Project Management

Question 1

What aspects does project management oversee

Answer 1

• people management
• project scope
• project planning/scheduling
• risk management

Question 2

Importance of People Management

Answer 2

• software development is complex
• there are many dependencies and people involved
• inter-dependencies between several artefacts
• allows coordination between and within teams
• ensure software is efficient, effective, on time and within budget

Question 3

Difficulties of software development (Aristotle)

Answer 3

1. essence - conceptual structure of software itself is difficult to understand and implement
2. accidents - difficulties arising from realizing the conceptual structure in its executable form

Question 4

Project Scope:

Answer 4

• the scope encapsulates:
• functions and features for end-users
• data inputs and outputs
• goals for the project
• scope indicates content presented to users as consequence of using software
• addresses non-functional requirements - performance, constraints, UI, reliability

Question 5

What are functional requirements?

Answer 5

> requirements that end user demands as basic facilities the system should offer
functionalities need to be necessarily incorporated
stated in the form of an input, operation performed and an output
can be directly seen by the user in the final product

Question 6

What are non-functional requirements?

Answer 6

> quality constraints that the system must satisfy
priorities or extent to which these are implement varies
non-behavioral requirements and software quality attributes
e.g., portability, security, performance, maintainability, reliability, scalability, performance, etc.

Question 7

How is scope defined?

Answer 7

• scope communicated by client
• needs to be documented (clear and unambiguous)
• team and client needs to agree on what is necessary to the system
• defined by:
  > narrative description
  > set of use cases

Question 8

Scope - What is performance and constraints?

Answer 8

performance - processing capabilities and responsiveness of product

constraints - identify limits on software
> device limitations
> load expectations
> external hardware or other system limitations

Question 9

What is feasibility?

Answer 9

• given scope, are there necessary resources to build product
• need to determine resources
  > not only money
  > people with correct skills
  > hardware available
  > resources available to be reused and leveraged (open source, libraries)

Question 10

What are stakeholders

Answer 10

• someone (in)directly impacted by project and project outcome
• project sponsor, customer of deliverables (client), end users, project manger and project team

Question 11

Project Goals:

Answer 11

• aside from features/functions, need to look at overall project and team goals that needs to be worked towards in order for project to be considered successful
• goals derived from needs and expectations of stakeholders
• stakeholders may have conflicting goals (different visions of scope and priorities)
  > most important opinion is from whoever is paying
• find true needs that create real benefits and prioritize those

Question 12

Smart Goals:

Answer 12

• create measurable goals

S - specific, significant
M - measurable, meaningful
A - agreed upon, acceptable, attainable
R - realistic, relevant, reasonable
T - timely, trackable, tangible

• goals need boundaries in order to be tracked accordingly

Question 13

Project Schedule:

Answer 13

• schedule gives overview of:
  > amount of effort required w.r.t time
  > people needed
  > other resources
• deliverables help form and determine project schedule

Question 14

What happens if a schedule is unrealistic?

Answer 14

• if unrealistic, schedule can be updated:
  > renegotiation deadline (delay)(time)
  >asking for additional resources(more expenses)(resource)
  > reducing scope(fewer deliverables)(scope)

Question 15

Deliverables:

Answer 15

• list of project items/artefacts that to be delivered to customer in order to meet goals
• needs to be clear expectation between all stakeholders on what deliverable will be and its expected quality

Question 16

It is important that deliverables have:

Answer 16

• need to be/have:
  > verifiable and specific
  > e.g., report, module of executable code
  > has a stakeholder who needs the deliverable
  > a due date and scheduled time to be completed within
• deliverables need to adhere to a quality standard

Question 17

Supporting plans:

Answer 17

• human resource plan
• communications and management plan
• risk management plan

Question 18

Human Resource Plan:

Answer 18

• contains key individuals/organizations and their roles and responsibilities (what is needed from them)
• describes no. and type of people needed
• what are key responsibilities and how do they align with people available for project

Question 19

Communications and Management Plan

Answer 19

• who needs to be kept informed about project
• how to communicate information
  > weekly review, progress reports

Question 20

Risk Management Plan:

Answer 20

• identify risk that might affect project
• rank and assess risks and thereafter create mitigation and management plans
• prepare for anything

Question 21

Range of Management Activities:

Answer 21

• people:
  > managers, PO, team, customers
• product:
  > scope and decomposition
  > features to be included, how and who
• process:
  > software development lifecycle
  >unified process
• project:
  > size, scheduling, risk management

Question 22

Range of duties in a small project team:

Answer 22

• project management
• system analyst
• UI designer
• Architect
• developers
• specialists
• documentation

Question 23

How to choose people for project:

Answer 23

• choose people who have worked well with before
• use cv, experiences and references to judge candidates
• also judge communication and social skills, ability to perform tasks

Question 24

How to manage different people:

Answer 24

• cater for different backgrounds and personalities
• not everyone is the same
• wont always agree
• different personalities need different motivation, recognition and rewards

Question 25

Management and team success:

Answer 25

- software development is group activity > impossible to complete projects alone > people motivated by group success and own goals

Question 26

Individual success depends on:

Answer 26

- ability and interest for work on hand - experience and training with similar training and developer tools

Question 27

Team success depends on:

Answer 27

- abilities to communicate and express ideas within team - ability to interact and work efficiently as a group

Question 28

What are metrics?

Answer 28

- tools to help estimate and determine time and other resources for project - main metrics are milestones and deliverables and activities

Question 29

Activities:

Answer 29

- a task that takes time - has: duration due date precursor activity on which this activity depends

Question 30

Milestones

Answer 30

- marks completion of an activity or group of activities - does not necessarily correspond to deliverables - recognizable end-product of a task - used as checkpoints to evaluate what has been competed and plan ahead - requires formal, measurable output

Question 31

Deliverables:

Answer 31

- project result or output that is required to be delivered to the customer - has quality standards, due date, duration, stakeholder attached - could be artefacts produced in milestone completion

Question 32

Milestone vs Deliverable:

Answer 32

deliverable: measurable, tangible output of project - developed in alignment with project goals milestones: checkpoints throughout project life cycle - identified with one or groups of activities being completed

Question 33

Software Metrics:

Answer 33

- in order to manage and plan for project > estimate resources required for activities > based on size and complexity of activity and artifact produced software metrics measure aspects of software development - project level - cost and duration - application level - size and complexity need to be SMART

Question 34

KPIs

Answer 34

- key performance indicators - specific objective and quantitative measures to track aspects of project - SMART metrics - counts, percentages, totals, averages

Question 34

Metric Types:

Answer 34

process metrics product metrics result metrics predictor metrics