Project Scheduling, Planning and Risk Management

©Ian Sommerville 2000 Software Engineering, 6th edition. Chapter 4 Slide 1
Chapter 4
Project Management

Project management
Organising, planning and scheduling
software projects

Objectives
To introduce software project management and
to describe its distinctive characteristics
To discuss project planning and the planning
process
To show how graphical schedule representations
are used by project management
To discuss the notion of risks and the risk
management process

Topics covered
Management activities
Project planning
Project scheduling
Risk management

Concerned with activities involved in ensuring
that software is delivered on time and on
schedule and in accordance with the
requirements of the organisations developing
and procuring the software
Project management is needed because
software development is always subject to
budget and schedule constraints that are set by
the organisation developing the software
Software project management

The product is intangible
The product is uniquely flexible
Software engineering is not recognized as an
engineering discipline with the sane status as
mechanical, electrical engineering, etc.
The software development process is not
standardised
Many software projects are 'one-off' projects
Software management distinctions

Proposal writing
Project planning and scheduling
Project costing
Project monitoring and reviews
Personnel selection and evaluation
Report writing and presentations
Management activities

These activities are not peculiar to software
management
Many techniques of engineering project
management are equally applicable to software
project management
Technically complex engineering systems tend
to suffer from the same problems as software
systems
Management commonalities

Project staffing
May not be possible to appoint the ideal people
to work on a project
• Project budget may not allow for the use of highly-paid staff
• Staff with the appropriate experience may not be available
• An organisation may wish to develop employee skills on a
software project
Managers have to work within these constraints
especially when (as is currently the case) there
is an international shortage of skilled IT staff

Project planning
Probably the most time-consuming project
management activity
Continuous activity from initial concept through
to system delivery. Plans must be regularly
revised as new information becomes available
Various different types of plan may be
developed to support the main software project
plan that is concerned with schedule and budget

Types of project plan
Plan Description
Quality plan Describes the quality procedures and
standards that will be used in a project.
Validation plan Describes the approach, resources and
schedule used for system validation.
Configuration
management plan
Describes the configuration management
procedures and structures to be used.
Maintenance plan Predicts the maintenance requirements of
the system, maintenance costs and effort
required.
Staff development plan. Describes how the skills and experience of
the project team members will be
developed.

Project planning process
Establish the project constraints
Make initial assessments of the project parameters
Define project milestones and deliverables
while project has not been completed or cancelledloop
Draw up project schedule
Initiate activities according to schedule
Wait ( for a while )
Review project progress
Revise estimates of project parameters
Update the project schedule
Re-negotiate project constraints and deliverables
if ( problems arise )then
Initiate technical review and possible revision
end if
end loop

Project plan structure
Introduction
Project organisation
Risk analysis
Hardware and software resource requirements
Work breakdown
Project schedule
Monitoring and reporting mechanisms

Activity organization
Activities in a project should be organised to
produce tangible outputs for management to
judge progress
Milestones are the end-point of a process activity
Deliverables are project results delivered to
customers
The waterfall process allows for the
straightforward definition of progress milestones

Milestones in the RE process
Evaluation
report
Prototype
development
Requirements
definition
Requirements
analysis
Feasibility
report
Feasibility
study
Architectural
design
Design
study
Requirements
specification
Requirements
specification
ACTIVITIES
MILESTONES

Project scheduling
Split project into tasks and estimate time and
resources required to complete each task
Organize tasks concurrently to make optimal
use of workforce
Minimize task dependencies to avoid delays
caused by one task waiting for another to
complete
Dependent on project managers intuition and
experience

The project scheduling
process
Estimate resources
for activities
Identify activity
dependencies
Identify
activities
Allocate people
toactivities
Create project
charts
Software
requirements
Activity charts
and bar charts

Scheduling problems
Estimating the difficulty of problems and hence
the cost of developing a solution is hard
Productivity is not proportional to the number of
people working on a task
Adding people to a late project makes it later
because of communication overheads
The unexpected always happens. Always allow
contingency in planning

Bar charts and activity
networks
Graphical notations used to illustrate the project
schedule
Show project breakdown into tasks. Tasks
should not be too small. They should take about
a week or two
Activity charts show task dependencies and the
the critical path
Bar charts show schedule against calendar time

Task durations and
dependencies
Task Duration (days) Dependencies
T1 8
T2 15
T3 15 T1 (M1)
T4 10
T5 10 T2, T4 (M2)
T6 5 T1, T2 (M3)
T7 20 T1 (M1)
T8 25 T4 (M5)
T9 15 T3, T6 (M4)
T10 15 T5, T7 (M7)
T11 7 T9 (M6)
T12 10 T11 (M8)

Activity network
start
T2
M3
T6
Finish
T10
M7
T5
T7
M2
T4
M5
T8
4/7/99
8 days
14/7/99 15 days
4/8/99
15 days
25/8/99
7 days
5/9/99
10 days
19/9/99
15 days
11/8/99
25 days
10 days
20 days
5 days
25/7/99
15 days
25/7/99
18/7/99
10 days
T1
M1 T3
T9
M6
T11
M8
T12
M4

Activity timeline
4/7 11/7 18/7 25/7 1/8 8/8 15/8 22/8 29/8 5/9 12/9 19/9
T4
T1
T2
M1
T7
T3
M5
T8
M3
M2
T6
T5
M4
T9
M7
T10
M6
T11
M8
T12
Start
Finish

Staff allocation
4/7 11/7 18/7 25/ 1/8 8/8 15/8 22/8 29/8 5/9 12/9 19/9
T4
T8 T11
T12
T1
T3
T9
T2
T6 T10
T7
T5
Fred
Jane
Anne
Mary
Jim

