (14)
Organizational The organization is restructured so that different management are responsible for
the project. (6)
Organizational financial problems force reductions in the project budget. (7)
People It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required. (3)
Key staff are ill and unavailable at critical times. (4)
Required training for staff is not available. (5)
Requirements Changes to requirements that require major design rework are proposed. (10)
Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements changes. (11)
Technology The database used in the system cannot process as many transactions per
second as expected. (1)
Reusable software components contain defects that mean they cannot be reused
as planned. (2)
Tools The code generated by software code generation tools is inefficient. (8)
Software tools cannot work together in an integrated way. (9)

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

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 Risk types and examples
Risk Probability Effects
Organizational financial problems force reductions in the project budget Low Catastrophic
(7).
It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required for the project (3). High Catastrophic

Key staff are ill at critical times in the project (4). Moderate Serious
Faults in reusable software components have to be repaired before Moderate Serious
these components are reused. (2).
Changes to requirements that require major design rework are Moderate Serious
proposed (10).
The organization is restructured so that different management are High Serious
responsible for the project (6).
The database used in the system cannot process as many transactions Moderate Serious
per second as expected (1).

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 Risk types and examples
Risk Probability Effects

The time required to develop the software is underestimated (12). High Serious

Software tools cannot be integrated (9). High Tolerable

Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements changes (11). Moderate Tolerable

Required training for staff is not available (5). Moderate Tolerable

The rate of defect repair is underestimated (13). Moderate Tolerable

The size of the software is underestimated (14). High Tolerable

Code generated by code generation tools is inefficient (8). Moderate Insignificant

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 Risk planning
• Consider each risk and develop a strategy to manage that risk.
• Avoidance strategies
• The probability that the risk will arise is reduced;
• Minimization 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;

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 What-if questions
• What if several engineers are ill at the same time?
• What if an economic downturn leads to budget cuts of 20% for the
project?
• What if the performance of open-source software is inadequate and
the only expert on that open source software leaves?
• What if the company that supplies and maintains software
components goes out of business?
• What if the customer fails to deliver the revised requirements as
predicted?

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 Risk monitoring
• 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.

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 Risk indicators
Risk type Potential indicators
Estimation Failure to meet agreed schedule; failure to clear reported defects.

Organizational Organizational gossip; lack of action by senior management.

People Poor staff morale; poor relationships amongst team members; high staff
turnover.
Requirements Many requirements change requests; customer complaints.

Technology Late delivery of hardware or support software; many reported technology

problems.
Tools Reluctance by team members to use tools; complaints about CASE tools;
demands for higher-powered workstations.

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 Managing people

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 Managing people
• People are an organisation’s most important assets.
• The tasks of a manager are essentially people-oriented. Unless there
is some understanding of people, management will be unsuccessful.
• Poor people management is an important contributor to project
failure.

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 People management factors
• Consistency
• Team members should all be treated in a comparable way without favourites or
discrimination.
• Respect
• Different team members have different skills and these differences should be respected.
• Inclusion
• Involve all team members and make sure that people’s views are considered.
• Honesty
• You should always be honest about what is going well and what is going badly in a project.

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 Motivating people
• An important role of a manager is to motivate the people working on
a project.
• Motivation means organizing the work and the working environment
to encourage people to work effectively.
• If people are not motivated, they will not be interested in the work they are
doing. They will work slowly, be more likely to make mistakes and will not
contribute to the broader goals of the team or the organization.
• Motivation is a complex issue but it appears that their are different
types of motivation based on:
• Basic needs (e.g. food, sleep, etc.);
• Personal needs (e.g. respect, self-esteem);
• Social needs (e.g. to be accepted as part of a group).
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 Human needs hierarchy

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 Need satisfaction
• 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.

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 Personality types
• The needs hierarchy is almost certainly an over-simplification of
motivation in practice.
• Motivation should also take into account different personality types:
• Task-oriented people, who are motivated by the work they do. In software
engineering.
• Interaction-oriented people, who are motivated by the presence and actions
of co-workers.
• Self-oriented people, who are principally motivated by personal success and
recognition.

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 Personality types
• Task-oriented.
• The motivation for doing the work is the work itself;
• Self-oriented.
• The work is a means to an end which is the achievement of individual goals - e.g. to get rich,
to play tennis, to travel etc.;
• Interaction-oriented
• The principal motivation is the presence and actions of
co-workers. People go to work because they like to go to
work.

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 Teamwork

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 Teamwork
• 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.

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 Group cohesiveness
• In a cohesive group, members consider the group to be more
important than any individual in it.
• The advantages of a cohesive group are:
• 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.

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 The effectiveness of a team
• The people in the group
• You need a mix of people in a project group as software development involves
diverse activities such as negotiating with clients, programming, testing and
documentation.
• The group organization
• A group should be organized so that individuals can contribute to the best of
their abilities and tasks can be completed as expected.
• Technical and managerial communications
• Good communications between group members, and between the software
engineering team and other project stakeholders, is essential.

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 Selecting group members
• A manager or team leader’s job is to create a cohesive group and
organize their group so that they can work together effectively.
• This involves creating a group with the right balance of technical skills
and personalities, and organizing that group so that the members
work together effectively.

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 Assembling a team
• May not be possible to appoint the ideal people to work on a project
• Project budget may not allow for the use of highly-paid staff;
• Staff with the appropriate experience may not be available;
• An organisation may wish to develop employee skills on a software project.
• Managers have to work within these constraints especially when there are shortages
of trained staff.

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 Group composition
• Group composed of members who share the
same motivation can be problematic
• Task-oriented - everyone wants to do their own thing;
• Self-oriented - everyone wants to be the boss;
• Interaction-oriented - too much chatting, not enough work.
• An effective group has a balance of all types.
• This can be difficult to achieve software engineers are often task-oriented.
• Interaction-oriented people are very important as they can detect and
defuse tensions that arise.

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 Key points
• Good project management is essential if software engineering projects are to be developed on
schedule and within budget.
• Software management is distinct from other engineering management. Software is intangible.
Projects may be novel or innovative with no body of experience to guide their management.
Software processes are not as mature as traditional engineering processes.
• Risk management involves identifying and assessing project risks to establish the probability that
they will occur and the consequences for the project if that risk does arise. You should make plans
to avoid, manage or deal with likely risks if or when they arise.

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 Key points
• People management involves choosing the right people to work on a project and organizing the
team and its working environment.
• People are motivated by interaction with other people, the recognition of management and their
peers, and by being given opportunities for personal development.
• Software development groups should be fairly small and cohesive. The key factors that influence
the effectiveness of a group are the people in that group, the way that it is organized and the
communication between group members.
• Communications within a group are influenced by factors such as the status of group members,
the size of the group, the gender composition of the group, personalities and available
communication channels.

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Lecture 11: Project Management Software Engineering (CS320)

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