Introduction of Software Project Management - 1
What is Project?
- A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to accomplish a unique purpose.
- Attributes help to define a project:
- A project has a unique purpose
- A project is temporary
- A project requires resources, often from various areas
- A project have a primary sponsor or customer
- A project involves uncertainty
Example of Projects:
- You want to build a house, with help from your friends and family, some of whom are brick-layers, carpenters and plasterers.”
- “The United States want to develop a new software for NASA”
- “We will computerise our customer accounting system.”
Characteristics of Projects
A project has:
- an objective or defined goal,
- it is finite, i.e. it has a beginning and an end,
- it is a one-time effort, i.e. not repetitive,
- it can usually be broken into separate phases,
- it requires specific resources,
- it is subject to financial constraints
- it is subject to a prescribed methodology.
Constraints on Projects
- Scope
- What is project trying to accomplish?
- What unique product or services does the customer/sponsor expect from the project?
- Time
- How long should it take to complete the project?
- What is the project’s schedule?
- Cost
- What should it cost to complete the project?
- Personnel
- multi-disciplinary, but people have specific skills and limited time
- Equipment
- should be utilised effectively, often on multiple projects
- Project constraints are inter-locking
What is Project Management?
- PM is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from project”
- PM is “the planning, organising, directing and controlling of resources for a relatively short-term objective that has been established to complete specific goals and objectives”
- PM is “the application of the systems approach to the management of technologically complex tasks or projects whose objectives are explicitly stated in terms of time, cost and performance parameters.”
- Stakeholders
- The people involved in or affected by project activities and include the project sponsor, project team, support staff, customers, users, and suppliers.
- Knowledge areas
- The key competencies that project mangers must develop.
- Tools and techniques
- Assist project manages and their teams in carrying out scope, time, cost, and quality management.
- HR, communications, risk, procurement and integration management.
How Project Manager Relates to Other Disciplines?
- Project manager require knowledge & practice in general management areas.
- Project manager integrating all the various activities.
- Task perform by General Manager/Operation Manager are:
- repetitive
- ongoing
- done as day-by-day activities
- focus on a particular disciplines/functional area.
- Project manager selected to manage an IT for accounting, he/she should know some things about it.
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