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.

Comments

. You need to plan and execute a special version of all Knowledge Areas for the vendor management, separately Project Management and invoicing Software

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