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Project management in SE

Supporting activities

Peeter Normak

12.11.2015

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Plan

1. Discussion: Home assignment.

2. Project portfolio management.

3. Certification of project managers.

4. Standards and specifications.

5. More about procurement and outsourcing.

6. Software project management versus software engineering.

7. Leading institutions on (SW) project management.

8. Profitability estimations.

9. Further sources of information.

10. SW project management …

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Home assignment

1. Assess the quality of the draft final report of the project “IIeP: Immigrant Inclusion by e-Participation” (the document “Final_Report-Example.doc”):• Adequacy

• Correctness (content, language)

• Readability

• Structure

• Length.

2. Bring examples about application of the results of completed projects.

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Home assignment

Read Appendix 4 of General Project Management. Lecture Notes : (Assessment of the conference “Learning …”) and complete the following tasks:

1. List three positive experiences (they are marked with the symbol +) you think should definitely be considered. Explain your choice.

2. List three negative experiences (they are marked with the symbol -) you think should definitely be considered. Explain your choice.

3. List three problems that the assessment does not address but that are important for ensuring successful planning and execution of a conference.

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Project portfolio management

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Project portfolio management

Project portfolio: a group of current or proposed/planned projects.

Project Portfolio Management (PPM): methods for analyzing and collectively managing a project portfolio.

The objective of PPM: to determine the optimal mix and sequencing of projects to best achieve the organization's overall goals.

Criteria optimality base on the strategic goals of the organization and can be, for example:• Increasing the profit,

• Achieving competitive advantage,

• Increasing efficiency,

• …

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The objective of PPM

Objective: to perform right projects

Typical indicators for planning and assessing project portfolios: • project's total expected cost,

• consumption of resources,

• expected timeline and schedule of investments,

• magnitude and distribution of benefits/income/profit,

• relationship or inter-dependencies with other projects in the portfolio etc.

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PPM key questions

Indicators of necessity to enhance PPM:

• Projects are in big lack on resources

• Key people are continuously overloaded

• Projects are chaotic, not related to the strategic goals.

PPM key questions:

• Do we invest into right projects?

• Is the resource usage optimized?

• How well we perform the tasks?

• Are we able for timely implementing right changes?

• Do we achieve our objectives?

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Application of PPM

The main stages of PPM application:

1. Determination of the need for application of PPM.

2. Inventory of the existing projects will be conducted: the basic indicators and estimates will be collected.

3. The projects are prioritized based on the objectives and priorities of the institution.

4. Projects are reorganized: some will get more resources, some will be reduced or terminated, some interrupted, some new projects initiated).

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Example – SDT project portfolio (selection from 22)

1. Learning Layers

2. Learnmix

3. Creative Classroom

4. GEBLIES - Game and Enquiry Based Learning

5. SEGAN – Serious Games Network

6. SmartZoo

7. EMMA—European Multiple MOOC Aggregator

8. INCOMING – Interdisciplinary Curricula in Computing to Meet Labor Market Needs

9. CIAKL II - Cinema and industry alliance for knowledge and learning II

10. ThreeC – Creating competences for a circular economy

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SDT project portfolio – the major problems

1. Some projects are not supporting enough achievement of the strategic goals of SDT.

2. Extremely uneven distribution of projects: 15-7-0.

3. Extremely uneven distribution of resources (K€): 1020-50-0.

Consequences:

• Uneven work load of academic people

• Different salary levels

• Different opportunities for professional activities.

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Discussion

Suppose you are the project portfolio manager of SDT.

What measures would you take?

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Certification of project managers

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Certification of project managers

There are two types of certificates:

• certifying general project managers

• sectoral project managers.

The most well-known certificate:

Project Management Institute’s PMP (Project Management Professional) certificate: http://www.pmi.org/careerdevelopment/pages/certification-and-the-job-market.aspx.

