Software Project Management SE603 Unit 2: Project Planning – 1/2

1. Software Project ManagementSE603Unit 2: Project Planning – 1/2 Egypt, 8.6.2015

2. Introduction Planning is the coreelement in the project management in any domain. In plans, you decide how to approach the objectives, satisfy client’s expectations, define deliverables, breakdownproducts into workable and smaller units, allocatingresources and schedule activities. Plan types include short and long term while identifying and handling risks. A considerable portion of the people working in the software industry undermines the value of planning as it consumes time and efforts.

3. Evaluation 5~6 Assignments x 4~5 Project 15~20, what ? A1: Read chap 3 of Hughes (5ed) and solve all questions (up to 1,2,3 in section 3.13) Read and critique sample project, quality, scm and risk plans in the light of Step-Wise. 4 marks

4. Introduction However, without planning, they are flying blindly with no proactive action for any sudden changes. Besides, Failing to plan is a planning to fail. so, it is off major concern to be aware of the best patterns and practices in this area. In this unit, a step by step planning framework (STEP WISE), a complement to PRINCE.

5. Objectives Identify differences between PMP, PRINCE and SCRUM Investigating the WISE-STEP planning framework

6. Unit 2: List of topics The Difference between PMP, PRINCE and Scrum STEP WISE Planning 2.0. Step 0: Initiation 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure 2.3. Step 3: Features Analysis 2.4. Step 4: Defining outputs 2.5. Step 5: Effort Estimation 2.6. Step 6: Handling risks 2.7 Step 7: Resources Allocation 2.8. Step 8: Plans Review 2.9. Steps 9 & 10: Plans Execution

7. 1. Difference between PMP, PRINCE and Scrum (1/2) • In order to kick off any project, you should determine which management approach you should adopt to manage the activities of having your product complete. • In the world of the software projects, there are three major approaches used widely support project manager in planning and managing projects: PMP , PRINCE and SCRUM • PMP (Project Management Professional) [5, 2] • is a general project management standard based on best practices from various industries. • However, PMP doesn’t list the steps required to have a well managed project and considers only the project manager's role.

8. 1. Difference between PMP, PRINCE and Scrum (1/2) • 2. PRINCE (PRojects IN Controlled Environment) [5, 2, 9] • project management standards that were originally sponsored by what is now the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) for use on British government ICT and business change projects. • It is a general project management methodology that conveys in a step by step fashion what must be done, when and where by whom to have a well-managed project, • However, PRINCE considers only a highlevelactivities such as control and organization of a project, not the lower level activities such as scheduling. • Step Wise covers only the planning stages of a project and not monitoring and controlling.

9. 1. Difference between PMP, PRINCE and Scrum (2/2) • 3. SCRUM [6] • It is an iterative and incremental agile methodology that is most commonly used in software development. • SCRUM is different than PMP and PRINCE as it considers the rapid change of the requirements and expectation of the customers asking for software solutions. • Therefore, the development is done in the SCRUM in the form of short time interval iterations. • In Each iteration, the customer is able to check the deliverables and confirm his interest to continue.

10. 2. STEP WISE Planning Step 0 Initiation Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • PRINCE is a step-by-step methodology for managing projects handling high level activities such as control and organization of a project. However, it lacks dealing with the lower level activities such as scheduling. To overcome this issue, STEP WISE methodology emerged to complement PRINCE. [1] Step 3 Project Characteristics Analysis Step 4 Identifying deliverables review Step 5 Effort Estimation Lower level detail For Each activity Step 6 Handling risks Step 10 Low-Level Planning Step 7 Resources Allocation Step 9 Plans Execution Step 8 Plans Review Figure: STEP WISE Planning Steps [1]

11. 2.0. Step 0: Initiation • In this step, the key elements for starting the project are identified such as scope, financialstreamlines and stakeholders[1]. • All initial information is documented in the project charter which confirms that this project worth to be undertaken. • As the project charter is approved by everyone on the board rooms, the project becomes officially authorized. • The items of the project charter could be [8]: • Objectives and Deliverables • Target market and segmentation • Stakeholders • Scope of the project • Constraints and Risks • High level budget

13. 2.0. Step 0: Initiation Example: consider college “Brightmouth” has payroll processing carried out by a services company. The payroll services provided to the university is very expensive. Decision made to bring payroll ‘in-house’ by acquiring an ‘off-the-shelf’ application. The use of the off-the-shelf system will require a new, internal, payroll office to be set up. There will be a need to develop some software ‘add-ons’: one will take payroll data and combine it with time-table data to calculate the staff costs for each course run in the college.

14. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives This step is the corner stone of all the subsequent steps. If the stakeholders did not conduct regular meetings put hands on objectives, deliverables and confirm the scope before the project being kick started, the project members will struggle throughout the course of the project. it is about making sure that project stakeholders understand and confirm the scope of the project that includes goals, deliverables, tasks, costs and deadlines. This step is divided into series of sub steps that try to spot the key elements of having successful project initiation.

15. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives 1.1 Identify objectives and measures of effectiveness in meeting them 1.2 Establish a project authority 1.3 Identify stakeholders 1.4 Modifyobjectives in the light of stakeholder analysis 1.5 Establish methodsofcommunication with all parties

16. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Step 1.1: Clarifying objectives and setting measures of effectiveness • Identifying the objectives is the key element of any project. • Meeting these objectives is the success criteria to evaluate the project. • It is not only meeting the time, budget and scope constraints but also having the expectations of the client realized. • To meet the expectations of the clients, the client should be engaged frequently to have an overview about the progress done so far. • I

17. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Step 1.1: Clarifying objectives and setting measures of effectiveness • In these meetings the measures of effectiveness and outstanding customer satisfaction could be depicted as the elements of the software quality. These elements could be categorized into 3 quality groups in the software industry domain: Product operation, Product revisionand Product transition.

18. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Step 1.1: Clarifying objectives and setting measures of effectiveness • Product operation quality factors [10]: • correctness – having user objectives satisfied • reliability – minimizing failure rate and maximizing accuracy • efficiency – utilizing computer resources to the best of the capability • integrity – keeping sensitive data secured • usability - cutting down effort and time needed to learn and use

19. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Product revision quality factors [10]: • maintainability – the ability to spot errors and fix them • testability - testing functions and ensuring they did the purpose • flexibility – the ability to modify and tune • Product transition quality factors [10]: • portability – the ability to have the solution run on different hardware/OS • reusability – the easiness of using existing components in another systems or applications • interoperability – the effort needed to couple to another system

20. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Example: Continuing the previous example of Brightmouth college. The stakeholders of the payroll project have preliminary agreed on set of objectives: • Reducing time required to updating employee profiles and responding to enquiries • Supporting managers with tools to analyze overtime and areas for productivity improvements • Enabling senior management to have hands on decision support tools • The stakeholder have set certain measures of effectiveness: • integrity – As data of high value for the university, they like to have the data secured and safely kept • maintainability – the stakeholder asked to find a way for reporting bugs and fixing them

21. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives Step 1.2: Defining project authority This sub step is concerned with the person-in-charge or the group of executives-in-charge for managing the project, interacting with the stakeholders, advising strategic directions and steering the project members. Example: Setting Brigitte as the project manager for the Brightmouth college payroll system.

22. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Step 1.3: Identify stakeholders • The stakeholder is any individual, group, or organization that has direct effect or being affected by the activities done in the project [9]. • Missing or underestimating a stakeholder in later stages might affect adversely the course of the project and that would cost too much to mitigate and even in case of recovery the customer satisfaction level might be low.

23. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives Step 1.3: Identify stakeholders Continuing the example of Brightmouth college: In pursuit of identifying all possible stakeholders of the payroll system, Brigitte spotted to extra clients for the new system: the finance department and the personnel office. A vice principal agrees to be official client, and monthly meetings are chaired by the VP and attended by Brigitte and the heads of finance and personnel. IT department manager and selected personal staff would be engaged.

24. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Step 1.4: Modify objectives in the light of stakeholder analysis • As stakeholders are actively involved in the project to make sure their objectives and expectation are met, • They could change the project requirements or configurations by adding more features. • These changes might result in creatingadditionalrisks. • The project team should balance the demands, and maintainproactivecommunication with stakeholders in order to deliver a successful project.

25. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Continuing the example of the college: the stakeholders added the extra features: • portability – as the staff might work from home using their laptops with the possibility to run the system on different operating systems • interoperability – the possibility of the system to be integrated and linked with many other systems is too high, so the stakeholders asked to consider this issue.

26. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives • Step 1.5: Establish method of communication • To keep stakeholders informed with all updates running in the projects, • formal communication methods should be established such as emails. • In case an issue of conflict, the stakeholder could reply all or to the person in charge to hold operation or call for meeting to discuss any change. • Reply allowance period should be determined as well [9].

27. 2.1. Step 1: Defining Scope and Objectives Step 1.5: Establish method of communication In the college example: Brigitte notified stakeholders that email is the formalway of communication while addressing the stakeholders in cc. Any changes will be notified through emails, in case of no reply for 5 working days, the change would be effective as no stakeholder refused the change.

28. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure 2.1 Establish relationship between project and strategic planning 2.2 Identify installation standards and procedures 2.3 Identify project team organization

29. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure • Step 2.1: Determining the link between the project and strategic planning • As customer considers injecting a new software system into the working environment, it is done for the purpose of satisfying a strategic objective [1]. • In this step the PM should identify the link between the new project and the existing portfolio of projectsto make sure that current and successive IT projects are compatible with the planned project.

30. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure • Step 2.1: Determining the link between the project and strategic planning • In the college example: while Brigette was investigating the college strategic plan which includes the enhancement of the administrative procedures, she identified that the payroll system would be implemented as a module in the ERP system to cover the college’s financial processing needs. • As the payroll system is an extension of an existing system, the hardware and software platforms upon which the application are to run aredictated.

31. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure • Step 2.2: Determining standards and procedures for installation @ the client side • Entities developing software products should define their development procedures and standards. • The standards could be related to change and configurationmanagement to make sure that changes are done effectively and efficiently ; • or could be related to monitoring and controlling to collectstatistics, trackperformance and take the corrective actions if needed. • The procedures could be related to quality; where quality checks are set at each point of the project life cycle.

32. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure • In the college example: Brigette set the following: • For change and configuration procedures: no change or add for extra features without detailed specification • For control procedures: Stakeholders must approve changes before the work is carried out. • Weekly Informal meetings with Brigette colleagues to discuss progress and scrutinize details ; • Monthly meetings with the vice-principal - official boss, and the heads of the finance and human resources sections to review progress in general terms. • For quality procedures, each person in the group has to get someone else to check through their work when they finish a major task.

33. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure Step 2.3: Be aware of project team organization The organizational structure is about organizing activities of task allocation, coordination and supervision to achieve the organizational objectives. There are three well known organizational structures: FunctionalOrganization, Matrix Organization and Projectized Organization [9].

34. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure • Step 2.3: Be aware of project team organization • In functional organization, the entire organization is organized as department such as sales / marketing / finance departments are managed by department heads. • In case a project is about to kick start, a member from each department might join the the project under the command of the project manager. • Technically speaking the staff of the project report to both the department heads and the project manager.

35. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure In Projectized organization, the entire organization is organized by projects. The full time project manager has the ultimate authority for selecting his staff and has direct input in their evaluations. In this case the project manager has the complete authority to call the resource of interest and guarantee his full dedication. The project coordination is done through the project manager [11].

36. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure • Matrix organization structure is a hybridversion of both functional and Projectized organization structures. • In this structure, two command structures could be found: vertical and horizontal. • An employee might be part of a functional department but he may also work on a project. • This structure takes the benefits of both organization in a balanced way.

37. 2.2. Step 2: Understanding Client infrastructure In the college example, Brigette has the ability to split her team into business analysts to collect and analyze system features; developers who would develop and integrate the payroll with the existing systems ; support staff that respond to employees enquiries in connection to how to use ; etc.

39. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis • Once the major elements of the project such as scope, objectives, features and infrastructure are surveyed and documented, it is time to kick start the implementation. • There is no typical way to implement a software product or service it all depends on the nature of the project. • Consequently, the project manager would choose the best development methodology, the proper life cycle approach, the way of handling risks and estimating efforts.

40. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis • 3.1 Distinguish the project as either objective- or product-driven • 3.2 Analyse other project characteristics • 3.3 Identify high-level project risks • 3.4 Take into account user requirements concerning implementation • 3.5 Select general life-cycle approach • 3.6 Review overall resource estimates

41. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis This step digests the project nature either product or objective driven, spots risks that affect the outcome of the projectand considers the client’s standards and procedures. This is done to carefully select the development methodology and the lifecycle approach while giving the project manager a better understanding on the current situation on the efforts estimation.

42. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis Step 3.1: Determine if the project is product or objective driven Project is classified as product driven, in case, a client asked to have a product to satisfy certain specifications where the client’s responsibility is adjusting the product to meet his objectives.

43. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis Step 3.1: Determine if the project is product or objective driven On the other side, the project is classified as objective driven, in case, a client asked to develop a system to improve some service to the users. The level of service provided is subject of an agreement rather than the specifications of the developed system. In the case of the Brightmouth, the requested system is an example of product-driven project [3].

44. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis Step 3.2: Analyze non-functional requirements It could be safety critical where malfunction could threaten human lives.

45. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis • Step 3.3: Identify high level project risks • Risks are raised from the operational environment or due to technicalities. • An example of the operational environment risks is the resistance to change. • Some senior staff consider installing new system that absorbs their knowledge and experience they gained along many years is a threat. This is because fresh candidates with the minimal time of experience could in short time act as seniors. • An example of the technicalities risks, the backward compatibility with the existing systems as it requires extensive programming and customizations.

46. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis In the case of the Brightmouth college, Brigette might face a technical risk. She is worried about finding a ready-made product that responds to most requirements raised in the previous steps earlier. In case the candidate product has less features than expected that implies intensive development might be involved.

47. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis Step 3.4: Considering user requirements regarding implementation Some clients have their own procedural requirements. That is more clear for some governments that require the use of certain software project life cycles such as waterfall method [9]

48. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis • Step 3.5: Selecting the development methodology and the lifecycle approach • According to the configurations of the project and the requirements of the clients driven from the previous steps, lifecycle approach and the development methodologywould be selected.

49. 2.3. Step 3: Project Characteristics Analysis • Step 3.6: Reviewing Resource Estimates • Till this stage, scope and objectives should be revisited, extra risks have been identified, development methodology and lifecycle approach were selected. • This means efforts and resources required to implement the project should be roughly re-calculated considering and revising cost estimatesand the team organization.