Sof tw ar e Pr oje ct

Ma na ge men t
(Cont in ued…)

1
Sta ff in g
❚ Project Managers
usually take
responsibility for
choosing their team:
❙ need to identify and
select good software
engineers for the
success of the project.
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Sta ff in g
❚ A common misconception:
❙ one software engineer is as
productive as another:
❚ Experiments reveal:
❙ a large variation in productivity
between the worst and best in a
scale of 1 to 10.
❙ Worst engineers even help
reduce the overall productivity of
the team
❘ in effect exhibit negative
productivity. 3
Who is a Go od S oftw are
Engineer?
❚ Good programming abilities
❚ Good knowledge of the project areas
(Domain)
❚ Exposure to Systematic Techniques
❚ Fundamental Knowledge of Computer
Science
❚ Ability to work in a team
❚ Intelligence
❚ Good communication skills:
❙ Oral
❙ Written
❙ Interpersonal
❚ High Motivation
4
Who is a Good So ftware
Engi neer? (cont .)

❚ Studies show:
❙ these attributes vary as much as
1:30 for poor and bright
candidates.
❚ Technical knowledge in the
area of the project (domain
knowledge) is an important
factor, determines:
❙ productivity of an individual
❙ quality of the product he
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develops.
Who is a Good So ftware
Engi neer?(cont .)

❚ A programmer having
thorough knowledge of
database applications (e.g
MIS):
❙ may turn out to be a poor
data communication
engineer.

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Sch ed ul ing
❚ Scheduling is an important activity
for the project managers.
❚ To determine project schedule:
❙ Identify tasks needed to complete the
project.
❙ Determine the dependency among
different tasks.
❙ Determine the most likely estimates
for the duration of the identified
tasks.
❙ Plan the starting and ending dates for
various tasks. 7
Work Br eakdow n
Structure
❚ Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
provides a notation for representing task
structure:
❙ Activities are represented as nodes of a tree.
❙ The root of the tree is labelled by the problem
name.
❙ Each task is broken down into smaller tasks
and represented as children nodes.
❚ It is not useful to subdivide tasks into
units which take less than a week or two
to execute.
❙ Finer subdivisions mean that a large amount of
time must be spent on estimating and chart
revision. 8
Work Br eakdow n
Structure
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Lexer Parser Code Generator

9
Acti vity Ne tworks
❚ WBS structure can be refined into
an activity network representation:
❙ Network of boxes and arrows
❙ shows different tasks making up a
project,
❙ represents the ordering among the
tasks.
❚ It is important to realize that
developing WBS and activity
network
❙ requires a thorough understanding of
the tasks involved.
10
Acti vity Ne twork
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Design Code Parser

Requirements Code Code Generator Test

Write Manual

11
Gantt Charts
❚ Named after its developer
Henry Gantt.
❙ a form of bar chart:
❘ each bar represents an
activity,
❘ bars are drawn against a time
line,
❘ length of each bar is
proportional to the length of
time planned for the activity.

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Gantt Charts
❚ Gantt charts are not specific to
software engineering.
❚ Gantt charts used in software
project management are:
❙ enhanced version of standard
Gantt charts.
❙ colored part of a bar shows the
length of time a task is estimated
to take.
❙ white part shows the slack time,
❘ the latest time by which a task must
be finished. 13
Gantt Chart
Requirements

Design
Code Lexer

Code Parser

Code Code Generator

Test

Write Manual

14
Scheduli ng
❚ Many managers believe
❙ an aggressive schedule
motivates the engineers to do a
better and faster job.
❙ However, careful experiments
show:
❘ unrealistic aggressive schedules
cause engineers to compromise on
intangible quality aspects,
• also cause schedule delays.

15
Scheduli ng
❚ A good way to achieve accuracy:
❙ let people set their own
schedules.
❚ Schedule for a large-sized task may
take too long:
❙ Managers need to break large tasks
into smaller ones to find more
parallelism
❘ can lead to shorter development time.
❘ Small-sized tasks help in better tracking

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Cri ti cal Path
❚ Task dependencies define a partial
ordering among tasks, i.e.
❙ Completion of some tasks must
precede the starting time of some
other tasks.
❚ A critical path:
❙ along which every milestone is critical
to meeting the project deadline.
❚ A Critical Path is a chain of tasks
that determine the duration of the
project.
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Cri ti cal Paths
❚ A critical paths is sequence of tasks
such that
❙ a delay in any of the tasks will cause a
delay to the entire project.
❚ There can be more than one critical
path in a project.
❚ It is important for the project
manager to be aware of the critical
paths in a project:
❙ can ensure that tasks on these paths
are completed on time.
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Cri ti cal Paths
❚ Other tasks may have some room
for delay without affecting the
entire project.
❙ If necessary, the manager may switch
resources from a noncritical task to a
critical task.
❚ Several software packages are
available for automating the
scheduling process:
❙ MacProject on Apple Macintosh
computer
❙ MS-Project on Microsoft Windows 19
CPM and PE RT Char ts
❚ While Gantt charts show
the different tasks and
their durations clearly:
❙ they do not show intertask
dependencies explicitly.
❙ this shortcoming of Gantt
charts is overcome by PERT
charts.

