info 638lecture #21 software project management project scope and activities info 638 glenn booker

INFO 638 Lecture #2 1

Software Project Management

Project scope and activities

INFO 638Glenn Booker


Project Scope

In Traditional Project Management (TPM), it is assumed that you can determine the goal of the project from the onset The adaptive or extreme management

methods examined later will allow this not to be true

Capture key project objectives in the Project Overview Statement (POS)


Disclaimer

I didn’t make up the POS acronym – it’s not my fault


Role of the POS

The POS captures key objectives of the project, such as the Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) It should be a short document (1-2 pp) The COS should convey what the project

is expected to deliver and accomplish It should be reviewed and updated

throughout the project – it isn’t static It is negotiated with the customer


Role of the POS

The POS is a communications tool among the project manager, their development team, the customer, and the project manager’s boss (upper or senior management)

The POS is a concise statement of the project, and a summary of its justification to continue


Other Views

The POS and COS are often known by other terms, like the Vision or Mission of the project POS and COS are Wysocki’s terminology


Generating the POS Often the POS is developed through an

iterative process The customer makes a request for some major

aspect of the product (key set of features, for example)

The developer asks to clarify the request The customer provides a response Customer and developer agree on the response Repeat the previous four steps until done


Non-traditional POS Uses

The POS can help understand a project even if not starting from scratch Inheriting a project from someone else Using a POS as a suggestion to start an

unsolicited project Use a POS as a reference to guide your

team during development


Parts of a POS

The POS has five major sections Problem/opportunity Goal Objectives Success criteria Assumptions, risks, obstacles

Each is typically a few paragraphs long


Problem/opportunity

This section summarizes major problems the project will fix, and identify significant new opportunities of which it will take advantage Like the INFO 503 analysis method of the

same name, this helps prove there is significant motivation for the project to occur


Goal

The goal gives direction and purpose to the project, summarizing how the organization will address the problems, or act on the opportunities

Don’t commit to specific time or cost goals – the scope of the project is too vague for that


Objectives

The objective statements elaborate on the goal, and clarify its scope or boundaries If you meet all the objectives, then

the goal must also be met Each objective should define an

expected outcome, the rough time frame it will be done, a measure, and the action needed to meet the objective


Success criteria

Imagine the project is done, and you want to prove how much the organization benefited from it What specific measures could you make

to prove the project was worthwhile? These are your success criteria

Typical criteria are increased revenue, reduced costs, improved service, etc.


Assumptions, risks, obstacles

This is an executive summary of major assumptions the project is based upon, key risks to manage, and foreseeable obstacles that will need to be overcome Particularly focus on areas you might

need help managing More details will appear in the Project

Definition Statement (PDS)


POS Attachments

The POS can have attachments for more information on the project

Most common are A risk analysis (to show more detail than

given earlier), and/or A financial analysis (such as cost-benefit

analysis, feasibility studies, ROI, etc.)


POS Approval

The POS is submitted to middle or upper management for approval

The expected outcome is to continue more detailed planning and analysis for the project


Expand POS into PDS

The Project Definition Statement (PDS) expands on the POS in two key areas Objectives can be more specific, and use

more technical language to convey their exact intent

Assumptions, risks, obstacles can cover more details of interest to the development team


Summary of Project Scope The POS and PDS capture the key

concepts needed to Understand the basis for the project (why

does it need to exist?) Demonstrate understanding of the

project risks, context, and concerns Provide an outline of objectives the

project will (hopefully) achieve And therefore justify approval for the

project to continue


Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The WBS gives structure to the set of activities in a project

It expands on the POS by describing activities in more and more detail, until you get down to the smallest level of task you need to define for your project The WBS is a really big ‘to-do’ list


Smallest Level of Task?

How big is the smallest level of task? Depends on the size of the project, and

how mature the staff are In general, from a couple hours to a

week might be the range Near term tasks are typically defined in

more detail than distant ones In Wysocki’s terminology, ‘tasks’ make

up the smallest level of ‘activity’


WBS

The goal of the project should be accomplished when all tasks in the WBS are completed

When major activities are sequential, they typically appear in that order in the WBS The Gantt chart and PERT chart (we’ll

discuss later) are graphic forms of the WBS


Activity Decomposition The key to writing a good WBS is to

decompose the project goal into major activities Then keep breaking those activities

down until you get to the smallest level of tasks mentioned earlier

A WBS with too much detail is time consuming to generate and follow …not enough detail, and you miss

important tasks


Why Create a WBS?

The WBS helps plan out the process needed to accomplish the project

It also helps design the architecture of the project

It forms the basis for estimating the time and effort needed for the project

It establishes a baseline for reporting project status


Generating a WBS There are two basic approaches to

generating a WBS Top-down

Start at the project goal, and keep breaking down activities until you get to the smallest task needed Can use the Team approach (have everyone

work on the schedule together) or The Subteam approach (agree on level 1

activities, then have subteams tackle each activity in detail; then check for duplication and missed tasks)


Generating a WBS Bottom-up

Agree on the top level activities using the top-down approach

Then break into teams and brainstorm all the activities you think are within that overall activity

Organize the activities, and check for missed tasks and redundancies

Often the top-down approach results in a more complete draft WBS


Special Case WBS’s

Small projects may want to consider tools to help generate a good WBS, such as mindmapping

Large projects may need to alter the approach to develop the top two WBS levels as a group, then establish subteams or teams to fill out the details below that


Are we Done Yet? Six criteria can help determine if a

WBS is complete Measurable Status – Is each task defined

in a way to help monitor its status toward completion? Typically requires some kind of

measurement to assess percent completion Bounded – Is each task clearly bounded

by start and stop events? What event marks the start and stop of

each task?


