Project Management

Project Management- Inculcating Alacrity to the Cycle

A software project, although being a planned activity, is essentially a non-routine task. And this very essence of the software projects perfectly associates Hiesenberg’s uncertainty principle with software projects and makes project management a Herculean task.

But more than anything else, it’s the invisibility factor of software projects that makes things difficult for any project manager. Unlike a civil engineering project, you cannot measure the progress of a software project.

However, this invisibility of software projects does not necessarily suggest that the software projects are simple too. When measured on the basis of per dollar, pound, or euro spent, software projects involve more complexity than other engineering artifacts. The high-degree of changes associated with the software projects further worsens the fate of these projects.

Ironically, the solution to counter all these factors is none other than effective project management itself and a successful project manager will be one who can troubleshoot the following problems:
· Poor estimates and plans
· Lack of quality standards and measures
· Lack of techniques to make projects visible
· Poor definition of project member roles

Project management refers to the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to the application development life cycle in order to meet the project requirements and solve the preceding problems.

Software project management helps reduce the application development cycle time by breaking the product development process into phases and clearly specifying constituent phases of the software development life cycle. And throughout the product development cycle, project management undergoes through metamorphosis into various forms, such as:

· Scope management: Involves developing a common understanding as to what is included in, or excluded from the project.
· Time management: Involves finding ways, such as Rapid Application Development (RAD) and prototyping for reducing time spent during requirement analysis.
· Resource management: Involves managing the human resources by considering the aspects, such as leadership, staffing, project organization, and teaming.
· Cost management: Involves setting up a project budget and managing project expenditure.
· Risk management: Involves risk identification, risk monitoring, and risk control.
· Quality management: Involves developing and implementing a quality plan.
· Communication management: Involves creating a communication plan to ensure that there is no communication gap among the team members.
· Procurement management: Involves selecting the right organizations for hiring services.
· Project review: Involves analyzing the project based on past experiences.
· Benefits identification: Involves identifying the favorable differences between the current system and the proposed system.

. Software selection and purchase: Involves evaluating the vendor tricks and pricing issues.

So, project management involves a zillion of things, isn’t it? But project management is not only about performing the above tasks both it is about Gant charts and Pie charts. Its more about getting the right things done, the right way and helping the team remain focused on the end goal – accelerating the product development life cycle.

posted by navneet biet @ 8:57 PM