CHAPTER THREE: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project

A project is a group of tasks that need to complete to reach a clear result. A project also defines as
a set of inputs and outputs which are required to achieve a goal. Projects can vary from simple to
difficult and can be operated by one person or a hundred.

Projects usually described and approved by a project manager or team executive. They go beyond
their expectations and objects, and it's up to the team to handle logistics and complete the project
on time. For good project development, some teams split the project into specific tasks so they can
manage responsibility and utilize team strengths.

Project Management

Project management is an art and discipline of planning and supervising projects. Software project
management is a sub-discipline of project management in which software projects planned,
implemented, monitored and controlled.

It is a procedure of managing, allocating and timing resources to develop computer software that
fulfills requirements.

In software Project Management, the client and the developers need to know the length, period
and cost of the project.

Prerequisites of Software Project Management

There are three needs for software project management. These are:

1. Time
2. Cost
3. Quality

It is an essential part of the software organization to deliver a quality product, keeping the cost
within the client’s budget and deliver the project as per schedule. There are various factors, both
external and internal, which may impact this triple factor. Any of three-factor can severely affect
the other two.

Project Manager

A project manager is a character who has the overall responsibility for the planning, design,
execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of a project. A project manager represents an
essential role in the achievement of the projects.
A project manager is a character who is responsible for giving decisions, both large and small
projects. The project manager is used to manage the risk and minimize uncertainty. Every decision
the project manager makes must directly profit their project.

Role of a Project Manager:

1. Leader

A project manager must lead his team and should provide them direction to make them understand
what is expected from all of them.

2. Medium:

The Project manager is a medium between his clients and his team. He must coordinate and transfer
all the appropriate information from the clients to his team and report to the senior management.

3. Mentor:

He should be there to guide his team at each step and make sure that the team has an attachment.
He provides a recommendation to his team and points them in the right direction.

Responsibilities of a Project Manager:

1. Managing risks and issues.
2. Create the project team and assigns tasks to several team members.
3. Activity planning and sequencing.
4. Monitoring and reporting progress.
5. Modifies the project plan to deal with the situation.

Activities

Software Project Management consists of many activities, that includes planning of the project,
deciding the scope of product, estimation of cost in different terms, scheduling of tasks, etc.

The list of activities are as follows:

1. Project planning and Tracking

2. Project Resource Management
3. Scope Management
4. Estimation Management
5. Project Risk Management
 6. Scheduling Management
7. Project Communication Management
8. Configuration Management

1. Project Planning: It is a set of multiple processes, or we can say that it a task that performed
before the construction of the product starts.

2. Scope Management: It describes the scope of the project. Scope management is important
because it clearly defines what would do and what would not. Scope Management create the
project to contain restricted and quantitative tasks, which may merely be documented and
successively avoids price and time overrun.

3. Estimation management: This is not only about cost estimation because whenever we start to
develop software, but we also figure out their size (line of code), efforts, time as well as cost.

If we talk about the size, then Line of code depends upon user or software requirement.

If we talk about effort, we should know about the size of the software, because based on the size
we can quickly estimate how big team required to produce the software.

If we talk about time, when size and efforts are estimated, the time required to develop the software
can easily determine.

And if we talk about cost, it includes all the elements such as:

o Size of software
o Quality
o Hardware
o Communication
o Training
o Additional Software and tools
o Skilled manpower

4. Scheduling Management: Scheduling Management in software refers to all the activities to

complete in the specified order and within time slotted to each activity. Project managers define
multiple tasks and arrange them keeping various factors in mind.

For scheduling, it is compulsory to:

o Find out multiple tasks and correlate them.

 o Divide time into units.
o Assign the respective number of work-units for every job.
o Calculate the total time from start to finish.
o Break down the project into modules.

5. Project Resource Management: In software Development, all the elements are referred to as
resources for the project. It can be a human resource, productive tools, and libraries.

Resource management includes:

o Create a project team and assign responsibilities to every team member

o Developing a resource plan is derived from the project plan.
o Adjustment of resources.

6. Project Risk Management: Risk management consists of all the activities like identification,
analyzing and preparing the plan for predictable and unpredictable risk in the project.

Several points show the risks in the project:

o The Experienced team leaves the project, and the new team joins it.
o Changes in requirement.
o Change in technologies and the environment.
o Market competition.

7. Project Communication Management: Communication is an essential factor in the success of

the project. It is a bridge between client, organization, team members and as well as other
stakeholders of the project such as hardware suppliers.

From the planning to closure, communication plays a vital role. In all the phases, communication
must be clear and understood. Miscommunication can create a big blunder in the project.

8. Project Configuration Management: Configuration management is about to control the

changes in software like requirements, design, and development of the product.

The Primary goal is to increase productivity with fewer errors.

Some reasons show the need for configuration management:

o Several people work on software that is continually update.

o Help to build coordination among suppliers.
 o Changes in requirement, budget, schedule need to accommodate.
o Software should run on multiple systems.

Tasks perform in Configuration management:

o Identification
o Baseline
o Change Control
o Configuration Status Accounting
o Configuration Audits and Reviews

Project Management Tools

To manage the Project management system adequately and efficiently, we use Project management
tools:

1. Gantt chart

Gantt Chart first developed by Henry Gantt in 1917. Gantt chart usually utilized in project
management, and it is one of the most popular and helpful ways of showing activities displayed
against time. Each activity represented by a bar.

Gantt chart is a useful tool when you want to see the entire landscape of either one or multiple
projects. It helps you to view which tasks are dependent on one another and which event is coming
up.
 2. PERT chart

PERT is an acronym of Programme Evaluation Review Technique. In the 1950s, it is developed

by the U.S. Navy to handle the Polaris submarine missile programme.

In Project Management, PERT chart represented as a network diagram concerning the number of
nodes, which represents events.

The direction of the lines indicates the sequence of the task. In the above example, tasks between
"Task 1 to Task 9" must complete, and these are known as a dependent or serial task. Between
Task 4 and 5, and Task 4 and 6, nodes are not depended and can undertake simultaneously. These
are known as Parallel or concurrent tasks. Without resource or completion time, the task must
complete in the sequence which is considered as event dependency, and these are known as
Dummy activity and represented by dotted lines.