1. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
T-76.5612 Software Project Management
Spring 2010
1: Introduction
Tuomas Niinimäki
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Helsinki University of Technology
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
2. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Why software projects are
interesting to you?
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
3. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course contents
What is a software project?
Constraints, goals and types of a software project
Software processes in software project management
Software project estimation
Budgeting, scheduling and monitoring software project
Software quality and risk management
Leadership and management in software projects
Distributed software development
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
4. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course goals
After taking this course, one should be able to
apply different project types and frameworks to project goals
create a budget and schedule for a small-scale software project
apply sound software project monitoring practices in a small-scale
software project
apply most common software process models to a small-scale
software project
evaluate the applicability of software estimation practices in typical
software engineering contexts
reflect the software quality requirements to project constraints
understand the basics of risk management in software project
management
find and critically assess additional material for supporting the
software project management work
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
5. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
“The one correct answer”
does not exist!
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
6. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course overview (1/2)
First part of the course is “theoretically” oriented
Lectures 1-8 provide basic insights into essential software
project management issues
Assignments 1 and 2 help you to apply some of the practices
presented on the lectures
Course exam is based on contents from the first part
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
7. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course overview (2/2)
Second part of the course: “the Reality”
Lectures 9-14 are visiting lectures given by people from
industry - contents vary, but reflect the true context of
software engineering and software project management
Assignments 3 and 4 are based on real industrial case
Lecture summaries are written from lectures of the second
part
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
8. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Important dates and times (1/3)
Lectures:
Tuesdays 16-18 at lecture hall T5
Thursdays 16-18 at lecture hall T3
First part consists of lectures given by course personnel
January 19th – February 11th
Cover various aspects of software project management
Second part lectures are given by guest speakers from
industry
February 16th – March 4th
Experience reports, useful insights, how things really work
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
9. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Important dates and times
Exams:
March 8th 9-12 at lecture hall T1
(optionally, February 6th 10-13 at the main building)
Required material for exams:
Lectures 1-8 (i.e. those given by course personnel)
Reading material from Noppa
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
10. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course personnel
Teacher: Tuomas Niinimäki
Course assistant: Peitsa Hynninen
Website: https://noppa.tkk.fi/noppa/kurssi/t-76.5612/etusivu
Any updates, changes to schedule or deadlines will be
announced at Noppa
Email address: t765612@soberit.hut.fi
To ensure timely answer to your question, please use the
course email address instead of personal email addresses
Twitter: #t765612
You’re encouraged to share interesting articles, links, other
material
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
11. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course prerequisites
T-76.3601 Basics of Software Engineering
Basic software development methods, concepts, terminology
and discourse
TU-22.1120 Introduction to Project Management
Basic project management methods, concepts, terminology
and discourse
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
12. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course material
Reading material
No coursebook
Collection of articles from Noppa
Lectures
Slides will be available in PDF form at Noppa
Lecture recordings (slides+audio) will be available at Noppa
Exercises
Noppa
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
13. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Course requirements
To pass the course, you need to do ALL of the following
Pass the exercises (50% of max. points)
Pass the exam (50%) based on 1st part of the course
Pass the lecture summaries (50%) from 2nd part of the
course
Give course feedback
You may earn extra points (max 10pt) by
attending the lectures (1 pt / lecture)
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
14. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Exercises
Exercises 1 and 2 are individual work
Lecture summaries are individual work
Exercises 3 and 4 are made in groups of 1-4 people
You may use newsgroup opinnot.tik.tik76612 to find your group
Templates will be given to all exercises
Exercises must be submitted in DOC or PDF format in Finnish, Swedish or
English
Deadlines are absolute and strict!
Always Thursday at 12:15
Dates: 11.2.2010, 18.2.2010, 11.3.2010, 11.3.2010
More information about exercises is available at course web page
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
15. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Exam
Exams:
March 8th 9-12 at lecture hall T1
(optionally, February 6th 10-13 at the main building)
Required material for exams:
Lectures 1-8 (i.e. those given by course personnel)
Reading material from Noppa
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
16. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Lecture summaries
Purpose:
To teach you to find and briefly summarize the most important points
presented during the lecture
To teach you to be critical, to analyse and evaluate different sources
0-5 points per lecture summary, points from 5 best lecture summaries
summed -> max 25 points
5 points per summary requires
A good summary of the main points from the lecture
Discussion and comparison to reading material, other articles,
lectures, other visiting lecturers, your own opinions
Critical thinking
Proper referencing of the sources
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
17. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Lecture summaries from seminar
Global Software Development: Towards an Agile and Lean
Future
Wednesday February 17th at 12:30-17:30
@ Dipoli Congress Centre, Espoo
http://www.soberit.hut.fi/mapit/seminar2010/
By participating this seminar and writing one larger summary
about the whole seminar, you may earn max 10 points (= equals
two guest lecture summaries)
To participate, please register via http://dy.fi/zq6 (URL also
available at Noppa), DL February 11th @ 18:00!
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
18. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Grading
Exercises: 50 points (to pass you need 25 points)
Exercise 1: 10 p (individual)
Exercise 2: 10 p (individual)
Exercise 3: 13 p (group)
Exercise 4: 17 p (group)
Exam: 25 p (to pass you need 12 points)
Lecture summaries: 25 p (to pass you need 12 points)
Extra points (to pass you need 0 points)
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
19. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Grading
Points Grade
0.00-47.99 0
48.00-54.99 1
55.00-64.99 2
65.00-74.99 3
75.00-84.99 4
85.00- 5
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
20. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
What must / should you do now?
