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

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
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