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Project ManagementProject Management

Muhammad Ali Babarmalibaba@cse.unsw.edu.au;

www.cse.unsw.eduau/~malibaba

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Tears & Cheers

Relating the theories with real life experiences

“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to achieve a particular aim and to which project management can be applied, regardless of the

project’s size, budget, or timeline.”PMBOK® Guide 2000 Ed.

“There are lessons to be learned from failure, if only we are willing to find and examine

them.” Jeffrey K. Pinto & Om P. Kharbanda

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What is Project Management?

“Project management is application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to a broad range of activities in order to meet the requirements of

a particular project.” PMBOK Guide 2000 Ed. “To be successful, managers must control the processes, product, and people

that populate software-intensive project-and manage them concurrently,

constantly reconciling conflicts that occur” Donald J. Reifer

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Primary functions of Project Manager

Software managers mainly perform five primary functions to get their jobs done:

• Planning. Plan the projects thoroughly to create a roadmap to set expectations. Use the plan as a baseline to monitor and measure the progress.

• Organizing. Create organizations to get the work done efficiently and effectively by assigning responsibilities, delegating authority, and holding people accountable for results.

• Staffing. Recruit, train, appraise, retain the right people by recognizing talent, breeding competence, and weeding out deadwood.

• Directing. Get things done through the actions of people by building a synergistic teams and motivating them to perform at their fullest capability.

• Controlling. Put appropriate control mechanism in place to assess status

Donald J. Reifer, Software Management, 5th Ed.

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Common Reasons for Project Failure

Scope Creep Poor Sponsorship

Poor Planning Lack of Monitoring & Measurement

Vague & unclear deliverables

Ineffective communication

Ineffective/non-existent change control process

Ineffective skills

High turnover rate Unspecified responsibility

Gartner Group, July 1998.

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• Company Profile– Second largest News Paper

– Simultaneously published from three cities

– More than 500 staff in publishing busines

• Project Summary – Computerising News room to streamline processes

– Centralising News selection & publication decisions

– Educating editorial staff to use computers for productivity

Setting the Scene for project 1

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Process Model of News Room

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Managing Director

Finance Director Director Publications Chief Editor

Project Sponsors Politically aligned

Project Sponsors & Stakeholders

Stakeholder totally ignored• Editors and sub-Editors

• News Reporters

• Computer section staff

• Proof readers and other support staff

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We were doomed to fail because

• Ignored the important stakeholders• Couldn’t manage required cultural changes• No systematic & formal risk management process• Too much emphasis on adding value, but nothing

for people and relationship management• Black box PM approach, intuitive & unilateral

decision making

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• Company Profile– Hardware specialist transforming into software house – ISO 9002 certified for hardware supply and support– Offices in 5 Australian cities, A$70-80 Millions in sales

• Project Summary – Developing an open interoperable architecture for E-

Business systems– Formalising software development process to get

certified – Identifying required activities, tasks and deliverable for

certification

Setting the Scene for project 2

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IT’S ALL IN MY HEAD

It’s rare to meet any team whose members can’t tell about the project and the process as it’s all in their heads.

However, each one of them would have a slightly different version, scope and objectives of the project and process

IT’S ALL IN MS PROJECT!

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Initial (1)

Repeatable (2) Software configuration management Software quality assurance Software subcontract management Software project tracking and oversight Software project planning Requirements management

Defined (3)

Peer reviews Intergroup coordination Software product engineering Integrated software management Training program Organization process definition Organization process focus

Managed (4)

Process change management Technology change management Defect prevention

Optimizing (5)

Software quality management Quantitative process management

Disciplined Process

Standard, Consistent Process

Predictable Process

Continuously Improving Process

Capability Maturity Model

SEI, Carnegie Mellon University, USA.

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contain

organized by

contain

Maturity Levels

Key Process Areas

Common Features

Key Practices

Process Capability

Goals

Implementation or Institutionalization

Infrastructure or Activities

indicate

achieve

address

describe

Structure of CMM

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Key Process Areas

• Key process areas identify where an organization must focus to raise to achieve a certain level

• Organization needs to perform the activities to achieve the goals considered important for each KPAs required for a particular maturity level.

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• Commitment to perform. Actions that must be taken to ensure that process is established, i.g., policies, leadership etc.

• Ability to perform. Preconditions that must exist to implement process competently, i.g., resources, training, orientation, etc.

• Activities performed. Describes the roles and procedures necessary to implement a key process area, i.g., performing work, tracking, etc.

• Measurement and analysis. Describes the need to measure the process and analyse the measurements.

• Verifying implementation. Describes the steps to ensure that activities

are performed in with the process that has been established..

Common Features

Common features are used to organize the key practices in each key process area.

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• STATE THE FUNDAMENTAL POLICIES, PROCEDURES, AND ACTIVITIES FOR A KEY PROCESS AREA

• DESCRIBE “WHAT” IS TO BE DONE, BUT THEY SHOULD NOT BE INTERPRETED AS MANDATING “HOW”

• ARE ORGANIZED BY COMMON FEATURE

• 316 KEY PRACTICES IN CMM

Key Practices

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Why project didn’t succeed?

• Poor sponsorship• Ill-defined scope and objects• No realization of Added-Value requirements• No process change control mechanism• Lack of stakeholder buy-in

“To manage a project without an effective executive sponsor is to visit hell on

Earth.” Rob thomsett

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• Company Profile– System engineering R&D centre

• Project Summary – Analysing available CASE tool for early stages of

the software development lifecycle– Developing an integrated CASE environment by

reengineering existing and freely available CASE tools and components.

Setting the Scene for project 3

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Success with hiccups

• Major drawbacks– Inappropriate resources (staff skills)– Lack of commitment on the part of sponsors– Ambiguously defined authority and

responsibility– Black box style project management approach– Ineffective communication (email wars)– Political expediency & infighting

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How We succeeded

• Redefined the project scope and objects• Project sponsors agreed to compromise less

important requirements.• Management agreed to staff the project with

appropriate resources (Skills)• Clearly assigned responsibilities and tasks• Team members had high stakes in project success

“When software projects fail, it is generally because of teamwork problems and

not technical issues.” Watts S. Humphrey

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Human side of Management

Try to identify the needs which have not been satisfied as only those needs work as true motivators

Maslow’s theory of motivation

http://departments.weber.edu/chfam/1500.Bird/Maslow.html

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THANK YOU !!THANK YOU !!