CS2 Software Engineering note 3 Project Management in the ...

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CS2 Software Engineering note 3 CS2Ah 01.10.29 • How many iterations should be planned? • How long should each iteration last? • What are the aims, objectives and deliverables of each iteration? • How should an iteration be monitored? The project plan encapsulates the process the project should follow. In particular it: • Expresses: – The decomposition of the overall task into sub-tasks. – The allocation of tasks to people/teams – The setting of timescales for the task • Evolves through the lifetime of the project: – To reflect changes in the desired outcome of the project. – To take account of earlier deviations from the plan. – In response to monitoring and measurement of the process and product. Two level plans: In many Project Planning environments because many similar projects have been undertaken previously it is possible to identify the deliverables that are required and the phasing of sub-tasks to achieve the goal of the project. Unfortunately this is rarely the case in software projects. The usual approach is to take a two level approach with a coarse-grained phase plan that looks at the project across the four main phases of the RUP and then consider detailed iteration plans for each iteration undertaken on the project. The phase plan is very rough and consists of the outline for the whole project. It should include at least: • Dates of the major milestones, i.e. the move from one phase to another. • Staffing estimates for each phase (this is usually based on historical evidence). • An idea of the number of iterations included in each phase and rough dates for the end of each iteration. The number of iterations for each phase is reasonably closely related to the size of the system. Larger systems require more iterations. 2
CS2 Software Engineering note 3 CS2Ah 01.10.29 The iteration plans usually include the current plan that is being used to manage the current iteration. This provides a framework against which progress can be measured. Each iteration includes: Requirements, analysis and design, implementation, deployment, test, and evaluation so milestones for each activity should be established and decomposition of larger tasks into sub-tasks should ensure the milestones are achievable. In addition, there should be at least a plan under development for the next iteration and possibly some scheduling of particular tasks into later iterations. In complex systems, the early iterations may exclude much of the functionality and the iteration plans may capture the “road map” of when particular features are scheduled to be introduced. The approach to generating the iteration plans is entirely conventional. We identify subtasks, their interdependence, and make effort estimates for each task. From this we establish start and end dates for each task that respects the resource requirements we have and the dependency between tasks. This plan is usually captured by a Gantt chart showing when each task starts and ends. Project Risk A risk comprises three elements: an undesirable event, an estimate of the severity of the consequences of the event, and a liklihood that the event will occur. The amount of risk a project is exposed to is a good measure of the viability of the project. If a project carries too much liklihood of high consequence events it should probably be cancelled because the chances of delivering an acceptable product are too low. Risk is often classified into Direct risk that the manager can control to some extent and Indirect risk that the manager cannot influence. In managing a project the aim is to control risk. Risk control involves three strategies: • Risk avoidance involves reorganizing the project so you are not exposed to the risk. E.g. Change the supplier of some key component from a supplier who is promising a high quality product but has yet to deliver to a supplier who has a tried-and-tested product in the area. • Risk transfer involves finding other stakeholders to share the risk with. E.g. if you are producing the product for a particular customer but hope to market it to other customers it might be possible to share get the custome to accept more of the development costs in return for a stake in future sales to other customers. • Risk acceptance involves deciding to live with the risk and to take the occurrence of of the risk as a possible contingency to be taken account of in the planning process. Accepting a risk involves: – Risk mitigation where we try to reduce the liklihood or the impact of a risk. E.g. if we decide to choose a particular supplier for a component 3
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CS2 Software Engineering note 3 Project Management in the ...

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