Note for Software Project Management - SPM by Ashutosh Jaiswal

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www.jntuworld.com D.SAMEERA,Asst.Prof 2010 UNIT - 1 Conventional Software Management 1. The best thing about software is its flexibility: - It can be programmed to do almost anything. 2. The worst thing about software is its flexibility: - The “almost anything” characteristic has made it difficult to plan, monitor, and control software development. 3. In the mid-1990s, three important analyses were performed on the software engineering industry. All three analyses given the same general conclusion:“The success rate for software projects is very low”. They Summarized as follows: 1. Software development is still highly unpredictable. Only 10% of software projects are delivered successfully within initial budget and scheduled time. 2. Management discipline is more differentiator in success or failure than are technology advances. 3. The level of software scrap and rework is indicative of an immature process. Software management process framework: WATERFALLL MODEL 1. It is the baseline process for most conventional software projects have used. 2. We can examine this model in two ways: i. IN THEORY ii. IN PRACTICE IN THEORY:In 1970, Winston Royce presented a paper called “Managing the Development of Large Scale Software Systems” at IEEE WESCON. Where he made three primary points: 1.There are two essential steps common to the development of computer programs: - analysis - coding 2. In order to mange and control all of the intellectual freedom associated with software development one should follow the following steps: - System requirements definition www.jntuworld.com

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www.jntuworld.com D.SAMEERA,Asst.Prof 2010 - Software requirements definition - Program design and testing These steps addition to the analysis and coding steps 3. Since the testing phase is at the end of the development cycle in the waterfall model, it may be risky and invites failure. So we need to do either the requirements must be modified or a substantial design changes is warranted by breaking the software in to different pieces. -There are five improvements to the basic waterfall model that would eliminate most of the development risks are as follows: a) Complete program design before analysis and coding begin (program design comes first):- By this technique, the program designer give surety that the software will not fail because of storage, timing, and data fluctuations. - Begin the design process with program designer, not the analyst or programmers. - Write an overview document that is understandable, informative, and current so that every worker on the project can gain an elemental understanding of the system. b) Maintain current and complete documentation (Document the design):-It is necessary to provide a lot of documentation on most software programs. www.jntuworld.com

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www.jntuworld.com D.SAMEERA,Asst.Prof 2010 - Due to this, helps to support later modifications by a separate test team, a separate maintenance team, and operations personnel who are not software literate. c) Do the job twice, if possible (Do it twice):- If a computer program is developed for the first time, arrange matters so that the version finally delivered to the customer for operational deployment is actually the second version insofar as critical design/operations are concerned. - “Do it N times” approach is the principle of modern-day iterative development. d) Plan, control, and monitor testing:- The biggest user of project resources is the test phase. This is the phase of greatest risk in terms of cost and schedule. - In order to carryout proper testing the following things to be done: i) Employ a team of test specialists who were not responsible for the original design. ii) Employ visual inspections to spot the obvious errors like dropped minus signs, missing factors of two, jumps to wrong addresses. iii) Test every logic phase. iv) Employ the final checkout on the target computer. e) Involve the customer:- It is important to involve the customer in a formal way so that he has committed himself at earlier points before final delivery by conducting some reviews such as, i) Preliminary software review during preliminary program design step. ii) Critical software review during program design. iii) Final software acceptance review following testing. IN PRACTICE:- Whatever the advices that are given by the software developers and the theory behind the waterfall model, some software projects still practice the conventional software management approach. Projects intended for trouble frequently exhibit the following symptoms: i) Protracted (delayed) integration - In the conventional model, the entire system was designed on paper, then implemented all at once, then integrated. Only at the end of this process was it possible to perform system testing to verify that the fundamental architecture was sound. - Here the testing activities consume 40% or more life-cycle resources. ACTIVITY COST Management 5% Requirements 5% Design 10% Code and unit testing 30% Integration and test 40% Deployment 5% Environment 5% www.jntuworld.com

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www.jntuworld.com D.SAMEERA,Asst.Prof 2010 ii) Late Risk Resolution - A serious issues associated with the waterfall life cycle was the lack of early risk resolution. The risk profile of a waterfall model is, www.jntuworld.com