SOFTWARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Software project management is the art and science of planning and leading software projects. It
is a sub-discipline of project management in which software projects are planned, monitored and
controlled.

A software development process is concerned primarily with the production aspect of software
development, as opposed to the technical aspect. These processes exist primarily for supporting
the management of software development, and are generally skewed toward addressing business
concerns.

Software project management encompasses the knowledge, techniques, and tools necessary to
manage the development of software products. This curriculum module discusses material that
managers need to create a plan for software development, using effective estimation of size and
effort, and to execute that plan with attention to productivity and quality. Within this context,
topics such as risk management, alternative life cycle models, development team organization,
and management of technical people are also discussed.

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STRUCTURE

A work breakdown structure (WBS) in project management and systems engineering, is a tool
used to define and group a project’s discrete work elements (or tasks) in a way that helps
organize and define the total work scope of the project. A work breakdown structure element
may be a product, data, a service, or any combination. A WBS also provides the necessary
framework for detailed cost estimating and control along with providing guidance for schedule
development and control. Additionally, the WBS is a dynamic tool and can be revised and
updated as needed by the project manager.

This involve identifying the main tasks required to complete a project and then breaking each of
these down into a set of lower tasks.

In structure activities added to a branch if they directly contribute to the task immediately above-
if they do not contribute to the parent task, then they should not be added to that branch. The task
at each level in any branch should include everything that is required to complete the task at the
higher level.

When preparing a WBS, consideration must be given to the final level of detail or depth of the
structure.

Tasks in the project is as follows:

 Complete project
 Feasibility study
 Scheduling
 Requirement specification
 Design
 Coding
 Testing
 Implementation
 Maintenance

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 Project

Feasibility Scheduling Requirement Design

study specification

Technical Operational SRS Functional Database Process

requirement

Economic Non functional

requirement

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Work Break Down Structure

Project
(Ritsan Search Engine)

Install System Works Software User Manuals Training Course

Component

Analyze Review Analyze Analyze

Requirement
Requirement Requirement Requirement
s

Outline Design Manual Design Course

Outline design
Design

Write Material
Detailed Write Text
Detailed Design
design

Code Software Print handout

Capture
Integrated
Screens
System
Test software
Print Mannuals
Deliver
Te Systemst
Course

Delivery
System

User training

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GANTT CHART
A standard technique employed in recent times to keep track of a project’s progress I Gnatt chart
named after the industrial engineer Henry Gantt(1861-1919).They are easy to draw ,easy to
understand and readily adaptable to other planning approaches(e.g Pert Chart).

As seen below this type of chart shows the start and end of a number of task and shows their
timing relationship relative to each other.

The bar for each task stretches from the starting date of the task to the end of the task.The bar
can be color coded to show if the task is running behind schedule or based on resourses required
for the task.

Each task displayed in Gantt chart is listed below:

 Identify needs and benefits

Identification of need and Project Constraints
Meet with user Establish product Statement
 Preparing Feasbility Study
 Preparing software and hardware Requirement study
Define Software Scope
Information Description
Functional Description
Behavioreal Description
Validation Criteria
Hardware Requirement Study
 Define desired output/control/input(OCI)
Define Keyboard functions
Define modes of interaction
Define document diagnosis
Define import functions
Review OCI with customer
 Isolate software elements
 Reserch availability of existing software
Research text editing components
Research image editing component
Research MS Word document migration components
 Database Preparation
 Coding
 Testing Software

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 7

0
Feasibility Study Requirement Design Coding Testing Implementation
Analysis

PERT CHART
The Program Evaluation and Review Technique(PERT) is a network model that allows for
randomness in activity completion times. PERT was developed in the late 1950’s for the U.S.
Navy’s Polaris project having thousands of contractors. It has the potential to reduse both the
time and cost required to complete a project.

Steps in the PERT Planing Process

PERT planing involves the following steps:

1. Identify the specific activities and milestones.
2. Determine the proper sequence of the activities.
3. Construct a network diagram.
4. Estimate the time required for each activity.
5. Determine the critical path.
6. Update the PERT chart as the project progresses.

Our first step is to decide what our tasks are performed which tasks depend on which.

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 Following is the list to tasks to be performed:
 System Analysis
 Feasibility Study
 Software & Hardware Requirement Study
 Software Design
 Software Elements
 Reusable Components
 Database Prepration
 Coding
 Security
 Testing Software
 Installation of Software
 Maintenance

PERT duration estimates:

Optimistic time (a): Time an activity will take if everything goes perfectly

Most likely time (m): Most realistic time estimate to complete the activity

Pessimistic time (b): Time activities take if everything goes wrong

From these we calculate the expected time (t) for the task.