The profession of project management is relatively well specified if compared to the IT professions. Example. CEPIS (Council of European Professional Informatics Societies) Harmonise project: there were 62 certifying institutions and 637 different IT-certificates in Europe in 2006.

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Certification of project managers – examples

Certificates of the International Project Management Association (IPMA): http://ipma.world/certification/certify-individuals/

About the Project Management Professional (PMI):

1. Experience (bachelor: 3 years, 4500 hours, 35h formal PM educ.).

2. According the PMBOK Guide structure.

3. 200 multiple-choice questions, 4 hours.

For IT project managers (example): CompTIA Project+TM:

1. 12 months experience in project management (recommended).

2. 100 questions, 90 minutes.

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Project manager – Estonian occupational standards

Currently (2015) valid:

• Assistant project manager, level 5: http://www.kutsekoda.ee/et/kutseregister/kutsestandardid/10470174/pdf/projektijuhi-assistent-tase-5.4.et.pdf

• Project manager, level 6: http://www.kutsekoda.ee/et/kutseregister/kutsestandardid/10470372/pdf/projektijuht-tase-6.4.et.pdf

• Senior project manager, level 6: http://www.kutsekoda.ee/et/kutseregister/kutsestandardid/10470554/pdf/vanemprojektijuht-tase-6.4.et.pdf

• Project portfolio manager, level 7: http://www.kutsekoda.ee/et/kutseregister/kutsestandardid/10497820/pdf/projektiportfelli-juht-tase-7.5.et.pdf

Awarding institution: Estonian Project Management Association (www.epma.ee)

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Standards and specifications

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Question

What is the major difference between

standards and specifications?

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Standards and specifications

Specification: an explicit set of requirements (technical standard).

Different bases for classification: geographic or subject specific.

Geographic: international (ISO – International Organization for Standardization), European (CEN – European Committee for Standardization), country specific (in Estonia EVS – Eesti Standardikeskus, www.evs.ee).

Subject specific (different scope): universal (quality ISO 9001), one subject (software quality ISO/IEC 9126, IEC – International Electrotechnical Commission).

Examples of specifications: SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), IMS QTI (Question and Test Interoperability).

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Standards in project management

In project management:

ISO 21500:2012, Guidance on project management,

ISI 21504:2015, Project, programme and portfolio management – Guidance on portfolio management

ISO 10006:2003, Quality management systems -- Guidelines for quality management in projects.

For specific PM standards, see http://www.iso.org/iso/search.htm?

qt=project+management&sort_by=rel&type=simple&published=on&active_tab=standards

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Standards for software engineering

ISO/IEC JTC 1 – Joint Technical Committee 1 (with the International Electrotechnical Commission). 39 subcommittees.

Freely available: http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/index.html

Examples of other standards:

• ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2008 “Software Life Cycle Process”

• ISO/IEC 25010:2011 “… System and software quality models”

• ISO/IEC 25051:2006 “… Requirements for quality of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software product and instructions for testing”.

• ISO/IEC 27032:2012 “Information technology – Security techniques – Guidelines for cybersecurity”.

• ISO/IEC 27002:2013 “Information technology – Security techniques – Code of practice for information security controls”.

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Procurement and outsourcing

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Procurements (and outsourcing)

General principle: outsource specific/unique competence or demanding activities that are not often needed.

Outsourcing a whole project. Aspects:• The role of a customer. Example Software Acquisition Capability

Maturity Model (SA-CMM ) and CMMI-ACQ,• Customer side project manager/coordinator/supervisor is a must.

Outsourcing a project manager: • Integrating into the organization’s structure• Planning the post-project activities.

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Public procurement

Public procurement: procurements that are conducted according to the Public Procurement Act.