Register to the course in OODI
Register to the exam in OODI
Read through the course web pages
Information on exercises!
Reading material!
Subscribe to course news (either email or RSS)
Keep track of time you spend on this course
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
21. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
More information available at
the course web page:
https://noppa.tkk.fi/noppa/kurssi/t-76.5612/etusivu
If you can’t find answer there, send email to
t765612@soberit.hut.fi
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
22. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Introduction to software
project management
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
24. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
What is a project?
A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique
product or service
A project has a definitive beginning and a definitive end
Specific objectives are to be met or a specific product is to be
created
Work is carried out for someone else than yourself
Resources available for use on the project are constrained
A project has goals, schedule, resources and budget
(PMBOK 1996)
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
25. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Why there is a course on
software project
management?
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
26. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Is software project management special?
Many techniques of general project management are applicable
to software project management
Software development projects are often very hard to
manage
Software differs from many other deliverables, because of its
Invisibility
Complexity
Conformity
Flexibility
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
27. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Software project management is special
Problem of specifying the exact requirements in the beginning
Project planning and estimation is difficult
High productivity differences between individuals
1:10 differences typical, even 1:50 reported
A lot of changes – their effect on the system often unknown
Software complexity still increases rapidly
Division of tasks - adding workforce in late phase can be harmful
Software development is communication intensive activity
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
29. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Project types
Project target
One-of-kind customer specific systems
Completely new software products
New versions of software products
New features or improvements to old systems
Project scope
Requirements elicitation project
Feasibility study project
Pilot / prototyping project
Project organization
Intra-organizationally distributed
Using software subcontractors
Using ready-made components
Developing open-source software
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
30. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Project constraints
Projects have constrains:
resources
time
Resources
scope
Often one or two are more important
than the others, e.g.
Time Scope
Time to market
Basic functionality
Let everybody know which ones are
the most important!
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
31. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Who are involved in a
software project?
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
32. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Project stakeholders
Different parties have different interests in the software project
Motivations and objectives must be recognized, and taken
into account when planning and executing the project
Project stakeholders can be
Internal (the project team)
External to the project team but within the same organization
E.g. marketing department
External to both the project team and the organization
E.g. end users, customers, subcontractors
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
33. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Different viewpoints on a project
£
Cost / Benefit
Temporary organization
Project X
€$
Sequence of work to be done
Collection of products
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
34. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
How software projects are
performing?
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
35. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Software project success rates 2000
(2003)
23%
(15%)
Successful: on time, on
budget, all features
49% Challenged: Completed and
(51%) operational, but over-budget,
over time, fewer features
Failed: Cancelled
28%
(34%)
Challenged
Succeeded
Failed
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(Standish Group, based on US data)
36. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Failure statistics – Improvements?
Average cost overrun 189 % (1994)->45 % (2000)-> 43% (2003)
Average time overrun 222% (1994)->63 % (2000)-> 82% (2003)
On average 61 % (1994) of required features were delivered -> 67
% (2000) -> 52% (2003)
250
200
150 1994
%
100 2000
50
0
Average cost Average time Reguired
overrun overrun features delivered
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(Standish Group, based on US data)
37. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Reasons for success and failure
Reasons for failure: Recipe for success:
“Most projects failed for lack Smaller project size and
of skilled project management shorter duration
and executive support”
“Underestimating project
More manageable
complexity and ignoring “Growing”, instead of
changing requirements are “developing”, software
basic reasons why projects engages the users earlier and
fail” confers ownership.
“The problem – and the -> Iterative and
solution – lay in people and interactive process
processes”
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(Standish Group, based on US data)
38. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Classic mistakes - People
Undermined motivation Lack of effective project
Weak personnel sponsorship
Uncontrolled problem Lack of stakeholder buy-in
employees Lack of user input
Heroics Politics placed over substance
Adding people to a late Wishful thinking
project
Noisy, crowded offices
Friction between
developers and
customers
Unrealistic expectations
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(Steve McConnell 1996)
39. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Classic mistakes - Process
Overly optimistic Inadequate design
schedules Shortchanged quality
Insufficient risk assurance
management Insufficient management
Contractor failure controls
Insufficient planning Premature or overly
Abandonment of planning frequent convergence
under pressure
Omitting necessary tasks
Wasted time during the from estimates
fuzzy front end
Shortchanged upstream
Planning to catch up later
activities Code-like-hell
programming
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(Steve McConnell 1996)
40. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Classic mistakes - Product&Technology
Product Technology
Requirements gold- Silver-bullet syndrome
plating Overestimated savings
Feature creep from new tools or
Developer gold-plating methods
Push-me, pull-me Switching tools in the
negotiation middle of a project
Research-oriented Lack of automated
development source-code control
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(Steve McConnell 1996)
41. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Advice and good practices
Be aware of the classic mistakes
Create lists of “worst practices” to avoid in the future projects
Conduct postmortems to learn from your team’s mistakes and
add to the list
Encourage other projects within your organization to conduct
postmortems so that you can learn from their mistakes
Exchange war stories with your colleagues in other organizations
and learn from their experiences
Display your list of mistakes prominently so that people will see
it and learn not to make the same mistakes yet another time
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
(Steve McConnell 1996)
42. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
What must / should you do now?
Register to the course in OODI
Register to the exam in OODI
Read through the course web pages
Information on exercises!
Reading material!
Subscribe to course news (either email or RSS)
Keep track of time you spend on this course
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
43. SoberIT
Software Business and Engineering Institute
Thank you.
Questions?
Tuomas Niinimäki
tuomas.niinimaki@soberit.hut.fi
HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY