| A | B |
|---|
| Project Management | the process of planning and controlling the development of a system within a specified time frame, at minimum cost, and with the right functionality |
| Project Manager | has the primary responsibility for managing the hundreds of tasks and roles that need to be carefully coordinated |
| 4 Project Management Steps | 1. Estimating the project size 2. Creating the work plan 3. Staffing the Project 4. Controlling & Directing projected activities |
| Step 1: Estimating project size | Estimate how long the project will take by asking experienced developers, examining actual previous projects, or by using (industry std. %'s, function point approach, or OPR estimates) |
| Step 2: Creating the Workplan | identify tasks, estimate time and resources for each task, revise estimates, track what happened and compare to your predictions |
| Step 3: Staffing the Project | Staffing levels will change over a project's lifetime, adding staff adds more overhead. 8-10 people per team reporting in a hierarchy |
| Step 4: Coordinating Project Activities | use Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools to help the project along. Examples include oracle designer/developer, ERwin data modeler, COOL:gen, Rational Rose, SmartDraw, Visible Analyst, Visual Paradigm |
| Triple constraint? | Scope, time, budget |
| Function Point Approach | 1. Estimate system size (function points and lines of code) 2. Estimate effort required (peson-months) 3. Estimate time required (months) |
| Work Plan | dynamic schedule that records and keeps track of all the task that need to be accomplished over the course of the project |
| Gantt Chart | horizontal bar char that shows the shame task information as the project work plan but in a graphical way. |
| Pert Chart | lays out the project tasks in a flowchart. Appropriate to use this when individual task estimates are pretty uncertain |
| Means of estimating task times | Compare to similar projects; ask experience people/stakeholders; estimate time * 1.5; use a PERT chart; use semi-objective calculations (function points) |
| Industry standards as % of time at each stage of the SDLC | P (15%) A (20%) D (35%) I (30%) |
| Prevent scope creep | JAD and prototyping; formal change approval; charging for changes |
| Timeboxing | Fixed Deadline; by deliverable; reduced functionality; fewer "finishing touches" |
| Timeboxing Steps | 1. Set the date for system delivery 2. prioritize the functionality that needs to be included in the system 3. Build the core of the system (the functionality ranked as most important) 4. postpone functionality that cannot be provided within the time frame 5. Deliver the system with core functionality 6. Repeat steps 3-5, adding refinements and enhancements |
| Additional Staff issues | Adds more overhead, teams are more complex as they grow larger |
| staffing plan | describes the kinds of people working on the project |
| project charter | describes the project's objectives and rules |
| functional lead | manages a group of analysts |
| technical lead | oversees progress of programmers and technical staff members |
| communication plan | define who, how, when/frequency, response times, emergencies |