( )

In this project: a=60 days

m= 80 days
b= 100 days

Thus,
( )

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The tabular representation is as follow:

S.N. ACTIVITIES OPTIMISTIC PESSIMISTIC MOST EXPECTED (s)

TIME(a) TIME(b) LIKEL TIME
Y (te)
TIME
(m)

A Investigation 9 17 13 13 .8
*Interviews 1 3 2
*On site observations 3 5 4
*Questionnaires 3 5 4
*Document evaluation 2 4 3

B Analysis 12 20 16 16 .8
*Functional modeling 5 8 6
*Data modeling 5 8 7
*Process modeling 2 4 3

C Design
*Architectural design
* Architectural coupling
*Architectural analysis

D Coding 25 33 31 30.3 1.5

E Testing 10 20 12 13 1.5

F Implementation 4 10 8 7.6 .3

Total 60 100 80 80

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 2
A.t=13 13 .8 C.t=13.8

S=0.8 s=0.8

1 4 5 6
0 0 29 2.3 59.3 2.97 79.99 3.27

B.t=16

S= 0.8
3
16 .8

Benefits of PERT
PERT is useful because it provides the following information :

 Expected project completion time.

 Probability of completion before a specified date.
 The critical path activities that directly impact the completion time
 The activities that have slack time and that can send resources to critical path activities.
 Activity start and end dates

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Limitations
The following are some PERT weaknesses:

 The activity time estimate are somewhat subjective and depend on judgment. In cases
where there is little experience in performing an activity, the numbers may be only a
guess. In other cases, if the person or group performing the activity times are well
estimate.
 Even if the activity times are well estimate, PERT assumes a beta distribution for these
time estimates, but the actual distribution may be different.
 Even if the beta distribution assumption holds, PERT assumes that the probability
distribution of the project completion time is the same as the that of the critical path.
Because other paths can become the critical path if their associated activities are delayed,
pert consistently underestimates the expected project completion time.
 The underestimation of the project completion time due to the alternate paths becoming
critical is perhaps the most serious of these issues. To overcome this limitation, monte
carlo simulation can be performed on the network to eliminate this optimistic bias in the
expected project completion time.

Resource Management
Resource allocation is used to assign the available resources in an economic way . it is part of
resource management , resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources
required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resources availability and the
project time.

It has following steps:

1. Strategic Planning

2. Resources Leveling

3. Algorithms

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Strategic planning
In strategic planning, resources allocation is a plan for using available resources, for example
human resources, especially in the near term, to achieve goals for the future. It is the process of
allocating resources among the various projects or business units. The plan has two parts : firstly
there is the basic allocation decision and secondly there are contingency mechanisms. The basic
allocation decision is the choice of which items to fund in the plan, and what level of funding it
should receive, and which to leave unfunded, the resources are allocated to some items, not to
others.

There are two contingency mechanisms. There is a priority ranking of items excluded from the
plan, showing which items to fund if more resources should become available; and there is a
priority ranking of some items included in the plan showing which items should be sacrificed if
total funding must be reduced.

Resource Leveling
Main article: Resource Leveling
The main objective is to smooth resources requirements by shifting slack jobs beyond periods of
peak requirements. Some of the methods essentially replicate what a human scheduler would do
if he had enough time; others make use of unusual devices or procedures designed especially for
the computer. They of course depend for their success on the speed and capabilities of electric
computers.

Algorithms
Resource allocation may be decided by using computers programs applied to a specific domain
to automatically and dynamically distribute resources to applicants. It may be considered as a
specialized case of automatic scheduling.

This is especially common in electronic devices dedicated to routing and communication. For
eg., channel allocation in wireless communication may be decide by a base transreciever station
using an appropriate algorithm . one class of resource allocation algorithm is the auction class ,
whereby applicants bid for the best resource according to their balance of “money” ,as in online
auction business model.

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TIME AND SCHEDULING MANAGEMENT

Once the network diagram has been developed, the time management system enters the next
phase ,that of work scheduling. Time relating to overall project construction and time required to
each activity has not been factored into plan.

The WDS is formed for division of the work. PERT has been devised for application. To the
scheduling of research and development project because reach is generally highly exploratory in
nature, historical application and back ground are researchers develop a PERT chart as a method
of statically evaluating project duration over time sensitive domain.

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INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%
Rankendra
40% Nirmal
Pawan
30%
Ram Ashish

20%

10%

0%
Feasibility Requireme Implement
Design Coding Testing
Study nt Analysis ation
Rankendra 20% 22% 20% 2% 5% 25%
Nirmal 20% 24% 20% 8% 10% 25%
Pawan 30% 26% 30% 30% 45% 25%
Ram Ashish 30% 28% 30% 60% 40% 25%

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