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Cri tical Pat h
Managem ent
❚ Critical Path
Management(CPM) is a
technique for:
❙ Identifying critical paths
❙ Managing project.
❚ The CPM technique is not
specific to software
engineering
❙ has a much wider use.
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Cri tical Pat h
Managem ent
❚ CPM can assist in answering
questions like:
❙ What are the critical paths in the
project?
❙ What is the shortest time in
which the project can be
completed?
❙ What is the earliest (or latest)
time a task can be started (or
finished) without delaying the
project? 22
Exa mp le
❚ A project involves three tasks:
❙ task a takes 4 hours,
❙ task b takes 5 hours
❙ task c takes 8 hours.
❙ task c cannot commence until task a is
completed.
❚ What is the shortest time in which the
project can be completed?
b
start 5 finish

4 a c
8

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Exa mp le
❚ Clearly, the project continues until
task a and then task c complete:
❙ which is 12 hours.
❙ Task b takes only 5 hours.
❙ Task b can have 7 hours of leeway to
start and finish.
b
start 5 finish

4 a c
8

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What data do we need to
constr uct a CPM gra ph?
❚ To construct a CPM graph,
❙ a list of tasks and their durations
are required.
❙ Also, for each task a list of tasks
upon which it depends is
required.
❙ A task may depend on more than
one task.
❚ Project task details can be
given in the form of a table.
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Tas k Ta ble
❚ Task Duration
Dependents
a 10
b 20
c 20 a,g
d 10 b
e 10 b
f 5 e
g 5
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CP M Graph
c:20

a:10

start finish
g:5

b:20 f:5
d:10

e:10

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How do w e work out the var ious start
and fini sh ti mes for tasks?
❚ Minimum time to complete project (MT) =
Maximum of all paths from start to finish
❚ Earliest start time (ES) of a task =
Maximum of all paths from start to this
task
❚ Earliest finish time (EF) of a task = ES +
duration of the task
❚ Latest finish time (LF) of a task = MT -
Maximum of all paths from this task to
finish
❚ Slack time = LS - ES = LF - EF

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Start and fi ni sh ti mes
for tasks.
❚ Latest start time (LS) of a task = LF -
duration of the task
Task MT ES EF LF LS

a 10 0 10 15 5
b 20 0 20 20 0
c 20 10 30 35 15
d 5 20 25 30 25
e 10 20 30 30 20
f 5 0 5 15 10
g 5 0 5 10 5

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What are th e float tim e (o r s lack
time) o f tasks?
❚ Float time (or slack time) is the
total time that a task may be
delayed
❙ before it will affect the end time of the
project.
❚ The float times indicate the
"flexibility" in starting and
completion of tasks:
❚ A critical activity is an activity with
zero (0) slack or float time.
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What is PE RT and how
does it work?
❚ PERT (Program Evaluation and Review
Technique) is a variation of CPM:
❙ incorporates uncertainty about duration of
tasks.
❚ Gantt charts can be derived
automatically from PERT charts.
❚ Gantt chart representation of schedule is
helpful in planning the utilization of
resources,
❙ while PERT chart is more useful for monitoring
the timely progress of activities.

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Ri sk Ma nag ement
❚ A risk is any unfavorable event or
circumstance:
❙ which might hamper successful or
timely completion of a project.
❚ Risk management:
❙ concerned with the reduction of the
impact of risks.
❚ Risk management consists of three
activities:
❙ risk identification,
❙ risk assessment, and
❙ risk containment.
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Risk Ha ndli ng
❚ Three main strategies for risk
handling:
❙ Avoid the risk: e.g. change the
requirements for performance or
functionality.
❙ Transfer the risk: allocate risks to third
party
❘ or buy insurance to cover any financial loss
should the risk become a reality.
❙ Contingency planning: Prepare
contingency pans to minimize the
impact of the risk.
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Risk Ha ndli ng
❚ To decide about risk
handling options, we
must take into
account:
❙ cost of reducing risk
❙ resulting cost saving
from risk reduction.
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Sof tware Con fi gurati on
Manageme nt
❚ The results (aka deliverables)
of any large software
development effort consists of
a large number of objects:
❙ source code,
❙ design document,
❙ SRS document,
❙ test document,
❙ project plan (SPMP) document,
etc. 35
Sof tware Con fi gurati on
Manageme nt (CONT .)
❚ A configuration is a collection
of deliverables:
❙ being developed for some
customer.
❚ As development proceeds,
❙ the components comprising a
configuration undergo changes:
❙ Even during maintenance, the
components comprising a
configuration keep changing.
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What is c onf iguratio n
managem ent?
❚ The set of activities
through which the
configuration items are
managed and
maintained
❙ as the product undergoes
its life cycle phases.
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Sof tware Con fi gurati on
Manageme nt

❚ Existence of variants of a
software product causes
several problems.
❚ Suppose you have several
versions of the same
module, and
❙ find a bug in one of them.
❙ it has to be fixed in all
versions. 38
Sof tware Con fi gurati on
Manageme nt
❚ Different objects are accessed
and modified by a number of
engineers.
❚ Unless strict discipline is
enforced:
❙ regarding updation and storage
of the objects through some
automated tool,
❙ several problems appear.
39
Sof tware Con fi gurati on
Manageme nt
❚ For example, an engineer
might update the module that
he has designed ---
❙ without informing the engineers
who need to interface with this
module.
❚ Or, two engineers may
simultaneously carry out
changes to different portions
of a module:
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❙ while saving overwrite each