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Project Management

Projects involve balancing the following:• Time• Cost• Quality• Scope

Project management is about making that happen.

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Problems with software project management

• Software is intangible– What is 90% complete?

• The process is still not standardised• Software is complex and varied• Many projects cannot easily be compared to

any previous one– How many people build air traffic control systems? – Whose process control is the same as another? – Different companies are tied to different hardware

and different tools

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Aspects of project management

• Plan the project– Create Project Plan, and other management documents

such as• Quality plan - quality procedures and standards• Validation plan - approach, resources and schedule• Configuration Management plan - CM procedures and

structures• Maintenance plan - requirements/costs and effort• Staff Development plan - developing team member skills

and experience

• Monitor project• Control/Problem solving

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Likely Structure for Project Plan

• Introduction / overview• Organisation of the project• Risk analysis• Hardware and software resource

requirements• Work breakdown• Project schedule• Monitoring and reporting mechanisms

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Steps to fill in the Project Plan

Work breakdown and scheduling are the hard parts and need the following steps:

1. Decide on activities2. Identify dependencies between activities3. Schedule the activities over time4. Decide on milestones and deliverables 5. Allocate resources to the activities

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Planning (1) : Activities

• You need to identify activities involved in the project – Major activities, such as requirements analysis, design

analysis. – Minor activities, such as the activities used to produce a

document:• Prepare• Internal review• Walkthrough• Modify• QA check after modification• Formal Review• Modifications• Approval by customer

• Label all major activities with name and reference ID

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Planning (2) : Identify Dependencies

ASK:What activities cannot be started until others are

completed?

ORWhat activities cannot be completed until others are

completed?Task ID Depends on

T1

T2

T3 T1

T4 T2, T3

T5 T4

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Planning (3) : Project Scheduling

• Scheduling is very difficult – Need to estimate time, resources– Need to organise them into a sensible sequence. – This can be difficult if no experience of a similar project

• Issues of different hardware/languages etc.

• Estimates need to be revised in light of experience– Project plan is a dynamic document

• Need to allow for other issues:– Illness, staff leaving, hardware faults, late delivery of

tools/data, holidays

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Planning (3) : Project Scheduling (continued)

• Estimating resources required– Human effort– Disk space– Travel / subsistence– Special equipment

• Usual output is an bar chart - sometimes called a Gantt chart

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Planning (4) - Milestones, Deliverables

• We must have some way to measure progress• It can be done by identifying important milestones

Milestone : end point of some activity• You will be able to see if you have completed the activity• There should be a report to management (possibly short)• Each milestone needs to be at some logical point - e.g.

not partway through coding. • Not all activities need to end in a milestone

– Avoid milestones being too frequent– Avoid milestones being too infrequent

Deliverable : a result delivered to the customer (documents, beta versions, final version, … )

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Planning (5) : Resource Allocation

• Try to allocate sensibly– Bar chart with the people named– Looking for gross allocation clashes (people can only spend 100%

of their time; a machine can’t be in Coventry and Detroit)

• There are two important types of dependencies in a plan:– Logical/task dependencies– Staff dependencies

• Update resource allocations in light of experience – May change schedule to overcome problems

• Can get an allocation profile/staff allocation chart - this can be produced automatically

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Task List/Time Estimates

Task Est. Time Dependencies

T1 8

T2 15

T3 5 T1

T4 10 T2, T3

T5 12 T4

Tools for PMActivity Chart or

Task Chart

Start

T1 T3

T2

T4 T5 Finish

8 days 5 days

15 days

10 days 12 days

critical path

Often drawn with tasks and durations ONlines rather thanat end of lines

Task Est. Time DependenciesT1 8T2 15T3 5 T1T4 10 T2, T3T5 12 T4

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Comments on Activity Charts

• Critical path (CP) is the minimum time to finish the project - the longest path in the activity chart

• Slippage will cause project delays if task on CP• Slippage of tasks not on CP may not cause delays.

• A more sophisticated version of the activity chart is known as the PERT chart – Same type of info, but milestones are boxes and activity/duration

are on the links– Makes pessimistic/likely/optimistic estimates– Leads to many critical paths - need specialised tools for chart

analysis

• These charts can provide insight to dependencies that are not intuitively obvious

Tools for PM - Bar Chart (Gantt chart)

M2

Start

T4

T1

M3

T2

T5

M1

Finish

T3

10/8 24/8 31/8 14/9 21/97/917/83/8

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Activity charts and Bar charts

• Activity charts show interrelationships between tasks• Bar charts show activity duration and tasks that run

concurrently. Also associated with dates – Shaded area shows length of time a task/activity can slip

before affecting project completion time

• The two types of chart are complementary in nature - can generate bar chart from activity chart

• Best to use a project scheduling tool to create activity and bar charts

• These schedules need to be updated in the light of experience during the project

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Staff allocation charts

Used in addition to Activity and Bar charts– Based on bar charts– Look for overloads– Look for unreasonable gaps– Look for unreasonable overall workload/too

light a workload for particular people

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Warnings to consider when planning

• A plan is only useful if it reflects reality and is achievable– Need to manage staff morale– Need to manage user expectations

• Consider all activities during the project, but simplify for bar chart

• Project Managers can be mesmerised by the plan produced with a tool:– Changing the plan only works if you do something to

influence reality

– Change can have a negative effect

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Project monitoring

• Project manager should monitor against plan constantly– Difficult to gauge progress on large tasks (so

breaking them down helps)– Key monitoring opportunity is weekly meeting

and at milestones

• Given information, the manager needs to assess if there is potential for slippage

• Decisions/actions need to be recorded • Major changes should be reflected in the

project plan

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Project Control/Problem Solving

• Try to catch up slippage– May mean swapping staff around– Beware of adding new staff– Look for specific skills

• Re-negotiate to change the scope of the task/project– May be contractually bound

• Revise plan – Possibly change tasks to remove them from critical path– Can tasks be decomposed to allow progress? Be careful!

