Software project management is an art and science of planning and leading software projects. It is a sub-discipline of project management in which software projects are planned, implemented, monitored and controlled.
Need of software project management
Software is said to be an intangible product. Software development is a kind of all new streams in world business and there’s very little experience in building software products. Most software products are tailor made to fit client’s requirements
The most important is that the underlying technology changes and advances so frequently and rapidly that experience of one product may not be applied to the other one. All such business and environmental constraints bring risk in software development hence it is essential to manage software projects efficiently.
A software project manager is a person who undertakes the responsibility of executing the software project. Software project manager is thoroughly aware of all the phases of SDLC that the software would go through.
The role and responsibility of a software project manager
Software project managers may have to do any of the following tasks:
1.Planning: This means putting together the blueprint for the entire project from ideation to fruition. It will define the scope, allocate necessary resources, propose the timeline, delineate the plan for execution, lay out a communication strategy, and indicate the steps necessary for testing and maintenance.
2. Leading: A software project manager will need to assemble and lead the project team, which likely will consist of developers, analysts, testers, graphic designers, and technical writers. This requires excellent communication, people and leadership skills.
3. Execution: The project manager will participate in and supervise the successful execution of each stage of the project. This includes monitoring progress, frequent team check-ins and creating status reports.
4.Time management: Staying on schedule is crucial to the successful completion of any project, but it’s particularly challenging when it comes to managing software projects because changes to the original plan are almost certain to occur as the project evolves. Software project managers must be experts in risk management and contingency planning to ensure forward progress when roadblocks or changes occur.
5.Budget: Like traditional project managers, software project managers are tasked with creating a budget for a project, and then sticking to it as closely as possible, moderating spend and re-allocating funds when necessary.
6. Maintenance: Software project management typically encourages constant product testing in order to discover and fix bugs early, adjust the end product to the customer’s needs, and keep the project on target. The software project manager is responsible for ensuring proper and consistent testing, evaluation and fixes are being made.
How to manage a software project successfully?
A recent article in Forbes suggests that there are eight ways to improve and streamline the software project management process; these eight suggestions include:
- Take non-development work off your team’s plate to let them focus on developing
- Motivating your team by sharing others success stories—like those of tech giants, which will inspire and excite your team
- Avoid altering the task once its assigned
- Try to stick to the plan (until it needs to be changed)
- Encouraging organization by being organized
- Streamline productivity through effective delegation
- Get to know your team and build a rapport
- Break down the plan and give them specific daily tasks
Software Management Activities
Software project management comprises of a number of activities, which contains planning of project, deciding scope of software product, estimation of cost in various terms, scheduling of tasks and events, and resource management. Project management activities may include:
- Project Planning
- Scope Management
- Project Estimation
Software Management Spectrum OR 4P's in Project Management
Effective software project management focuses on the four P’s: people, product, process and project.
The people of a project includes from manager to developer, from customer to end user. But mainly people of a project highlight the developers. It is so important to have highly skilled and motivated developers that the Software Engineering Institute has developed a People Management Capability Maturity Model (PM-CMM), “to enhance the readiness of software organizations to undertake increasingly complex applications by helping to attract, grow, motivate, deploy, and retain the talent needed to improve their software development capability”.
The Product
Product is any software that has to be developed. To develop successfully, product objectives and scope should be established, alternative solutions, technical and management constraints should be identified. Without this information, it is impossible to define reasonable and accurate estimates of the cost, an effective assessment of risk.
The Process
A software process provides the framework from which a comprehensive plan for software development can be established. A number of different tasks sets— tasks, milestones, work products, and quality assurance points—enable the framework activities to be adapted to the characteristics of the software project and the requirements of the project team.
The Project
Here, the manager has to do some job. The project includes all and everything of the total development process and to avoid project failure the manager has to take some steps, has to be concerned about some common warnings etc.
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