Software projects

• Main elements to be considered by the project manager

  • Resources
  • Constraints
• Resources


  All resources that must be suitably trained and deployed efficiently, including personnel (system developers, project managers, system analysts) and all stakeholders
• Constraints


  Limitations/restrictions in terms of scope, schedule, and cost that are put on the project, including the development environment (HW + SW available)
• Risks


  Potential issues that may arise, such as key team members becoming unavailable, tasks exceeding budget or taking too long, software not being developed until finance is relocated
• Risk management is a key part of any successful project
• Main features of project management for software projects

  • Monitoring
  • Scheduling
  • Budget
  • Resources
• Monitoring


  Used to track progress, with regular meetings and reports to the project manager to gain an overview of the project and apply timely interventions in times of difficulty
• Scheduling


  Considers tasks, sequencing, and dependencies to ensure all deadlines are met, as late delivery can be costly
• Budget


  Ensures costs do not escalate out of control, as a project behind schedule will impact the budget
• Gantt charts


  • Help eliminate idle time, provide clarity, and allow all tasks to be displayed on a single page, but may be misleading as the size of the bars do not reflect the amount of work to be done and can become complex for large projects
• Critical Path Analysis (CPA)


  A model that shows each activity as a node and the dependencies between them, using a mathematical algorithm to calculate the earliest start time and latest finish time of each activity, identifying the chain of activities critical to the project schedule and the most efficient ways to meet the project schedule with optimal use of resources, but is not suitable for small-scale projects
• Version management


  Ensures everyone involved in a project, including the developer and user, are working on the same version of the software, allowing changes to be tracked and revised if necessary
• Version management supports the tracking of changes to the version of software, meaning that version changes can be revised if necessary
• Version management is the monitoring of changes to a system during the development process and its operational life, with all changes made to a source or version tracked, along with who made the change and why it was made