• Improve resources if necessary / helpful• Deal with staff that are not performing

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Example plan - Dougal Project

• Over half a million pounds of effort• 10 man years over 3 elapsed years• Especially complex in first year where 6

man years are spent• Task One (four man years during first

year) planned as a separate project for political reasons

YR1 QR1 YR1 QR2 YR1 QR3 YR1 QR4 YR2 QR1 YR2 QR2 YR2 QR3 YR2 QR4 YR3 QR1 YR3 QR2 YR3 QR3 YR3 QR4Workpackage 0: Compilation of industrial case studiesWP0.1: Identification of case studiesWP0.2: Compilation of material M1WP1: Numerical simulation for design analysisWP1.1: Detailed design M2WP1.2: Java/Saber simulation interfaceWP1.3: Simulation with failure modesWP1.4: FMEA result generationWP1.5: Functional label screensWP1.6: Interpreting quantized values WP1.7: Evaluation against case studies M6Workpackage 2: Whole vehicle qualitative simulationWP2.1:Investigation of effective simulationWP2.2: Identification of best techniques M3WP2.3: Implementation of promising techniques M4WP2.4: Comparison of effectiveness of techniques M5Workpackage 3: Whole vehicle design analysisWP3.1: Implementation of whole vehicle FMEA M7WP3.2: Implementation of whole vehicle sneak circuit M8WP3.3: Implementation of whole vehicle yellowboarding M9Workpackage 4: Whole lifecycle design analysisWP4.1: Study of issuesWP4.2: Implementation of software M10Workpackage 5: Mixed granularity simulationWP5.1:Investigation of mixed granularity simulationWP5.2: Identification of best techniques M11WP5.3: Implementation of promising techniques M12WP5.4: Comparison of effectiveness of techniques M13Workpackage 6 Mixed granularity design analysisWP6.1: Implementation of mixed granularity FMEA M14WP6.2: Implementation of mixed granularity sneak circuit M15WP6.3: Implementation of mixed granularity yellowboarding M16Workpackage 7: Evaluation against case studiesWP7.1: Evaluation of whole vehicle tools M17WP7.2: Evaluation of mixed granularity tools M18

Project Bar Chart for Dougal Project

Key: = Staff funded by Ford money= Richard Shipman= A. N. Other= Both R.A.s

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Example milestones for Dougal

Milestone 1: A documented list of relevant schematics, and identified testing criteria. There will be a document containing a list of circuit designs. For each circuit, the reasons why they present a problem for the state of the art will be provided, along with the expected results. The circuits will be provided as CAD files.Date of delivery: End of month 3 of project.

Milestone 2: A detailed design for a numerical based design analysis system. This design document will provide a description for the software to be developed during the rest of workpackage 1. Date of delivery: End of month 3 of project.

Milestone 3: Report on the evaluation of the numerical simulator based design analysis system. At the end of this task, software will be available which can use a numerical simulator as a basis, and produce analysis results of the calibre of those produced by AutoSteve for qualitative simulation. A report will be produced describing how well the new software handles the case studies that were identified as problems for AutoSteve. During months 11, 12, the software will also be evaluated by the industrial partners, and results of that evaluation will also be included in the report. Date of delivery: End of month 12 of project.

Milestone 7: Whole vehicle FMEA. This task should deliver FMEA generation software capable of working on the complete circuitry of a car and producing useful FMEA results. This should be tied to whole system level results (rather than be a compilation of all lower level results – an example would be investigation of ground stud losses).Date of delivery: End of month 14 of project.

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Monitoring for Dougal

• Weekly meeting of all internal staff– Review of progress– Identification of potential problems / actions– Targets for the coming week

• Monthly report to customers– Summary of progress– Issues for discussion with customer– Telephone conversation between related parties

• Three monthly project meeting– Longer report– New version of project plan (if necessary)

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Software Cost Estimation

• How do I tell how much effort is required to build a specific piece of software?– experience– experiment– techniques such as function point analysis

• How much calendar time is required?• What is total cost of project? Inc. non-staff costs:

– Hardware + software – Travel and training– Effort costs (staffing)

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Calculating Costs for Staff

• Total cost of a member of staff includes:– Heating and lighting– Support staff– Networking and communications– Central facilities (library etc.)– Costs of illness, holidays, idle time, pensions, health plans,

etc.

• Most companies do not charge customers directly for all of these things - they factor in an overhead cost

• Prices may also be affected by other organisational factors…

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Pricing Factors

• Market Opportunity– You might pitch your price low to enter the market

• Cost Estimate Uncertainty– Uncertain of cost, so increase price above normal profit

• Contractual Terms– Give the developers rights to code, possibility of selling/reuse

• Requirements volatility– If reqs. are likely to change, price low and charge for changes.

• Financial Health– Lower price if in financial difficulty, better to stay in business.

• “Get lost” price– Too much work on. Price high to make it worth your while

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What we said at start:

• Project management is a compromise, about achieving a satisfactory result in terms of:

• Time• Cost• Quality• Scope

• “Satisfactory” should mean satisfactory to our company AND satisfactory to our clients