Estonian Public Procurement Act: https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/Riigikogu/act/530012014002/consolide

The categories of institutions that are obliged to follow the PPA:

Examples of problems of public procurement:

1. Motivating important companies to participate (for small-scale projects)

2. Agreements between the bidders (Example: HK).

3. Criteria (Example: 5.k).

4. Duration of procurements (Example: purchase of computers for schools).

EU: http://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/public-procurement/index_en.htm

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SW project management versus SW engineering

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Relations between SW PM and SW Engineering

Projectmanagement

SoftwareEngineering

The problems: 1)Where lies software project management?2)Where lies software engineering management?

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SW project management and SW engineering – key issues

Many SW development processes run to a great extent similarly to the general project management processes (for example, change and risk management).

Key issue for software project management: deciding on and application of the management methodology (development methodology) in software engineering.

Key issue for software engineering: application of a systematic approach to the design, development and maintenance of software.

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SW PM and SW engineering management

SW project management is considered as a sub-discipline of project management.

SW engineering management is considered as a sub-discipline of software engineering.

The approach of this course:

General PM + examples mostly in SW projects + specifics of SW PM.

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Leading institutions in (SW) project management

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Leading institutions

Project Management Institute:Documents: PMBOK, OPM3, PMP Code of Professional Conduct,Support systems for project managers: certification, http://marketplace.pmi.org/,

Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI):• Maturity models (CMM)• Publications: http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/• Research & development, training (vt www.sei.cmu.edu).

Rational (IBM) complete solution (RUP, UML, development tools). Examples of documents:• Rational Unified Process. Best Practices for Software Development Teams• A Comparison of RUP and XP (Rational Software White Paper)• Applying Requirements Management with Use Cases

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History – NASA SEL

SEL: a joint undertaking between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, University of Maryland, and Computer Sciences Corporation.

First recipient for IEEE Computer Society/Software Engineering Institute Watts S. Humphrey Software Process Achievement Award.

Examples of documents:• Manager’s Handbook for Software Development

• Recommended Approach to Software Development

• Software Process Improvement Guidebook

• Software Measurement Guidebook

Formulated nine elements of a successful project and eight things that successful projects do not do: http://www.stevemcconnell.com/sgcrib.htm

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Profitability estimations

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Profitability estimations

Net present value (NPV) analysis:

NPV= Σ((ti-ki)/(1+r)i),

ti, ki – income and expenses for a period, r – the discount rate

Return on investment (ROI):

For a period: ROI = (t-k)/k; General: ROI = NPV/T, kus T = Σ ki/(1+r)I

Payback period of an investment: period during which the investment costs are earned back.

Weighted score model: H = Σ kici

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Further sources of information

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Further sources of information – books and journals

Scientific journals (available through the TLU library’s subscriptions):

• Project Management Journal, • The International Journal of Project Management.

Example of books (available through the TLU library’s subscriptions):

• Achieving Project Management Success Using Virtual Teams• Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products• Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and

Techniques• Syngress IT Security Project Management Handbook

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Other sources of information

Portals (Examples: http://projectman.webs.com/, www.projectreference.com/).

Web sources (Example: http://www.iil.com/downloads/Archibald_Di_Filippo_ComprehensivePLCModel_FINAL.pdf).

Communities of practice (Guidelines for establishing a CoP http://www.tacticalprojectmanagement.com/establish-a-project-management-community-of-practice/).

Conferences (see, for example https://www.projectmanagement.com/Events/).

Studies etc (Example: http://mastersinprojectmanagement.com/)

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Next …

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Institutions which must follow the Public Procurement Act

1) the state or state authorities; 2) local authorities, local authority agencies and associations of local

authorities; 3) other legal persons governed by public law and agencies of legal

persons governed by public law; 4) foundations where the state is one of the founders or where more

than half of the founders are persons specified in clauses 2) or 3) of this subsection or where more than half of the members of the supervisory board are appointed by the persons specified in clauses 1) to 3) of this subsection; 

5) non-profit associations where more than half of the members are the persons specified in clauses 1) to 3) of this subsection; 

6) Some other legal persons – specified separately – governed by private law.