Chapter 14: Project Management
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Abstract
Managers do not generate a useful product on their own. Instead, they provide and coordinate resources so that others can generate useful products. Managing a software project requires a combination of managerial and social skills to foresee potentially damaging problems and to implement the appropriate response. Because of the lack of visible product and the reliance on nontechnical skills, management is usually the target of jokes by developers and others. Management, however, is a critical function for bringing a project to a successful end, given the complexity of current systems and the high rate of change during development.
Managers do not make technical decisions and often do not have the background to make such decisions. Instead, they are responsible for coordinating and administering the project and ensuring that a high-quality system is delivered on time and within budget. The main tools of management are planning, monitoring, controlling, risk management, and contingency handling.
In this chapter, we describe project management activities from a project manager’s point of view. We assume a two-level project management hierarchy, typical for today’s software industry. We describe topics associated with classical project management, such as work breakdown structures, task plans, role assignments, risk management, and software project management plans. We discuss both classical methods to management, which aim to deliver a product to address a fixed set of requirements and milestones, and agile methods, which aim at delivering a product incrementally, while renegotiating requirements as the project progresses.
In the next chapter, Chapter 15, Software Life Cycle, we focus on models, called software life cycles, for reusing and improving project management knowledge across projects. In both this chapter and the next chapter, we take an optimistic view of project management and focus on academic concepts. In Chapter 16, Methodologies: Putting It All Together, we examine what happens outside of textbook situations. We provide methodologies and heuristics for adapting the building blocks presented in this chapter to specific situations.