Software Project Management

Session 1: Introduction, Fundamentals,

Classic Mistakes

Dr. Ali Naimat

Faculty of Information Technology

Customized from Columbia.edu slides

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 Textbooks
• Required texts
– “Rapid Development”, Steve McConnell
– “Information Technology Project Management”, Kathy
Schwalbe
• These provide two very different viewpoints
• In-the-trenches vs. PMI textbook perspective
• Recommended reading
– “Quality Software Project Management”, D. Shafer
– “Software Project Survival Guide”, Steve McConnell
– “Peopleware”, T. DeMarco and T. Lister

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 Basics
• Essential elements of software project
management
• Practical, rapid development focus
• Real-world case studies
– And other examples like job interviews
• Highly interactive
• Dry as toast?

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 The Field
• Jobs: where are they?
• Professional Organizations
– Project Management Institute (PMI) (pmi.org)
– Software Engineering Institute (SEI)
– IEEE Software Engineering Group
• Certifications
– PMI PMP
– Prince2
• The “PMBOK” – PMI Body of Knowledge
• Tools
– MS Project

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 Job Fundamentals
• Skills required
• PM Positions and roles
• The process

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 Project Management Skills
• Leadership
• Communications
• Problem Solving
• Negotiating
• Influencing the Organization
• Mentoring
• Process and technical expertise

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 Project Manager Positions
• Project Administrator / Coordinator
• Assistant Project Manager
• Project Manager / Program Manager
• Executive Program Manager
• V.P. Program Development

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Software Project Management
Management

Project
Management

Software
Project
Management

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 Project Management
• What’s a project?
• PMI definition
– A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken
to create a unique product or service
• Progressively elaborated
– With repetitive elements
• A project manager
– Analogy: conductor, coach, captain
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Project vs. Program Management
• What’s a ‘program’?
• Mostly differences of scale
• Often a number of related projects
• Longer than projects
• Definitions vary
• Ex: Program Manager for MS Word

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 Interactions / Stakeholders
• As a PM, who do you interact with?
• Project Stakeholders
– Project sponsor
– Executives
– Team
– Customers
– Contractors
– Functional managers

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 PM Tools: Software
• Low-end
– Basic features, tasks management, charting
– MS Excel, Milestones Simplicity
• Mid-market
– Handle larger projects, multiple projects, analysis tools
– MS Project (approx. 50% of market)
• High-end
– Very large projects, specialized needs, enterprise
– AMS Realtime
– Primavera Project Manager

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Tools: Gantt Chart

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Tools: Network Diagram

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 PMI’s 10 Knowledge Areas
• Project integration management
• Scope
• Time
• Cost
• Quality
• Human resource
• Communications
• Risk
• Procurement
• Stakeholders (added in the Fifth Edition).

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 First Principles of Project Management
By Max Wideman 2003

• The Commitment Principle: An equitable commitment between

the provider of resources and the project delivery team must exist before a viable project exists .

• The Success Principle: The measures of project success, in terms of

both process and product, must be defined at the beginning of the project as a basis for project
management decision making and post-project evaluation

• The Tetrad Trade-off Principle: The core variables of the

project management process, namely: product scope, quality grade, time-toproduce and total cost-at-
completion must all be mutually consistent and attainable

• The Strategy Principle: A strategy encompassing first planning then

doing, in a focused set of sequential and progressive phases, must be in place.

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First Principles of Project Management2

• The Management Principle: Policies and procedures that are

effective and efficient must be in place for the proper conduct and control of the project commitment

• The Single-Point Responsibility Principle: A

single channel of communication must exist between the project sponsor and the project team leader
for all decisions affecting the product scope

• The Cultural Environment Principle: Management

must provide an informed and supportive cultural environment to ensure that the project delivery
team are able to work to the limits of their capacity

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 Four Project Dimensions
• People
• Process
• Product
• Technology

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 Trade-off Triangle
• Fast, cheap, good. Choose two.

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 Trade-off Triangle
• Know which of these are fixed & variable
for every project

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 Project Phases
• All projects are divided into phases
• All phases together are known as the
Project Life Cycle
• Each phase is marked by completion of
Deliverables
• Identify the primary software project phases

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Lifecycle Relationships

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 36 Classic Mistakes
• McConnell’s Anti-Patterns
• Seductive Appeal
• Types
– People-Related
– Process-Related
– Product-Related
– Technology-Related
• Gilligan’s Island

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 People-Related Mistakes Part 1
• Undermined motivation
• Weak personnel
– Weak vs. Junior
• Uncontrolled problem employees
• Heroics
• Adding people to a late project

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 People-Related Mistakes Part 2
• Noisy, crowded offices
• Customer-Developer friction
• Unrealistic expectations
• Politics over substance
• Wishful thinking

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 People-Related Mistakes Part 3
• Lack of effective project sponsorship
• Lack of stakeholder buy-in
• Lack of user input

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 Process-Related Mistakes Part 1
• Optimistic schedules
• Insufficient risk management
• Contractor failure
• Insufficient planning
• Abandonment of plan under pressure

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 Process-Related Mistakes Part 2
• Wasted time during fuzzy front end
• Shortchanged upstream activities
• Inadequate design
• Shortchanged quality assurance

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 Process-Related Mistakes Part 3
• Insufficient management controls
• Frequent convergence
• Omitting necessary tasks from estimates
• Planning to catch-up later
• Code-like-hell programming

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 Product-Related Mistakes
• Requirements gold-plating
– Gilding the lily
• Feature creep
• Developer gold-plating
– Beware the pet project
• Push-me, pull-me negotiation
• Research-oriented development

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 Technology-Related Mistakes
• Silver-bullet syndrome
• Overestimated savings from new tools and
methods
– Fad warning
• Switching tools in mid-project
• Lack of automated source-code control

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Software Project Management, 2015/2016-2 32
 Reading
• McConnell: Chapters 1-4
– We covered most of Ch 3 today
• Schwalbe: chapters 1-2, 11 (344-345)

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