Risk management
Risk management is concerned with identifying
risks and drawing up plans to minimise their
effect on a project.
A risk is a probability that some adverse
circumstance will occur.
• Project risks affect schedule or resources
• Product risks affect the quality or performance of the software
being developed
• Business risks affect the organisation developing or procuring
the software

Software risks
Risk Risk type Description
Staff turnover Project Experienced staff will leave the
project before it is finished.
Management change Project There will be a change of
organisational management with
different priorities.
Hardware unavailability Project Hardware which is essential for the
project will not be delivered on
schedule.
Requirements change Project and
product
There will be a larger number of
changes to the requirements than
anticipated.
Specification delays Project and
product
Specifications of essential interfaces
are not available on schedule
Size underestimate Project and
product
The size of the system has been
underestimated.
CASE tool under-
performance
Product CASE tools which support the
project do not perform as anticipated
Technology change Business The underlying technology on which
the system is built is superseded by
new technology.
Product competition Business A competitive product is marketed
before the system is completed.

The risk management process
Risk identification
• Identify project, product and business risks
Risk analysis
• Assess the likelihood and consequences of these risks
Risk planning
• Draw up plans to avoid or minimise the effects of the risk
Risk monitoring
• Monitor the risks throughout the project

The risk management process
Risk avoidance
and contingency
plans
Riskplanning
Prioritisedrisk
list
Risk analysis
Listof potential
risks
Risk
identification
Risk
assessment
Risk
monitoring

Risk identification
Technology risks
People risks
Organisational risks
Requirements risks
Estimation risks

Risks and risk types
Risk type Possible risks
Technology The database used in the system cannot process as
many transactions per second as expected.
Software components which should be reused contain
defects which limit their functionality.
People It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills required.
Key staff are ill and unavailable at critical times.
Required training for staff is not available.
Organisational The organisation is restructured so that different
management are responsible for the project.
Organisational financial problems force reductions in the
project budget.
Tools The code generated by CASE tools is inefficient.
CASE tools cannot be integrated.
Requirements Changes to requirements which require major design
rework are proposed.
Customers fail to understand the impact of requirements
changes.
Estimation The time required to develop the software is
underestimated.
The rate of defect repair is underestimated.
The size of the software is underestimated.

Risk analysis
Assess probability and seriousness of each risk
Probability may be very low, low, moderate, high
or very high
Risk effects might be catastrophic, serious,
tolerable or insignificant

Risk analysis
Risk Probability Effects
Organisational financial problems force
reductions in the project budget.
Low Catastrophic
It is impossible to recruit staff with the skills
required for the project.
High Catastrophic
Key staff are ill at critical times in the project. Moderate Serious
Software components which should be reused
contain defects which limit their functionality.
Moderate Serious
Changes to requirements which require major
design rework are proposed.
Moderate Serious
The organisation is restructured so that different
management are responsible for the project.
High Serious
The database used in the system cannot process
as many transactions per second as expected.
Moderate Serious
The time required to develop the software is
underestimated.
High Serious
CASE tools cannot be integrated. High Tolerable
Customers fail to understand the impact of
requirements changes.
Moderate Tolerable
Required training for staff is not available. Moderate Tolerable
The rate of defect repair is underestimated. Moderate Tolerable
The size of the software is underestimated. High Tolerable
The code generated by CASE tools is inefficient. Moderate Insignificant

Risk planning
Consider each risk and develop a strategy to
manage that risk
Avoidance strategies
• The probability that the risk will arise is reduced
Minimisation strategies
• The impact of the risk on the project or product will be reduced
Contingency plans
• If the risk arises, contingency plans are plans to deal with that
risk

Risk management strategies
Risk Strategy
Organisational
financial problems
Prepare a briefing document for senior management showing how the project is
making a very important contribution to the goals of the business.
Recruitment
problems
Alert customer of potential difficulties and the possibility of delays, investigate
buying-in components.
Staff illness Reorganise team so that there is more overlap of work and people therefore
understand each other’s jobs.
Defective
components
Replace potentially defective components with bought-in components of known
reliability.
Requirements
changes
Derive traceability information to assess requirements change impact, maximise
information hiding in the design.
Organisational
restructuring
Prepare a briefing document for senior management showing how the project is
making a very important contribution to the goals of the business.
Database
performance
Investigate the possibility of buying a higher-performance database.
Underestimated
development time
Investigate buying in components, investigate use of a program generator.

Risk monitoring
Assess each identified risks regularly to decide
whether or not it is becoming less or more
probable
Also assess whether the effects of the risk have
changed
Each key risk should be discussed at
management progress meetings

Risk factors
Risk type Potential indicators
Technology Late delivery of hardware or support software, many reported
technology problems
People Poor staff morale, poor relationships amongst team member,
job availability
Organisational organisational gossip, lack of action by senior management
Tools reluctance by team members to use tools, complaints about
CASE tools, demands for higher-powered workstations
Requirements many requirements change requests, customer complaints
Estimation failure to meet agreed schedule, failure to clear reported
defects

Key points
Good project management is essential for project
success
The intangible nature of software causes problems for
management
Managers have diverse roles but their most significant
activities are planning, estimating and scheduling
Planning and estimating are iterative processes
which continue throughout the course of a
project

A project milestone is a predictable state where
some formal report of progress is presented to
management.
Risks may be project risks, product risks or
business risks
Risk management is concerned with identifying
risks which may affect the project and planning
to ensure that these risks do not develop into
major threats
Key points

Project Scheduling, Planning and Risk Management

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