Transcript Class #5

Software Project
Management
Joint project planning &
controlling project
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Glenn Booker
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Joint Project Planning
 Joint Project Planning (JPP) uses a
goldfish-bowl approach to conducting
early analysis of a project
 Its scope is typically to define the
POS and/or PDS
 For software, this might include
defining the system scope and key
requirements, and/or developing
high level system design
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JPP vs. JAD
 JPP is similar to Joint Application
Design (or Joint Application
Development) (JAD)
 JPP is more general than JAD
 JPP could be used for planning any
kind of project
 JAD is software-specific
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Planning JPP
 JPP needs to create an environment
in which key decisions can be made
about the project
 Planning JPP is crucial to its success
 It is critical that key people be
required to attend a JPP session
 Notice “required,” not “invited”
 JPP doesn’t work unless the players
are all present
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JPP Attendees
 All significant stakeholders in a
project need to attend JPP
 The tough part is identifying what
‘significant’ means
 Attendees typically include:
 Facilitator – an outsider whose role it to
lead the JPP session
 Typically have training in JPP, and are
excellent negotiators
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JPP Attendees
 Project manager – whoever will lead the
project is an obvious choice to attend
 Technographer – a scribe who will record
the results of the session
 Might be proficient in tools for recording
brainstorming sessions, prototyping a
system, or other appropriate skills
 Other key project people – such as a
system architect, managers who will
report to the project manager, etc.
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JPP Attendees
 Customer rep is often included
 Resource managers, such as IT staff, HR,
or other relevant support personnel
 Project champion (aka sponsor) –
whoever has been pushing to make the
project happen, other than the manager
 Process experts – to help make sure the
project will follow sound processes
 Anyone else you deem necessary!
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JPP Logistics & Facilities
 JPP needs to take place in an isolated
environment, to help everyone focus
on the same thing
 Generally held offsite, such as a hotel or
conference center
 Typically allow a few days for the JPP,
depending on the scope of the project
and the goals of the session
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JPP Equipment
 JPP might use various tools to capture
the results
 MS Visio for process flowcharts
 Axon or Mind Mapper for capture of
brainstorming
 These are in addition to the usual
conference equipment – computer &
projector, sticky notes, etc.
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JPP Agenda
 JPP needs to have a specific agenda
defined before the session starts
 The agenda must define what is
expected to come out of the session
 A completed POS, and/or
 A completed PDS, and/or
 A project plan, etc.
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JPP Deliverables
 More specific deliverables could
include
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WBS
Activity duration estimates
Resource requirements
Project network schedule (Pert)
Activity schedule (start/end dates)
Resource assignments
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Project Proposal
 The JPP might result in a project
proposal, including
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Background
Objective
Approach
Statement of work
Time & cost summary
Appendices
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Monitoring Progress
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Monitoring Progress
 By now you have been able to create
a detailed project plan, including task
definitions, estimates of duration, &
assignment and leveling of resources
 Then the project actually starts
 Now you need to monitor what really
happens, and control the future of
the project
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An Aside
 This is great stuff for control freaks
 You get to define what people will do,
when they’ll do it, and even tell them
who is their boss
 Now you get to decide if they are
doing their job right, and what you’ll
do if they aren’t
 Isn’t this a great world?
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Control and Risk
 Controlling a project is closely linked
to risk management
 You want to minimize the risk that
the project won’t finish successfully
 Successfully generally means “on time
and within budget”
 To do so, you need measurements to
help decide if the project is on track
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Use Pictures
 Graphics are key to presenting
information well
 Most senior managers don’t have time to
read tons of words
 A well thought out graphic will convey
critical information quickly and with
minimal explanation
 If something’s wrong, need to address
what corrective action will be taken
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Controls
 Without good controls, a project will
wander like a 6-year-old on summer
vacation
 Controls allow us to
 Track progress – what has been
accomplished?
 Detect variance – have we departed from
the plan?
 Take corrective action – fix it!
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Balance Control and Risk
 More controls on a project
 Costs more for planning and tracking
 Reduces risks and creativity
 So a critical question for every project
is “how many controls do I need?”
 Need enough to know what’s going on,
without micromanaging the project
 The answer might change during
the project
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Balance Control and Risk
 Too little control will increase project
cost, because effort will be wasted
 In theory there’s an ideal balance
possible between control and risk
 Also need to consider that the product
quality will also be affected by the
amount of control over its
development process
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Progress Reporting System
 Some form of progress reporting
system needs to be established
 Want timely, complete, clear, and
accurate status reported
 Avoid adding too much to overhead to
create the status reports
 Results are readily available
 Warns of problems with time to fix them
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Types of Status Reports
 Typically there are five kinds of
status reports
 Current period reports – report status
during the current reporting period, e.g.
this week’s status
 Cumulative reports – report history of
project from start to the present, or at
least a significant amount of time
 Good for finding trends
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Types of Status Reports
 Exception reports – are generated only
when something is amiss
 Summarizes what’s wrong, and what action
is desired to fix it
 Stoplight reports – aren’t really a
separate kind of report
 They add a simple red/yellow/green
indicator of status – green is all happy,
yellow is a problem that needs fixing, and
red means project is out of control
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Types of Status Reports
 Variance reports – tell how far the
project is ahead of, or behind the plan
 Variances generally pertain to the schedule
and/or costs, showing planned and actual
values, and the difference between them
 Present results from the current reporting
period, and maybe one previous period
 May be tabular data, or graphic
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How & When Collect Data?