Are we Done Yet? Deliverable – Does each activity have a

clearly defined deliverable? What output should the activity produce?

Cost and Time Estimate – Is each activity defined in a way that allows a meaningful estimate of its calendar time and cost to completion? Often software cost is largely driven by the

labor cost, and hence the amount of effort needed to develop it


Are we Done Yet? Acceptable Duration Limits – Most

activities should be broken down into tasks which are reasonably small Under two weeks is the upper limit There can be exceptions to this rule

Activity Independence – Are the activities defined to be independent of each other as much as practical? Avoid activities that are too complex,

or the other extreme, micromanaging


WBS Approaches

There are three major approaches to structuring a WBS Noun-type approaches Verb-type approaches Organizational approaches


Noun-type approaches

The noun-type approach means the WBS is structured by the physical or functional components of the project In a client-server system, the client and

server’s development could each be top level WBS activities

In assembling a car, each major subsystem could be a WBS activity (drivetrain, body, cabin, suspension, ...)


Verb-type approaches Verb-type approaches focus on the

processes in the project Most common for software development,

this includes using each phase of the life cycle as a top level WBS activity – Requirements Analysis, High Level Design, Low Level Design, Coding, various kinds of Testing, etc.

Could define WBS by project objectives Shows how close project is to completion


Organizational approaches

The organizational approach groups activities by who does them Could be based on geographic location,

department, etc. Might be good for a distributed

development team, to help make it clear what each group is supposed to do


Showing the WBS

The WBS can be shown as an organization chart-like structure (p. 93)

This gives an overview of all the activities


Naming WBS Tasks

The tasks in a WBS (and ideally, the activities too) should start with a verb

Include tasks to plan the project, conduct the actual work of the project, make decisions, etc. Task names might include ‘Prepare test

plan,’ ‘Conduct system test,’ ‘Write test report,’ ‘Approve system release’


WBS Numbering

[This section isn’t part of Wysocki] Tasks and activities are often given

unique identification numbers to help do cost accounting and generate status summaries In Microsoft Project, you can add a

column called WBS which will automatically follow this numbering


WBS Numbering

The goal of a WBS is to structure activities to allow for unique identification and tracking of existing activities, while being expandable to allow for new ones

The WBS numbers are a series of numbers separated by periods, used to identify tasks on a project


WBS Number Format The highest level of each major task

is a “whole” number (1.0, 2.0, …) The duration of major tasks (1.0) is

the span of all tasks under it (e.g. 1.1 to 1.3)

Lower level tasks are components of their higher level task (2.1 is part of 2.0), hence a short WBS number (2.1) is a higher level task than a long WBS number (2.1.2)


WBS Number Example

For example 1.0 Risk Management Activities

1.1 Develop Risk Management Plan 1.2 Approve Risk Management Plan 1.3 Conduct Ongoing Risk Management

Task 1.0 is the highest level task shown; composed of tasks 1.1 to 1.3

Note that lower levels are indented


WBS Numbering Numbers above nine under one task just

keep counting (e.g. 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, …) The WBS numbers allow new tasks to be

inserted where needed, such as tasks 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and 1.4 in the RM example, and yet uniquely identifies each task.

A WBS can use as many digits as needed (e.g. 1.2.3.14.7.6.5)


Typical Software WBS

A typical waterfall life cycle project might use a WBS that follows the life cycle phases 1.0 Do Requirements Analysis 2.0 Conduct High Level Design 3.0 Conduct Low Level Design 4.0 Conduct Coding and Unit Testing 5.0 Conduct Integration and System

Testing


Typical Software WBS While that handles the development

life cycle activities, often support activities will be broken out into separate WBS elements 6.0 Perform Quality Assurance 7.0 Conduct Configuration Management 8.0 Conduct Project Management

This is a hybrid of the verb and organizational WBS approaches


Typical Software WBS

Then, within each of the top level WBS activities, you decide what activities and tasks are needed Within requirements analysis, what will

you do to accomplish that? Examine legacy system documentation? Conduct interviews? Study similar systems? Describe use cases?


OO WBS

The top level WBS for an object oriented (OO) project might follow the Rational Unified Process life cycle phases 1.0 Conduct Inception Phase 2.0 Conduct Elaboration Phase 3.0 Conduct Construction Phase 4.0 Conduct Transition Phase


OO WBS

For an OO project, you may not need separate top level WBS entries for support tasks, if they are integrated into each phase

Then each phase has iterations, and you need to determine how long they are (eventually) and what tasks happen inside each iteration


OO WBS 1.0 Conduct Inception Phase

1.1 Conduct iteration I-1 1.1.1 insert tasks for this iteration 1.1.2 insert tasks for this iteration

1.2 Conduct iteration I-2 1.2.1 insert tasks for this iteration

2.0 Conduct Elaboration Phase 2.1 Conduct iteration E-1

2.1.1 you get the idea


WBS Summary

There is no one perfect correct way to generate a WBS for a given project Many solutions could work well It is common to blend the noun, verb,

and organizational structures Such as use the verb approach for the top

level WBS, then noun or organizational for lower level elements

info 638lecture #21 software project management project scope and activities info 638 glenn booker

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