Software Project Management Brochure Template Page 25
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29Software Project Management
25
approach. Developers of such applications usually know their data well,
and it is quite natural to start the projects from modeling data to be stored
in databases [20]. As for the top-down approach to analysis and design,
note also that it may inhibit reuse. It may be more economical to look at
what reuse and COTS (components-of-the-shelf) software components are
available, and select a design based on them. Such a system may not fully
meet a client's needs, but the client may be happy to accept it on the basis
of its greatly lower cost.
•
Productivity of a newly assembled development team should be calibrated
in a pilot project. A small pilot project gives project manager the
possibility of gaining a rough model of performance for every team
member and for the team as a whole before the real work on a large
application begins. Put simply, the work on a pilot project can give a
multiplier factor m, so that if a certain team member estimates to take n
weeks to do something, in reality he/she will need m times n weeks. This
is important for schedule planning for the larger project. How trustworthy
and realistic is the multiplier factor acquired that way depends to a large
extent on whether the application domains of the pilot project and the
larger application are the same or not and whether the team member(s) is
(are) familiar with the domain(s) or not [12].
Discussion and Conclusions
Software project management issues described in this chapter represent the core
of project manager's toolbox for leading the project to its successful completion.
It is important to note that there are many more interesting topics and practices
of software project management, other than those covered here. Due to the
enormous expansion of IT, such practices continue to grow.
Again, if a certain issue specific to software development is not addressed in
the chapter it doesn't mean that it is not important - it is just because it didn't
satisfy some or all of the selection criteria stated in the end of the Introduction.
For example, an important issue for every software project manager is
contingency planning. It relates to the effect of strikes by personnel, fire,
flooding, earthquakes, each of which can have a rather specific effect on the
software process - copies of work products are to be kept off site, and be easily
accessible. However, contingency planning doesn't get that much space in the
relevant software engineering journals and magazines, or in the publications of
the relevant committees associations.
Another such important issue is that of how the business reengineering
efforts (reorganization of an entire enterprise) have, or should have, affected the
management of software projects [17]. Recent results in that sense include
reengineering of software enterprises in order to introduce CMM [7]. These
efforts aim at reengineering of a software enterprise based on introducing some
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