 Status reports are critical to
understanding a project, yet can also
be a waste of time and/or interfere
with getting the project done
 Need to decide how often reporting
is done
 Academia tends to be monthly, most of
industry is weekly or biweekly
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How & When Collect Data?
 Need to determine reporting period
(what day is the start of the week?)
 This often feeds a repeating process, e.g.
 Reports are due Friday to your manager,
 They report to their boss by Monday noon,
 A collected report is issued on Tuesdays
 Reports contain actual status to date,
start and finish dates for tasks
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How & When Collect Data?
 Reports might also include
 Projections of work remaining,
 Percent completion of tasks, and
 The amount of resources spent on each
task (e.g. 12 hours on WBS task 1.3.2)
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Variances
 Variances are the difference between
actual events and the project plan
 Positive variances are often good
 They mean you are ahead of schedule or
under budget
 But could mean the schedule has
slipped, and little has been accomplished
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Variances
 Conversely, negative variances
are generally bad
 Behind schedule and/or over
planned cost
 Rarely, can mean more work has
been done than planned
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Displaying Status
 There are three major ways to display
the status of a project graphically
 Gantt chart
 Milestone trend chart
 Cost schedule control chart
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Gantt chart
 We covered the Gantt chart in week 3
 It is probably the most commonly
used tool to plan and track projects
 To show progress, dark thinner bars
are used to show how much work has
been accomplished
 This example is 30% complete
ID
Task Name
Duration
Start
Finish
August
8/17
3
Solve World's Problems
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30 days
Mon 8/18/03
8/24
September
8/31
9/7
9/14
9/21
October
9/28 10/5
10/12 10/19 10/26
November
11/2 11/9
December
11/16 11/23 11/30 12/7
January
12/14 12/21 12/28 1/4
Fri 9/26/03
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1/11
Milestone Trend Chart
 The Milestone trend chart is a plot of
how well specific events and decisions
(milestones) were accomplished
 The horizontal lines represent 1-3
standard deviations above and below
the expected completion date of
each milestone
 Presumably you have historic data to
determine the standard deviations
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Milestone Trend Chart
 Like monitoring a control chart, poor
trends (especially downward) or odd
leaps in the data are keys to
identifying problems
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Milestone Trend Chart
3
2
1
On Schedule
-1
-2
-3
1
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2
3
4
Project month
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6
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Cost Schedule Control
 Cost schedule control refers to the
system used by the many agencies
called earned value or C/SCSC
 We have already defined a project
plan with tasks and resources
 Each task therefore has some defined
dollar value (its resources times their
hourly rate)
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Cost Schedule Control
 To use Cost Schedule Control, we
need to define when we get ‘credit’
for accomplishing each task
 Only when the task is done
 Half at the task start, and half at finish
 Etc.
 The total planned value of work done
on the project typically forms a long S
curve over time
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Cost Schedule Control
 The planned amount of work, in
terms of its value, over time form a
curve called Planned Value (PV)
(formerly BCWS)
 As the project happens, we record the
actual costs incurred (AC) and how
much work we really got done (EV)
(formerly ACWP and BCWP)
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Cost Schedule Control
 We can find variances in terms of cost
(related to whether we finish within
budget) and schedule (will we finish
on time)
 At any time during the project:
 Cost variance = AC - PV
 Schedule variance = EV – PV
 Recall that negative variances are bad
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Cost Schedule Control
 We can also define indices to tell us
if we have a good trend in getting
work done
 Schedule performance index
SPI = EV/PV
 Cost performance index CPI = EV/AC
 Indices >1 are good (got more work
done than planned or budgeted)
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Cost Schedule Control
 So monitoring a project with cost
schedule control generally means
using
 A plot of PV, AC, and EV versus time
 Plots of cost and schedule variances
 Cost and schedule performance indices
 Based on these, look for negative
variances and/or indices < one
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Status Detail
 The amount of detail in status
reporting depends on the
management level of its audience
 First line managers generally want lots
of detail
 Project managers generally want to focus
on problems they must resolve
 Senior managers need a very brief
synopsis of status
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Status Meetings
 Some form of meeting is often
desired to
 Share the current status of each part of
the project
 Look for collaboration opportunities
 Make decisions about problems
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Meeting Minutes
 Record the actions and decisions in a
meeting with minutes
 Identify who was there
 Identify what happened
 Review previous action requests
 Review old issues
 Review new issues
 Identify what new actions need to be
followed up on, by whom, and when
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Change Control
 A change control process is needed to
manage changes to the scope of a
project
 See this example from the FAA
 The example cited was used for
managing problems reported with an air
traffic control system, but the basic
principles are universal
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Change Control
 It describes the activities needed to
analyze a problem, estimate how much
work it is to resolve, determine its
priority, fix it, and incorporate it into a
system change with other problem fixes
 The names of the organizations which
perform each of the steps may vary
wildly, but some sort of review board or
change control board is typically used
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Escalation
 Escalation here means how a problem
can be resolved
 Little problems might be resolved by the
project manager
 Bigger problems might be resolved by
getting additional resources from your
organization
 Huge problems might need cooperation
from your customer to resolve
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